A common U.S. business opinion about Double Eagles 1 1

[VKurtB]

58 minutes ago, Zebo said:

Kurt - I forget, what do you collect?

A number of things. My two primary U.S. areas are high quality nickels and U.S. commemoratives of both the classical and modern eras. But my current loves, aside from those, are the coins of the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the Vatican. No, I am not Catholic, although my in-laws are. My main reading material that I’m doing under the theory of “buy the book before the coin” is about Ancient Greek coinage.

Aside from that, I am a frequent competitive exhibitor and exhibit judge for both the ANA and more recently, the Maryland Numismatic Society’s exhibits at Spring Whitman. Hopefully, I will be adding another judging category to my repertoire at the coming January FUN show, if it happens. I’ll be mounting two new competitive exhibits in 2021, regardless of when we get back to normal.

And I also work my “can” off, gratis, for the ANA at every convention they do, both March and August, doing whatever they ask of me. Lately, they seem to like me doing photo ID badges for table holders who have left theirs behind. If you carefully search past issues of The Numismatist, you will see photos there under my byline, mostly show coverage photos. I’ve been known to don a pirate costume from time to time for the promotion of ANA Treasure Trivia at the Kids’ Zone, too.

I am an active critic of Internet numismatics, and an ardent promoter of in-person, face to face, coin club and coin show numismatics. Annnd having spent over 30 years in photography, I am a skeptic of the value of numismatics by photo. I also do a radio call-in show on numismatics from time to time.

I’d like to recommend to our Quintus Arrius fellow that he’d be a “wicked awesome pissah” of a certified judge of exhibits of Gold Coins, a category unto itself at ANA conventions.

Edited September 6, 2020 by VKurtB

[GoldFinger1969]

On 9/5/2020 at 2:45 PM, Conder101 said:

A citizen in the 1840's would not have viewed paper currency that way.  You never knew from day to day what value your paper currency would be accepted at so the desire was very strong for payment in hard money.  It was only the Federal governments  assurance of exchangeability at par, which didn't happen until around 1874, that people began to truly accept paper money

You didn't know if the bank you put your $$$ in would fold overnight.  You knew nothing of the bank's solvency, even if you lived up the block, let alone if you were in a territory or state 1,000 miles away. 

Granted, most banks were local but many banks were just beginning to be "tied together" financially as the telegraph allowed transfers between banks to take place within minutes or hours instead of days or weeks.

[GoldFinger1969]

On 9/6/2020 at 11:35 AM, VKurtB said:

 But my current loves, aside from those, are the coins of the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the Vatican. No, I am not Catholic, although my in-laws are.

Kurt, we have that in common....I bought a few Vatican 1930's gold coins, most are about 1/4 ounce or a bit under.  Looking to add more in time.

[VKurtB]

12 minutes ago, GoldFinger1969 said:

Kurt, we have that in common....I bought a few Vatican 1930's gold coins, most are about 1/4 ounce or a bit under.  Looking to add more in time.

Vatican coins are so often found fully MS. Why would anyone but a Vatican staffer even spend them?

[GoldFinger1969]

12 hours ago, VKurtB said:

Vatican coins are so often found fully MS. Why would anyone but a Vatican staffer even spend them?

I can't recall seeing any that were NOT graded MS, though they are pretty rare.  If you don't see them on Ebay, they probably don't exist.  See a few on GC and HA from time-to-time.

Have a 1931 X Vatican MS65 that I won at Heritage a while back.

[VKurtB]

5 hours ago, GoldFinger1969 said:

I can't recall seeing any that were NOT graded MS, though they are pretty rare.  If you don't see them on Ebay, they probably don't exist.  See a few on GC and HA from time-to-time.

Have a 1931 X Vatican MS65 that I won at Heritage a while back.

Most of my Vatican nicer (although not as ‘nice’ as some of yours) pieces were picked up from a well-known show circuit dealer who sets them aside for me to look through. One of the really great people in the biz.

