GoldFinger1969

Are all those in the low-to-moderate price range ? If so, that's the area that the stay-at-home, collecting-checks-by-mail Covid-19 crowd has spent $$$ on. Have NOT seen it in any of the Saint-Gaudens types I watch, where the prices start pretty much at the price of 1 ounce of gold, $2,000 or so. Maybe the 1/2 and 1/4 Eagles have seen a price move up ?

Agreed.... It may be a dream, but it can't possibly be any serious discussion of a future business plan. The Sheldon 1-70 scale is here to stay as far as the eye can see, IMO. How is it going to help their investment ? If their "investment" is modern coins costing $50 - $1,000....I might agree with that because many newcomers into our hobby have used their time at home and discretionary income (and govt checks) to splurge on coin and currency novelties. But most of the PCGS/CU crowd isn't into moderns and the kind of lower-priced stuff that newcomers gravitate to. You have some SERIOUS collectors there. I do NOT see it benefitting higher-priced coins/currency as this has not been the area where the majority of these people have gravitated to. Maybe with Crypto, NFTs, and sportscards imploding, they'll move on to serious coin collecting but that remains to be seen (as you and I have discussed many times here ). I am not spending any $$$ on re-grading, either, WC.

I think I got it....I'm trying to visualize it compared to a High Relief coin. Sandon said the lettering is in the fields....so it's BELOW the fields...opposite of a raised device and High Relief. Is that right, guys ?

So incuse doesn't refer to the Indian portraits. It's about the letters, numerals, etc. What do you mean "the design is raised but below the surface" ? You mean below the rim ? How is an incuse coin different than a regular or High Relief coin with deep basins ?

What is an "incuse" coin ?

November 2022 Saint-Gaudens Prices: Not seeing any crazy prices....high asks are not being met, active bidding doesn't seem to reach a buy-at-any-price threshold. All coins PCGS non-CAC and including bp. unless otherwise noted. A 1928 MS-66+ went for $5,346 A 1927 MS-66 went for $3,712 A 1926 MS-66+ went for $11,837 A 1922 MS-62 OGH went for $2,140 A 1915-S MS-66 CAC went for $20,814 A 1914-S MS-66 NGC went for $6,638

I find a good source of additional research to be hitting footnotes and bibliographies in good books on a topic. Roger's SAINTS DE book is a great example. He covers obscure topics, and if you want to dive in to the meat and potatos, there's plenty of footnotes or citations at the bottom of the pages. I'm re-hitting parts of his book now dealing with coinage, hoarding, and foreign movements of gold.

If a rim is a protective device, why did the Quarter, Half, and Eagle coins not have rims ? Saints and Liberty's did.

We are dealing with multiple potential items with FTX: LEVERAGE: Borrowing money to buy anything risks an implosion even if the asset is a AAA-rated Treasury bill/bond. Lever something up 30-to-1 like Carlyle Capital did about 15 years ago, and you lose it all if the asset goes down about 3%, even if it is a "safe" investment. BAD INVESTMENTS: FTX's affiliated firm via Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda Research, appears to have been the real sinkhole. Apparently, they lost money on crypto currencies in the last year....they also used hard cash to "bail out" other crypto players. To finance and paper-over their losses/expenses, they borrowed money from FTX. But that borrowing..... STEALING CUSTOMER ACCOUNTS: You can NOT co-mingle customer accounts with proprietary balances and firm capital. JP Morgan Chase probably has $400 billion in capital; they can invest and speculate with that (subject to regulations) but JP Morgan Chase can not borrow from the millions of client checking or savings accounts at Jamie Dimon's (CEO) whim. And that's probably why half of all American men aged 18-29 don't have an IRA or Roth IRA or 401(k) or retirement nest egg. Money for crypto, strip clubs, partying, Atlantic City and Vegas and DraftKings and FanDuel....but they don't have the $$$ to save for when they are older.

Of Argentina's ? No idea.....I focus on $20 Saints....but Roger's book talks alot about gold flows and coinage movement and $10 Indian Heads were closer to Saints in their usage for trade settlements than $5 Half and $2.50 Quarter Eagles. We must have some Indian Head experts here....you're talking about just under 4 million Saints known and accounted for out of a mintage of just over 70 MM. Anybody know the correpsonding $10 Indian Head numbers ?

Reading RWB's SG DE book.....some countries really liked the $10 Indian Head Eagle. More affordable/smaller if held by foreign citizenry.....big enough to be held as a reserve. Argentina's Finance Minister in 1930 claimed that they had almost 30 MM American gold eagles in their treasury – more than half the nation’s reserves !!

