Interview with A.C. Dwyer on Collector's Weekly

People that have known me for awhile know that I love to collect gold coins, especially $20 gold double eagles. Well not long ago I agreed to an interview about double eagles with The Collectors Weekly. Although I consider myself more of a type collector today, I have to say that I really enjoyed the interview as it reminded me of the reasons that I still have a special affinity to double eagles.

Please checkout my interview with The Collectors Weekly.

2010 Blackbook Price Guide to United States Coins

Should you buy the guide?

No.

I really wanted to like the 2010 Blackbook Price Guide to United States Coins, but I just couldn’t ignore my list of “What I Don’t Like.”

In the past, most reviewers of the guide appear to have done nothing more than look at the table of contents, flip through a few pages (maybe), and then parrot the publisher’s description of the guide.

That’s not me. When I was asked to review the guide, I actually opened the guide and started reading.

What I Don’t Like

• No Presidential dollars or First Spouse coins – Although the guide lists Sacagawea dollars – and other coinage – through 2008, I couldn’t find any reference to or listings for the Presidential dollars which started in 2007. I could find nothing on the First Spouse coins either. With many new collectors starting with Presidential dollars, and many state quarter collectors expanding into Presidential dollars, this is a pretty significant oversight.
• No Historical Narrative for Washington quarters – While there is historical narrative at the beginning of each coin type, there is no such narrative for the Washington quarters, including the state quarters. Considering the millions of new collectors that were drawn to the hobby with these quarters, it seems only logical to include some historical perspective for these coins.
• No Private or Territorial Gold – As a collector of gold coins, including Kellogg and Moffat gold struck during the height of the California Gold Rush, I was disappointed to find no references to this coinage.
• No Hard Times Tokens – There are no references to Hard Times tokens in this guide. Hard Times tokens play an important historical role in U.S. numismatics. There should be some mention of them in the guide. Civil War tokens, on the other hand, have an entire chapter in the guide.
• Lack of Mintage Totals – For some reason, many mintage figures are just missing in the listings. For circulating coinage, proof mintages are missing after 2002. For Kennedy half dollars and Sacagawea dollars, even the circulation coins lack mintage totals after 2005, not to mention the Presidential dollars being missing from the listings altogether. For commemorative coins, mintage figures are missing after 1989. For bullion coins, gold stops after 1995 and silver after 1992. Proof sets stop after 2003.
• Black & White Photos – There are photos of the obverse and reverse at the beginning of the section for each coin type. These photos are helpful for quick type identification, but do not help in the identification of major varieties. Also do not expect photos for each of the many new coins released in recent years such as the state quarters or Westward Journey nickels.
• No Tips on Proper Handling or Storage – I am always surprised that most price guides have nothing to help new collectors learn how to properly handle and store their collection, and this guide is no exception. The 2010 Blackbook Price Guide to U.S. Postage Stamps has a chapter called “Equipment” that covers these things for stamp collectors. I would like to see a similar chapter in the coins guide.

My Overall Impression

Despite articles written for the guide by well regarded numismatists such as Q. David Bowers and Mike Ellis, I felt that I was reading a guide that was put together by someone who doesn’t collect coins. There seemed to be a lack of attention to detail. After all, how do you miss putting Presidential dollars and First Spouse coins in the guide altogether?

Plus, there were inconsistencies with headings and sometimes with the coins listed as well. Having found similar problems when I reviewed the 2010 Blackbook Price Guide for U.S. Postage Stamps, I came away feeling that I couldn’t trust the information in the guide.

The Guide Book I Recommend

For less than $2 more than the Blackbook guide, you can buy Whitman’s Official Red Book: A Guide Book of United States Coins. The Red Book guide includes most of what I felt was missing and has color photos on nice quality paper.

Do yourself a favor. Skip the Blackbook and get yourself a copy of Whitman’s Red Book instead. You won’t regret it.

Wisconsin State Quarter Extra Leaf Varieties: Mystery Solved?

Rick Snow, author of A Guide Book of Flying Eagle and Indian Head Cents, does a great job of examining and explaining his theory in this Youtube video on how the High Leaf and Low Leaf varieties of the Wisconsin State Quarter were created. Probably the best theory I've seen so far.

Valuing Your Coins Using Price Guides

How much is my coin worth?

You're sitting at your desk, looking at one of your most prized possessions from your coin collection and you want to know how much it’s worth. You pick up a recent price guide laying nearby and quickly look up your coin's value. Pretty simple – right?

Unfortunately it’s not so simple. There are a few things you need to know before you determine your coin’s value.

Grade

The prices listed in price guides are based on a coin being in a certain grade or condition. You need to know both the grade of your coin and the grade the guide is using before you can determine the price. Most price guides will have a section that explains what grade the guide is using for its prices and how to determine the grade of your coin.