[GoldFinger1969]

Back to Saints......reading Roger's books, I was suprised by the lack of (numismatic) demand for the coins.  I believe that the 1931 or 1932 Saint had a complete listing of all who ordered from the Treasury; including one mega-order of 50 coins I believe only like 125 were requested.

I realize The Depression had started but you would think at least a few hundred, if not thousands, would have interest in the new year but I guess not.

[Cat Bath]

I'm on page 331 where Roger says that 5 pairs of dies were issued to the SF mint & 10 pairs were issued to Denver for 1917 saints.

They were later destroyed.

They should have at least pressed out a few test pieces.   How long does it take to toss a couple of dies in and push the button?

Imagine finding a couple in some old bag of 1916-S somewhere.

 

Edited September 10, 2020 by Cat Bath

[GoldFinger1969]

4 minutes ago, Cat Bath said:

I'm on page 331 where Roger says that 5 pairs of dies were issued to the SF mint & 10 pairs were issued to Denver for 1917 saints.  They were later destroyed. They should have at least pressed out a couple test pieces.

I don't recall that section, I'll re-hit it.  No 1917s, 1918s, or 1919s.  I guess the U.S. didn't need gold coins with world trade collapsed during WW I.  Maybe the biggest demand for coins (not bars) was from banks in Axis countries.

[RWB]

12 hours ago, GoldFinger1969 said:

I don't recall that section, I'll re-hit it.  No 1917s, 1918s, or 1919s.  I guess the U.S. didn't need gold coins with world trade collapsed during WW I.  Maybe the biggest demand for coins (not bars) was from banks in Axis countries.

Treasury actively discouraged all circulation of gold coin and its use in payroll dispensing machines. Theses restrictions were implemented after the US entered WW-I. The primary purpose was to prevent gold export to unfriendly countries and control export to certain neutrals. Conserve gold by reducing coin wear, normalizing use of coins and currency throughout the country, and "sterilize" new gold imports by not issuing Gold Certificates against bullion. The cost of coining gold (as required currency backing) was also saved.

Here are a couple of excerpts that might be of interest.

Edited September 10, 2020 by RWB

[jtryka]

On 9/4/2020 at 12:35 PM, VKurtB said:

I'm kinda partial to thoroughly tetanus-laden rusty nails. It's the only way to get many Austrian School proponents to "STFU" - lockjaw.

I find if remarkably unsurprising that someone of your stature would respond to the Austrian School with ad hominem arguments and a desire to silence them.  Those are sure signs of the strengths of one's positions. 

[VKurtB]

2 hours ago, jtryka said:

I find if remarkably unsurprising that someone of your stature would respond to the Austrian School with ad hominem arguments and a desire to silence them.  Those are sure signs of the strengths of one's positions. 

And I find it remarkably unsurprising that someone who would attempt to defend the Austrian School would be so predictable as to use a St. Gaudens as an avatar. Start with this: there is no such thing as malinvestment, and the only reason a cyclical boom-bust situation is inevitable is because a hard currency is being employed.

Edited September 11, 2020 by VKurtB

[GoldFinger1969]

1 hour ago, VKurtB said:

And I find it remarkably unsurprising that someone who would attempt to defend the Austrian School would be so predictable as to use a St. Gaudens as an avatar. Start with this: there is no such thing as malinvestment, and the only reason a cyclical boom-bust situation is inevitable is because a hard currency is being employed.

The Austrian School of Economics has produced some wonderful free-market thinkers: Von Mises, Hayek, etc.  Many great American economists overlap them (i.e., Milton Friedman).

However, the Austrian School was developed in a relatively "closed" economy time period where the adjustments to external dislocations or internal dislocations was through rising/falling inflation, output, employment.  With a gold standard and fixed exchange rates and very little global trade compared to today, economies were easier to predict.

I think even the old Austrians would admit that a world of comparative trade exchanges, free-floating currencies, and central bank monetary backstops (WITHOUT inflation !) are a different world.

