Category: Blog

All of our Offices will be closed in observance of Good Friday 4/10/20. You can still place orders on our website! We will be back in the office on Monday the 13th for all of your essential needs.

In numismatics an area that is often collected by advanced collectors and specialists is pattern coins. Patterns are trial strikes of coins being proposed. These coins are usually struck in very limited numbers and very often...

At first the internet auctions were a tough place to sell coins as there were very few bidders. Then a tidal wave ensued and the number of people buying and selling online flooded in. Just as a tidal wave is indiscriminate, so was this new phenomenon. Not only did it sweep in good buyers and sellers, but also an ever growing unethical element. Online auctions have morphed into not only a new selling ground, but also the devils playground for those looking to make a quick buck.

In the world of numismatics there are a few factors that help decide the value of a coin. The date and mint mark determine how many were made and the rarity factor, but the grade or condition could be considered the most important. Modern coin grading is based on a 70 point scale, 1 being the lowest and 70 being the highest. In many cases one point higher in grading can increase a coins price by multiples.

Carson City dollars have long been coveted by collectors for their rarity and allure. When the U.S. Government took us off of the silver standard in the 1960’s there was a window in which you could redeem your paper for the silver in the treasury department. Much of this silver was in the form of silver dollars. Eventually the redemption time was up. But the government was then left with a new and interesting problem, it still had silver dollars left in the vaults and to top it off many of those coins were Carson City dollars. Melting the remaining coins would have been a tragedy. Instead the Government Services Administration (GSA for short) was given the task of packaging these coins for sale to the general public.

This week we will look at how to buy silver with a focus on the physical products available. Just as in gold there are funds that are based on silver. Buying in the stock market offers speed and accuracy but lacks the actual...

Silver certificates were a standard currency in our country for nearly 100 years. From their inception in 1878 till their final printing in 1963 (series of 1957), silver certificates were designed to be backed by the value of actual silver. With silver on the rise in the 1960’s the actual value of a silver dollar was becoming more than the face value of a one dollar note forcing the U.S. to quit printing them.

One of the great things about buying hard assets is that it promotes self reliance. Self reliance is one of the most important keys to success as it helps to abate entropy. In other words, if your life is engineered so that you rely on others to fill your needs then your life will tend towards disorder, either very rapidly as in the case of the real estate market melting down or through inflationary attrition.

Coin collecting has long been a hobby, but over the last few decades the skyrocketing value of rare coins has attracted a new set of buyers who are looking at coins as an investment. Making investments in coins can be very lucrative and has out preformed many investment sectors in the last decade. Unlike a collector, the investor has a different set of rules for making purchases.

There are really only a two ways to clean coins, abrasives or solvents. An abrasive will leave tell tale signs that a coin has been polished or cleaned. From harsh abrasives such as Brillo pads to mild ones such as tooth paste or silver polish both change the surface of a coin forever by putting lines in the metals surface. Solvents on the other hand tend to be used more. From the mildness of water to the power of acids solvents don’t add lines to a coins surface. But an acid actually removes a microscopic layer of metal from the coin, altering the original luster forever.

Many can remember when the Susan B. Anthony (SBA) dollar debuted in 1979. The coin was about the same size as a quarter, had the same color, and what most would describe as an ugly design, plus it was easy to mistakenly pass out as a quarter if one wasn’t focused on their change. Interestingly enough, the SBA had a predecessor of similar disgust in the 1800’s. With a lack of change circulating, the U.S. mint tried a number of new denominations to help in change making. The shortest lived was the twenty cent piece. Born in 1875 it was only struck for circulation until 1876. Then the next two years saw proof strikes for collectors only.