Jim Matthews wrote:
I want to share a bit about the state of the coin market lately. Despite not having many shows other than some smaller regional events, the coin market has been extremely active. Most dealers I've talked to have sold off considerable inventory and are looking to replace it, but unable to find many of their usual scarcer dates. Online sales from dealers have been reported to be brisk. I've been buying coins at various actions and had to pay up well ahead of the so called sheet prices or recent auction records to obtain any coins, even for comparatively common issues. So while we've been holding down our respective forts for an entire year now, at least the value and interest in our collections appears to be going up. This is a very good thing, as a few years ago I was beginning to wonder who was going to come along and buy my collection when the time came to sell! Now I'm not so worried about that.
During the pandemic one of my collector friends has spent some of his time creating his own coins via photoshop, using existing coins but swapping the dates and mintmarks around. Needless to say his creativity knows no bounds...here's one enticing example that could have, dare I say should have existed, but as far as I know, only in digital form! That dastardly Mint Fire took out most of the planned coinage of 1816. Its nice to imagine holding a gem 1869-CC dime for instance, or an 1870-CC! There are no limits to what can be created these days.
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Garrett Ziss wrote:
JRCS members Daryl Haynor and Garrett Ziss will be presenting at the upcoming 2021 Newman Numismatic Portal Symposium.
Daryl’s presentation, United States Classic Gold of 1834-1839, is scheduled for Sunday, March 21st, at 10:00 am.Author Haynor will explore the Numismatic Literary Guild 2020 Book of the Year: United States Classic Gold Coins of 1834-1839. The presentation will focus on the historical section and explore the economic and political context of the 1830’s, reveal historic documents never before published, and debunk many accepted numismatic tales. It is the only book written about the series, and already is the authoritative reference used by PCGS, NGC, Stack’s, Heritage, et al.
Garrett’s presentation, From the War of 1812 to the Civil War: A Chronology of a Numismatic Marriage, is scheduled for Saturday, March 20th at 11:00 am. This 50-minute presentation chronicles the presence of both the Bust and Liberty Seated coin images that were selectively displayed on obsolete paper money for much of the 19th century. The discussion time is evenly split between the two coin designs and highlights their coexistence during the Hard Times Period. The Bust section is entirely new and approaches the subject from a different perspective than Garrett’s 2015 program on this topic at the JRCS Annual Meeting in Chicago.
To attend either presentation, please register at https://nnpsymposium.org. There is also a wide-range of other numismatic sessions that may be of interest to club members and they are detailed here: https://nnpsymposium.org/schedule#da8bfb39-a57a-4cbe-a380-ea60c9663696. Registration covers attendance at an unlimited number of sessions.