Heck, the world has changed since I was a Fed Watcher in the 1980's watching the Thursday 4:30 PM release of the monetary aggregates. 

[RWB]

But -- the Austrians had the BEST Schlagsahne anywhere.

[Henri Charriere]

On 9/6/2020 at 11:00 AM, Zebo said:

Kurt - I forget, what do you collect?

(Comment deleted.]

Edited September 12, 2020 by Quintus Arrius
Out of sequence.

[VKurtB]

On 9/11/2020 at 11:50 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

The Austrian School of Economics has produced some wonderful free-market thinkers: Von Mises, Hayek, etc.  Many great American economists overlap them (i.e., Milton Friedman).

However, the Austrian School was developed in a relatively "closed" economy time period where the adjustments to external dislocations or internal dislocations was through rising/falling inflation, output, employment.  With a gold standard and fixed exchange rates and very little global trade compared to today, economies were easier to predict.

I think even the old Austrians would admit that a world of comparative trade exchanges, free-floating currencies, and central bank monetary backstops (WITHOUT inflation !) are a different world.

Heck, the world has changed since I was a Fed Watcher in the 1980's watching the Thursday 4:30 PM release of the monetary aggregates. 

The other thing the Austrian School has to put up with are adherents who probably are not, but certainly look like, child molesters. I give you Steve Forbes.

[Henri Charriere]

[This thread is immeasurably better without me.  Carry on, gentlemen.]

[jtryka]

On 9/11/2020 at 10:16 AM, VKurtB said:

And I find it remarkably unsurprising that someone who would attempt to defend the Austrian School would be so predictable as to use a St. Gaudens as an avatar. Start with this: there is no such thing as malinvestment, and the only reason a cyclical boom-bust situation is inevitable is because a hard currency is being employed.

So, which hard currency caused the booms and busts since 1971?  And maybe I have that avatar because that's what I collect, what do you collect again?

[VKurtB]

22 minutes ago, jtryka said:

So, which hard currency caused the booms and busts since 1971?  And maybe I have that avatar because that's what I collect, what do you collect again?

If you’d bother to look, economic busts have become EXTREMELY fewer and farther apart, than prior to 1971. Or if you had attended my 2011 Money Talk at the ANA show in Chicago, you’d have known that for 9 years now.

[jtryka]

19 minutes ago, VKurtB said:

If you’d bother to look, economic busts have become EXTREMELY fewer and farther apart, than prior to 1971. Or if you had attended my 2011 Money Talk at the ANA show in Chicago, you’d have known that for 9 years now.

Sorry for not attending your talk, I'm sure it was because it was oversubscribed.  If you'll humor me (though I'm honestly expecting yet another ad hominem argument, because people who have no logical arguments are forced to resort to fallacy), please address the following (if they were in your talk, again I apologize for my inability to fit that into my schedule):

1. Please name one fiat currency system that has survived at least a millennium (given that gold has been valuable throughout recorded history, this seems like a small thing to ask).
2. If we think of money, broadly as a measure, why should it be different than any other measures?  What I mean is that a foot is always 12 inches, a meter is 100 cm, a kilogram is 1,000 grams, a troy ounce is always 31.1 grams, would we allow for any of these measures to fluctuate?  Would you want to fly on a plane made by an engineer that thought that a meter should be 90 cm because it would boost the economy?  Why should we tolerate the measure we use to define the entirety of economic production in the global economy and in each of our lives to be undefined?
3. You seem to be hellbent against tying anything in the economy to a commodity, but you seem to have no issue tying it to fallible humans who are prone to biases and error, why?

Granted, these may be simplistic questions to you, but please give me some leeway, after all, I'm just an average man of common sense, which means I could never in my wildest dreams be an economist. 

[GoldFinger1969]

2 hours ago, VKurtB said:

If you’d bother to look, economic busts have become EXTREMELY fewer and farther apart, than prior to 1971. Or if you had attended my 2011 Money Talk at the ANA show in Chicago, you’d have known that for 9 years now.