My guess is that the market effect of almost 20,000 coins in MS-65 quality and above (maybe 10% were below Gem Mint)...was in the market by the late-1990's. The coins were pretty well accepted into the market....no huge drop in prices, if you go by RWB's Saints DE book price matrices and articles from that time. The $64,000 Question is...what if the hoard was LARGER or other mini-hoards have come out over the years/decades ? But this is speculation. If the market price of the coins is the best analysis and predictor about what is happening to the supply....then the stability of the price (albeit at lower levels compared to other common Saints for the same grade) has discounted that extra coinage. I've talked about his in the main Wells Fargo Thread...but just as an example....in MS-67 the Wells Fargo 1908 NM will set you back about $7,000 (maybe a bit less). No other Saint at that grade will cost you less than $10-$12,000 (including the 1924) and a few commons get rare at the Superb Gem level and will go for $15-$18,000 at the MS-67 level.

Great question.....I would guess early-1980's or maybe 1970's. But that would exclude proofs and/or coins in proof sets that were preserved in bubble wrap or whatever.

Discussing survivors and hoards towards the back of the book, Roger states: "After the Gillio/Wells Fargo hoard reached market there was a pause in the growth of authentication for this date coin, then, quantities began to increase. The present (early 2015) quantities, in excess of 260,000 authentication events, are more than seven times the Gil-lio/Wells Fargo hoard quantities. Although some rise due to resubmissions is expected, an in-crease of this magnitude, among only one date/mint, suggests thousands of new coins coming on the market from the same source. With this in mind, it is posited that the total quantity of double eagles in the original group was at approximately 150,000 pieces, possibly more." I'm now seeing in excess of 364,000 grading events combined PCGS+NGC (193K + 170K) for the 1908 No-Motto Saint. Since this is a coin that except in Superb Gem or higher it is NOT worth it to crack-out and re-submit, I wonder if this is additional proof that the original hoard may have been much larger and/or if other 1908 NM's have just come out even after 2015 when Roger first wrote that section above.

Total Graded Wells Fargo: My understanding is that all or nearly all of the 19,900 coins were given to PCGS and/or NGC to grade, with the exception of a few of the clearly heavily-circulated coins. But when I combine the PCGS (7,767) and NGC (5,535) census totals for Wells Fargo 1908 NM, I get just over 13,300. I can't believe they didn't grade/certify over 6,000 of the coins. They wouldn't have sold them raw. Anybody able to help reconcile the numbers ?

Thanks....I'll look at the auction pics closer as well as the pics in Roger's book. I didn't know what to look for.

But what is a TDO ? Is it a strike-through ? A doubleing ? What ?

Or...in my case.....you watch politics for the last 45 years. Better than watching the Jets.......

Anybody familiar with a "Triple Die Obverse" TDO FS-101 ? It's mentioned in the book, and one is up for sale, but I'm not sure what exactly it is. Roger has pictures and descriptions, but I'm not seeing it. https://www.greatcollections.com/Coin/1255122/1926-Saint-Gaudens-Gold-Double-Eagle-Tripled-Die-Obverse-FS-101-PCGS-MS-66

Right, but the same prohibitions on campaigning are supposed to apply to them. And they have 501(c)-3 tie-ins. You think Harvard is paying taxes on their $40 billion endowment ? You think they aren't taking public policy issues on "diversity".....college pension issues and funding...etc. ?

I guess I have a fast and loose relationship with REALITY. A general descriptive from the IRS does not overule standard practice or an IRS Private Letter Ruling (PLR). Of which MANY have been granted to the point where it is standard knowledge about what is allowed and what is not allowed. You think churches aren't lobbying on hunger issues, Kurt ? You think black churches aren't lobbying on voting rights issues, Kurt ? You think the NEA isn't speaking out about tuition tax credits or vouchers, Kurt ? In many cases, they even endorse specific federal/state/local candidates....endorse presidential candidates....run phone banks....etc. And setting up a 501(c)-4 or other quasi-tax exempt affiliate is a Chinese Wall with no walls.

Sorry, but if you think the colleges, universities, AND their trade organizations (i.e, AAUW) aren't engaged in lobbying, think again. The AAUW even advocated on blatantly political legislation that had nothing to do with "education" or colleges/universities. The AFT and NEA both have done it for decades for public education or so they say. No fiction, Kurt. Facts....just the facts.

For Saints, Indian Heads, or both, Mark ?

Nothing has happened in decades....the key is whether a significant amount of resources and time and $$$ goes to endorsing a specific political candidate. Talking about ISSUES or lobbying for relevant legislation has always been OK. Without knowing the details of your organization....the funds you raised under certain conditions were then given to an affiliated organization for other activities....depends on the relative amounts raised and given and for what purpose.

My understanding is they are tax-exempt and most/all probably have 501(c)-3 status....certainly, their endowments do NOT pay income taxes. https://www.aau.edu/sites/default/files/AAU Files/Key Issues/Taxation %26 Finance/Tax-Exempt-Status-of-Universities-FINAL.pdf