For example, two beginning collectors with the same circulated coin might assume both coins would have the same price, but in reality each coin may have a different price based on its condition. The coin in better condition will usually sell for a premium over the other coin. Once you know which coin the price reflects, you can make an adjustment for the price for the other coin. Sometimes the price guide will help you on how to do this, but not always.

Market Conditions

One negative aspect of printed price guides is that they can quickly become outdated due to changing market conditions. A new 2010 price guide will have probably been released in the summer of 2009. Even then, a few months have passed since the prices were compiled. How accurate are they when you actually use the guide?

Keep in mind it’s not just rarity and condition that determines the price for your coin, it’s also demand or popularity. Is your coin still popular? For example, popularity among collectors may switch from commemorative coins to Buffalo nickels causing an increase in prices for the latter at the expense of price decreases for the former.

Retail Prices

Finally, those prices listed in the price guides are retail prices with a few exceptions such as the popular Blue Book. They are not the value of your coin. They are how much you would pay to purchase the coin from a dealer. The value of your coin is how much the dealer is willing to pay you – and that may be considerably less.

Dealers are just like any other retailer and need to make a profit in order to stay in business. So once you’ve determined a retail price for your coin, you need to subtract an amount that you think is a fair representation of what a dealer’s markup would be. For high value coins, this could be from 5% to 15%. For more common coins, this could be 25 to 50% or even much higher.

Insuring Your Collection

If you are insuring your collection, the retail price of your coins is the amount to insure. The retail price is what it would cost you to replace your collection in the event that something unthinkable happened and you lost your collection.

Large Cents of Smell

While much has been written about the enthusiasm and excitement that greeted the new Flying Eagle cent in 1857, I have never really seen anything that told what the public thought about the Large cent. After all, it had been struck almost continuously since 1793.

Apparently displaying a lack of sentiment for the old coin, a large crowd of over 1000 people showed up at the Philadelphia Mint on the Flying Eagle cent's first day to exchange their Large cents for the new coin. About 3,000,000 new Flying Eagle cents were paid out by the end of the day.

So it was with pleasure that I came across the following in an article from the February 7, 1857 issue of Harper's Weekly. The article was about the new Flying Eagle cent, but it let you know what at least one journalist thought about the old Large cent.

"[The Flying Eagle's] smaller size makes it much more convenient for handling, and less burdensome for transportation, while the neater look and the freedom from the brassy odor, renders it much more acceptable to fastidious delicacy. Ladies may now venture to touch with their ungloved fingers small change without being, like Lady Macbeth, unable to wash out with Cologne, or any other toilet detersive, the "damned spot" of a base contamination."

Apparently, the Large cents made your fingers stink so much that "ladies" wouldn't touch them without their gloves on. Since both the Large cent and Half cent were composed of copper, I would have to assume that the Half cent suffered this fate as well.

The new Flying Eagle cent was composed of 88% copper and 12% nickel, that little bit of nickel must have made the difference. At least enough of a difference to allow ladies to once more handle small change with their bare hands.

An 1837 Song for Hard Times Token Collectors

While performing some research recently for a story on Hard Times tokens, I came across a song from September 1837 that I thought would be of interest to Hard Times token collectors. Don't worry about the melody, the song reads just fine as a poem.

With today's economy and credit crisis, the words to the song sound just as true today as they did in 1837.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tune - "Royal Charlie."

Hard times! - Hard times! - is now the cry,
The country's in confusion;

The Banks have stopped! - and still they try
To mystify delusion;

They give US trash,
And keep the cash
To send across the waters,

To pay for things
They bought from Kings,
To gull our sons and daughters! -

{Chorus}
Then to the Polls! - ye noble souls! -
The Banks may cry for quarters!
But hear their doom - THEY SHALL RESUME,
Or forfeit all their charters!

Shall Corporations rule the soil,
That Washington defended?

Must honest people sweat and toil,
And see their rights "suspended?"

Must we be slaves,
To pamper knaves
Shall Bankers be our masters?

Must all our pay,
From day to day,
Be nothing but shin-plasters?

Then to the Polls! - ye noble souls! -
The Banks may cry for quarters!
But hear their doom - THEY SHALL RESUME,
Or forfeit all their charters!

Brave Jackson strove to keep us free,
He Lov'd his country dearly,

His "sound metallic currency"
Was not a "promise" merely:

If "Little Van's"
An honest man,
He'll imitate the Hero,

And send the whigs,
To dance their jigs,
At least - as low as Zero!

Then to the Polls! - ye noble souls! -
The Banks may cry for quarters!
But hear their doom - THEY SHALL RESUME,
Or forfeit all their charters!

