Blog
A compendium of short feature stories.
Crisis of Confidence
Rampant fraud appears to be afoot in the collectibles market. But first, some important background information: Collectors Universe (CU) is the parent company of Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) as well as Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA). ...
Grading Quandary
“MS64 – The Catch All Grade” or ”PCGS’s Excuse For Being Unable to Make a Decision”. I’ve been thinking about this now for at least a month. The dissatisfaction collectors have with grading is wide ranging and seems to touch anyone who is active today. One...
MS67BN Lincolns
One of the Unicorns (extreme rarities) in the Lincoln Cent series (especially for toned Lincoln collectors) are those coins graded PCGS MS67BN. This is an extremely rare grade / color-class combination. Just to emphasize how rare -- from the founding of PCGS in 1985...
Lincoln Eye-Appeal 2
Over the past five years of my searching, I knew that it had been very difficult finding high grade RB and BN color class Circulation Strike Wheatbacked Lincoln Cents. Since the BN color class is where color tends to show up the most strongly, clearly I...
Lincoln Eye-Appeal
A few days ago I started to make a list about each date and what the “scoop” was on finding good examples. I quickly gave up on it because it was daunting and also I wasn’t sure how much detail to put down. For example, should I just mention mint state?...
The Penny Car
A few months ago, I stumbled across some really cool photos of a striking antique car (a 1949 Cadillac) completely covered with pennies. What follows is the background story that I discovered. In early 1999, a Fort Wayne, Indiana couple by the name...
Ode to Saint-Gaudens
In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt challenged his friend Augustus Saint-Gaudens to redesign the entire line of American coinage from the Cent to the Double Eagle to new and more artistic standards. However, due to an 1890 law that governed coinage designs, the...
1907 Gaudens Cent
Some of you might be surprised to learn that the United States came very close to having a Saint-Gaudens Cent in 1907, which likely would have continued to be produced for most of the 20th century. Theodore Roosevelt, who served as President from 1901 to...
Eisenhower Dollar
On June 20, 1945, about four million people jammed onto the streets of New York City for a World War II victory parade. Buried in the the crowd was a young artist and junior U.S. Mint engraver, Frank Gasparro (1909-2001) hoping for a glimpse of his...
B. Max Mehl
B. Max Mehl was a pioneer of modern coin collecting in the U.S. His magazine ads popularized coin collecting across the span of the 20th Century and prompted hundreds of thousands of Americans, kids and adults alike, to scour loose change and their local...
1913 Liberty Nickel Lore
I was looking through the Heritage Auction archives and stumbled on an old auction that showed a 1913 Liberty Nickel (The PR64 Olsen Specimen) selling for $3.8 million dollars back in January 2010. I did a little research and dug up this interesting...