GoldFinger1969

No, I honestly have no idea what pennies are worth numismatically. I actually bought a PR67 Red somethingorother at FUN 2020 for like $20. Can't remember what year....1982 ? 1983 ?

Who did their valuation, Sam Bankman-Fried !!?? They just got bought out, I can't see the value going up that much.

Lot of other partners, including Roc Nation and others. This appears to be an NFT play: https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/9253/ Would not be surprised if CCG/NGC went private again down the line with the original founders/owners if the growth angle doesn't materialize. We'll see if BX can turn CCG/NGC into a multi-billion dollar market cap company.

Ditto.....it'd be great to buy more stuff regularly, but reading up about it...keeping notes and files (i.e., Hoards, Highest Prices and Coin Descriptions, etc.) is somewhat satisfying.

A few of my investment contacts and circle bought the 2009 UHR direct from the Mint....their posts were on our emails and forum posts....I checked it out....led me to learning about the Original Saint-Gaudens Saints and UHR/HR's.

It's funny...when I had the $$$ to pursue this hobby, I didn't have the time....when I had the time, I didn't have the $$$ !!

That was the reason that the 2 buyers of CU/PCGS (including NY Mets hedge fund owner Steve Cohen) bought it. Ditto BX and CCG/NGC. The collectibles market was the reason for the purchases, not NFTs. That was another cherry on top, I guess. However....I wonder how many people buying Artekomusias (sp.)The Greek Freak or Michael Jordan Rookie Cards had turned $30,000 into $5 million in BitCoin or crypto. Let's see what happens to NFT and tangible assets (i.e., sports cards) prices now that crypto and BitCoin are in the toilet. I don't think the $$$ pumping up those sports cards and NFT prices was coming from stocks (even inflated tech stocks) and certainly not interest from 1-2% bond yields before the rise in yields in 2022 (hope some of you are taking advantage of this; I'd post my thoughts here if I can find the OT section). I haven't seen an article talking about a record price for NFT or sports cards -- or even trophy real estate homes -- in MONTHS, if not back to 2021.

But I don't think it moves the needle for them. I think CU/PCGS was bought for about $750 MM and the buyers were much smaller than BX. OTOH....it clearly is in the realm of "alternative assets" so in that sense it is up their ally and there aren't many TPGs to purchase.

They could be up-to-speed pretty soon. I knew nothing of this hobby for the most part but was drawn in by the 2009 UHR Saint.

Caddyshack is a timeless classic, Back To School is a Rodney-only movie that is very well done. Ted Knight, gone too soon, could be said to be the star of Caddyshack. Great backup performances by Bill Murray, Brian Doyle Murray, and the rest of the cast who were pretty much nobodies at that time. Always like seeing BTS because an old acquaintance had a super-short cameo in the film.

NFTs are directly tied to crypto. I haven't seen any recent prices extolling the prices paid for NFTs. The entire NFT, FTX, and crypto blowups are good for our hobby. You can HOLD what you own in your hand. It might be overgraded...it might be overpriced....it might not pay any dividends or interest. But raw gold, or holdered gold, is a tangible asset that won't collapse like these pie-in-the-sky creations.

You know, I've never seen that SS Republic label from NGC (or one from PCGS, either). Maybe it was featured in forums in the early-2000's but I wasn't on them or reading them at that time. Ditto any SSCA labels. Looks pretty good....I like blue and has a picture of the ship. Wonder if SSCA had a special one.

I like this !! Now I can get that 1933 Saint, UHR, and High Relief I always wanted. Can add it to that Decoder Ring I finally got in 1973 after buying 300 boxes of Cap'N Crunch (w/ Crunch Berries ).

I'm surprised.....BX has hundreds of billions in assets, mostly alternative assets. CCG/NGC isn't going to move the needle for them. I wonder if this was a to-be-regretted NFT move.

What's it worth ?

I thought CU/PCGS got bought out by private equity. Did NGC change ownership recently ?

It's a marketing thing. If it grabs some people into our neck of the woods, good !! If 300,000 people buy these NGCX lottery tickets....and 10,000 become full-time collectors....and 3-5 become regular posters here at the NGC Forums....not bad, IMO.

You got some great coins -- Carson City is hot and you bought them for a fraction of what they command today. Interesting....when Bowers and his group got outbid by A-Mark for the coins, they paid just over $7 MM for them back in the late-1970's I believe.

If they couldn't spend 15 minutes getting up to speed on our grading system, they're probably not long for this hobby in the first place.

New diagnostic tests can give clues about cancer from blood samples. They're relatively new, but offer fantastic progress. Many cancers that were death sentences 50 years ago are now very manageable. Non-Hodgkins leukemia and other blood disorders, for instance. But we still have some virulent ones that we have no defense against.

OMG......

I'm just confused as to why he couldn't get tuna without celery in 1969.

Even Larry David of "SEINFELD" and "CURB" fame is being sued...and he WARNED them not to do it !!!

It's a long-standing rule: you don't co-mingle or borrow from customer accounts. If JP Morgan Chase wants to speculate on interest rates using the bank's balance sheet, they do it with their own capital and equity, NOT by borrowing from a few million checking and saving accounts. Exactly WHY or HOW that money cannot be moved -- either more rigorous checks-and-balances at JPM Chase than at FTX or some built-in protection that can't be overridden by humans -- I don't know. But clearly Bankman-Fried was able to do something Jamie Dimon @ Chase apparently cannot.

Great analysis of the shenanigans (fraud) behind FTX: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-11-14/ftx-s-balance-sheet-was-bad?leadSource=uverify wall Focus on the creation of billions in value/assets of made-up assets like Serum. The question then is....what happened to the actual cash (customer accounts) that these fake assets replaced ? Clearly, it was stolen. Ultimately, this isn't a story so much about crypto...it's about leverage, co-mingling of customer accounts, and theft. Unlike 2008, people will be going to jail because crimes were committed.