Is that talk available on YouTube somewhere ?

[GoldFinger1969]

Jtryka, Kurt:  As you are both probably aware, economies not only have natural boom-and-bust cycles but they also have exogenous events that affect the economies (housing bubbles, oil price spikes, wars, financial panics, stock market rises and falls, etc.).  These can reverberate to the larger economy.

The question is....how do we make the adjustments ?  Are they enforced through the old price/wage paradigm and INTERNAL measures (i.e., the Philips Curve) or are we able to "dissipate" the effects via floating exchange rates and other EXTERNAL adjustments.  

Because wages and prices are sticky to the downside, the adjustment process is more difficult through that path.  Hence, why inflation and devaluation have been the preferred political means to effect the adjustment.

These discussions are critical to understanding what is going on with the Euro and the EU.  The entire question focuses on the so-called "Denominator Effect" which has led some to state that enforced austerity is self-defeating as FALLING nominal GDP leads to a RISING debt burden relative to real GDP.

Edited September 14, 2020 by GoldFinger1969

[Zebo]

An interesting turn of the conversation.  Fiat currency - 

[VKurtB]

11 hours ago, GoldFinger1969 said:

Is that talk available on YouTube somewhere ?

Hardly. I abhor YouTube. I do think that cointelevision.com has it , though. And the ANA might have it eventually, if not now.

Edited September 14, 2020 by VKurtB

[VKurtB]

1 hour ago, Zebo said:

An interesting turn of the conversation.  Fiat currency - 

The only Fiat currency is that which one has set aside for a small Italian car.

[VKurtB]

13 hours ago, jtryka said:

Sorry for not attending your talk, I'm sure it was because it was oversubscribed.  If you'll humor me (though I'm honestly expecting yet another ad hominem argument, because people who have no logical arguments are forced to resort to fallacy), please address the following (if they were in your talk, again I apologize for my inability to fit that into my schedule):

1. Please name one fiat currency system that has survived at least a millennium (given that gold has been valuable throughout recorded history, this seems like a small thing to ask).
2. If we think of money, broadly as a measure, why should it be different than any other measures?  What I mean is that a foot is always 12 inches, a meter is 100 cm, a kilogram is 1,000 grams, a troy ounce is always 31.1 grams, would we allow for any of these measures to fluctuate?  Would you want to fly on a plane made by an engineer that thought that a meter should be 90 cm because it would boost the economy?  Why should we tolerate the measure we use to define the entirety of economic production in the global economy and in each of our lives to be undefined?
3. You seem to be hellbent against tying anything in the economy to a commodity, but you seem to have no issue tying it to fallible humans who are prone to biases and error, why?

Granted, these may be simplistic questions to you, but please give me some leeway, after all, I'm just an average man of common sense, which means I could never in my wildest dreams be an economist. 

Actually my talk was quite heavily attended, including by the then-editors of both Numismatic News and Coin World. Dave Harper and I became quite close after that talk.

1. History is irrelevant. As we mature as a society, we collectively learn more, and learn about more. We for many centuries routinely "bled" people to treat diseases. By your implied belief system, because we did that for centuries, we should still do it now. No, we know better now. Plus, hard money currency does have some things to recommend it in a static economy with nearly no growth. That is its forte, strangling growth.

2. Money does not have to be a measure at all. And other measures are not as fixed as you think they are. Pick up a little college physics and you'll see that. Most things are actually undefined. Even what we call "matter" is actually only a "probability".

3. At the end, the fate of us fallible humans with our biases and errors is all that matters. Tying prices to any commodity is the ultimate in foolishness. Tying it each and every commodity, and service, is the only thing that makes sense. For millenia, we didn't have the technology to determine that. I suppose we shouldn't now just because we couldn't then.

And @jtryka, what ever else you may be, you also come across as my least favorite type of being, an anti-intellectualist. Common sense is neither.

