Welcome to Something About Coins! I'm back from vacation with tons of coin related news! We will soon know the selected designs for the 2010 quarters this week, and changes are coming to coin grading, according to a few of the articles below!
America the Beautiful Quarter Design Unveiling, CoinNews
The United States Mint will unveil the five 2010 America the Beautiful Quarters on March 24, 2010 at the Newseum Museum in Washington, DC. The final designs will provide a first look at the new coin series, named the America the Beautiful Quarters Program, which will feature 56 new emblematic National Park or National Site themes on the reverse side of quarter-dollars through to 2021. The America’s Beautiful National Parks Quarter Dollar Coin Act of 2008 ...
Grading changes ahead?, CoinValuesOnline.com
The basic model of rare coin grading for the two largest grading services, Professional Coin Grading Service and Numismatic Guaranty Corp., has remained the same since the firms were started in 1986 and 1987, respectively. But some major changes are brewing that could soon change the way rare coins are graded. PCGS- and NGC-graded coins have the most fluid marketability in both sight-seen (meaning dealers can view the coins before buying) and sight-unseen ...
Hall to announce service at ANA, NumismaticNews.net
The Professional Coin Grading Service’s co-founder, David Hall, will announce what is called a “revolutionary new service” March 25 at a news conference held in conjunction with the American Numismatic Association’s National Money Show in Fort Worth, Texas. The public event will be held at 10:30 a.m. in Room 108 of the Fort Worth, Texas Convention Center. On the Collectors Universe Web site Hall for some weeks has been inviting hobbyists to guess what he intends to ...
CAC Keeping Strict Standards, CACcoin.com
Change may be in the air at one or more coin grading services, but dealers, collectors and investors will find business as usual at Certified Acceptance Corp. (CAC). That’s the company’s message to the hobby in the wake of reports that at least one of the two largest grading services is considering the establishment of “premium-quality” grade designations. CAC examines and evaluates coins that have been certified by either the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) or the ...
Nanticoke man combines love of writing, coins, CitizensVoice.com
Scrounging beneath couch cushions doesn't suit Ed Reiter. No, his hobby of coin collecting was a humble pursuit, a way to handle metallic pieces of history with their tale of how they were designed and struck by mints. The farthest the 72 year old ever went in hunting for rare pieces of spare change was cashing $25 of his paycheck to mine rolls of change for his quarry. "It was the idea that growing up you could find something of value in spare change," Reiter said. "I found Lincoln ..."
Gold ‘Panic’ Buying Ends, Reducing Austrian Coin Sales by 80%, BusinessWeek.com
Muenze Oesterreich AG, the Austrian mint that makes the best-selling gold coin in Europe and Japan, said sales have fallen 80 percent this year after buyers began to regain confidence in the global economy. “We’re getting back to business as usual rather than the hectic, panic demand we’ve seen over the last couple of years,” Vienna-based Marketing Director Kerry Tattersall said late yesterday in an interview. Sales of all gold coin types fell to 53,930 ounces in the first two months of ...
Tragedy of the genius coin counterfeiter, ShanghaiDaily.com
A genius technician desperate to raise cash for his terminally ill father made a machine to press 1.53 million fake 1-yuan coins in east China's Zhejiang Province, prosec utors allege. He also wired a cell phone to the machine, enabling it to instantly report any malfunction while he was away, Wenzhou City People's Procuratorate Office said, according to today's Qianjiang Evening News. The automation engineer graduate surnamed Jiang, 30, has been charged with making and selling fake ...
Counterfeit Detection: Pass the Test, NGCcoin.com
A basic lesson will help you always catch fakes, like this 1895-O Morgan Dollar, which could be deceptive to many. In high school history class, a student asks his teacher, "Do I need to memorize dates for tomorrow’s test?" The teacher replies, "No dates." Encouraged, the young student goes home and studies hard, following the teacher’s instruction. The next day he fails the test. Miserably. Of course, the teacher had not told the student there would be NO dates on the test, but that he ...
Statements by an Artist, for the Palms of Strangers, The New York Times
For more than 30 years now, sharp-eyed New Yorkers have been finding them on ledges, windowsills and store counters — poker-chip-size coins that reveal themselves to be something far more mysterious than loose change. The inch-wide ceramic discs, painted in iridescent colors, have the rough, weathered feel of ancient treasure. Each is embossed with a short, cryptic message, a year and two humble letters: “bw.” Those, it turns out, are the initials of Beriah Wall, a Brooklyn artist who ...
America’s Forgotten Rarities: The 1863 Eagle, RareGoldCoins.com
Beginning with this article, I’m going to focus, from time to time, on issues that I regard as “forgotten rarities.” These are coins that are truly rare but which, for a variety of reasons, do not get the fanfare that they deserve. I plan on featuring a selected gold rarity once every month or so. The first issue that I want to discuss is the 1863 eagle. I’m going to try to avoid “condition rarity” issues in this series. In other words, I’m featuring coins that are rare in the most absolute sense of the ...
Thanks for reading! See you tomorrow!