As Congress is about to meet,
Upon a great occasion,

May no unholy scheme defeat
The common expectation: -

If Martin will
Be honest still,
The scenes which now are tragic, -

Must disappear
Before a year,
For honesty is "magic!!" -

Then to the Polls! - ye noble souls! -
The Banks may cry for quarters!
But hear their doom - THEY SHALL RESUME,
Or forfeit all their charters!

The "Empire State" may play her pranks,
And e'en the "Old Dominion,"

May white wash all her broken Banks
Regardless of opinion:

The Keystone State
Won't hesitate,
Tho' ills fall thick upon her,

To still maintain,
Without a stain,
Her high and "sacred honor."

Then to the Polls! - ye noble souls! -
The Banks may cry for quarters!
But hear their doom - THEY SHALL RESUME,
Or forfeit all their charters!

We duly understand our rights,
The rights of Law, and Nature: -

We'll vote no more for paper kites,
To fill our Legislature: -

For just Reform
We'll brave the storm,
Bold as Columbia's Seamen,

We'll do or die -
For Liberty, -
And prove that we are Freemen!!

Then to the Polls! - ye noble souls! -
The Banks may cry for quarters!
But hear their doom - THEY SHALL RESUME,
Or forfeit all their charters!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The song can be found under Popular Melodies on page 2 of the September 5, 1837 Gettysburg, Pennsylvania newspaper The Republican Compiler. It is listed as originally "by the editor of The Mountaineer."

The MidAmerica Coin Show: Do I bother to go?

I'm thinking about attending a coin show tomorrow. In the past, I've usually tried to make it to at least one coin show a year. I would look for a show where my business travels would place me close by. As luck would have it, this year I'm in Chicago the same weekend as the MidAmerica Coin Expo. So I'm thinking of going.

I went to this show once before on a Saturday. It was in June 2006. Back then the show was held in Rosemont, IL right near the entrance to O'hare airport. A very convenient location for someone flying.

I was in the area with time on my hands, so I paid my $10 to park and $5 to get in. - I was prepared. - I had a map of the bourse floor with each of the dealers I was interested in seeing marked on the map. I was excited about my prospects for the day and ready to do business if I saw something I liked.

Well, the MidAmerica show turned out to be a big disappointment that year. I had marked down about 10 dealers to visit, not one was still at the show and it was not yet noon on Saturday. Out of all the dealers I had marked on my map, all had packed up and left town. A couple had left brochures or inventory lists at their booths, but no coins - no people - no one to do business with or talk to about coins.

This wasn't Sunday, mind you, when I expect all the dealers to have skipped town, this was Saturday morning. The MidAmerica show that morning was a sea of empty tables. At least the tables I was interested in.

At first I thought the day was a total bust. But then I remembered that Jeff Garrett was the featured speaker at the Chicago Coin Club's meeting at the show that afternoon. His topic was on the Smithsonian's U.S. Gold coins. As a collector specializing in pre-1933 U.S. gold coins, the coin club's meeting would make up for the dearth of dealers on the bourse floor. I looked at the MidAmerica show schedule and saw that I had more than hour to spare before the meeting at 1pm. I was back to being excited about the day.

At 1pm, I showed up in time for the meeting . . . and nobody was there!

I checked my watch . . . it was the correct time.

I checked the room . . . it was the correct room.

So where was everybody?

I headed back onto the bourse floor and made a beeline straight for the Chicago Coin Club's booth. There I talked to one of the club's officers, and found out that Jeff Garrett had skipped town like the rest of the dealers I wanted to see. Oh, he gave his presentation on the Smithsonian's gold coins . . . just three hours earlier than scheduled so that he could catch his flight.

The Chicago Coin Club's members had all been notified of the change, but guests like me had to rely on the MidAmerica show schedule which had not been changed. Not only were all the schedules and notices that I encountered at the show wrong, but the show's website still had the wrong time listed.

So as luck would have it, tomorrow I have the chance to visit the MidAmerica Coin Expo again. This time it's at a new convention center in Schaumburg, IL. It's still near O'hare airport, only a little farther away from the entrance to the airport. It's maybe an extra 15 minutes driving time, but it's still pretty convenient. Admission is still $5, but this time parking is free.

Once again I have my map of the bourse floor with the dealers marked, but my expectations have been lowered. I will consider it a success if I see even one of those dealers.

Also, the Chicago Coin Club is once again holding a meeting at the convention. This time Ron Sirna will be talking about toned coins. I'd like to see his presentation, but as a precaution, a member of the Chicago Coin Club emailed me verifying that the meeting is still at 1pm, just as the MidAmerica show schedule states. This time I'm taking no chances.

I've heard it said that you should try to lower people's expectations so that when you exceed them, they will be delighted. Well the previous MidAmerica show definitely lowered my expectations, so maybe this time they will exceed them.

But the question is, "Do I bother to go?"