 

Edited September 14, 2020 by VKurtB

[VKurtB]

8 hours ago, GoldFinger1969 said:

Because wages and prices are sticky to the downside, the adjustment process is more difficult through that path.  Hence, why inflation and devaluation have been the preferred political means to effect the adjustment.

Not to the Austrian Fools. They LOVE smacking people around with falling wages. It's what they live for.

[Henri Charriere]

1 hour ago, VKurtB said:

And @jtryka, what ever else you may be, you also come across as my least favorite type of being, an anti-intellectualist.

 

[All this anti-intellectualist stuff, notwithstanding, the best line to come out of the Chicago Seven conspiracy trial (late 1960's)  was:  "Conspiracy?  What conspiracy?  We couldn't even agree on lunch!"]

[jtryka]

4 hours ago, VKurtB said:

Actually my talk was quite heavily attended, including by the then-editors of both Numismatic News and Coin World. Dave Harper and I became quite close after that talk.

1. History is irrelevant. As we mature as a society, we collectively learn more, and learn about more. We for many centuries routinely "bled" people to treat diseases. By your implied belief system, because we did that for centuries, we should still do it now. No, we know better now. Plus, hard money currency does have some things to recommend it in a static economy with nearly no growth. That is its forte, strangling growth.

2. Money does not have to be a measure at all. And other measures are not as fixed as you think they are. Pick up a little college physics and you'll see that. Most things are actually undefined. Even what we call "matter" is actually only a "probability".

3. At the end, the fate of us fallible humans with our biases and errors is all that matters. Tying prices to any commodity is the ultimate in foolishness. Tying it each and every commodity, and service, is the only thing that makes sense. For millenia, we didn't have the technology to determine that. I suppose we shouldn't now just because we couldn't then.

And @jtryka, what ever else you may be, you also come across as my least favorite type of being, an anti-intellectualist. Common sense is neither.

 

I've asked a number of times for you to actually debate and refrain from ad hominem fallacy, but you can't.  Therefore you @VKurtB come across as my least favorite type of being, the person_who_is_obnoxiously_self-impressed.

You are typical of the asshats that support this system, you see nothing wrong with the fed printing money from nothing as long as it's your fellow asshats that are doing it.  You have tremendous gall behaving as though you have all the answers for your idiotic PhD standard, tell us genius (and I use that term in the most derogatory way), how is it we've had the largest jump in income inequality since you enlightened the world with the magic of your printing press?  How is it that we've had nearly FIVE DECADES of zero or negative real wage growth?  The simple answer is that during the time of unfettered printing, we have seen wealth concentrate in the hands of the 1% of the 1% since they've rigged the game in their favor, but you are either too stupid or too much of a useful insufficiently_thoughtful_person to support these destructive actions.  

Oh, and next time I go to the butcher for a couple pounds of steak and he gives me only 8 ounces of steak, I'll be sure not to mention the error knowing that some message board insufficiently_thoughtful_person reminded me once that college physics (and economics for that matter) suggests that paying for two pounds of meat but getting only a half pound is actually just hunky dory!

Edited September 14, 2020 by jtryka

[Henri Charriere]

[Note:  There are two reasons why I have since declined to engage VKurtB in a strenuous manner.

One, it would be hazardous to my health. My 3.7-cm. aortal aneurism has inexplicably grown to 4.2. cms. with atrial fibrillation I have been told will not go away of its own accord. Surgery is inevitable; and

Two, with our esteemed colleague, VKurtB + HBP,  busy making arrangements to transport the bulk of his lares and penates due South shortly, there is nothing to be gained from baiting him unmercilessly. 

I think it fair to say without his participation on this Forum -- and this is no reflection on others -- we would have a suggestion of a Fourth of July, without fireworks.  I believe it best to approach all topics and members with flexibility, moderation and accommodation to include giving our seasoned veterans wide latitude if not wide berth.