In this episode of the CoinWeek Podcast, Franklin Half Dollar expert Rick Tomaska stops by to discuss the record prices that Franklin Half Dollars are getting at auction and how conditionally rare mid-century United States coins have become the ascendant force driving today’s coin market.

Also on the podcast, Rick and Charles discuss the characteristics of Franklin Half Dollar Proofs in Cameo and Deep Cameo, how Rick helped PCGS develop its standards for the Full Bell Line designation, how PCGS and NGC standards on Full Bell Line Franklins differ, and obverse characteristics that are usually present on coin’s that are Full Bell Line candidates.

We also discuss the legacy of Rick’s book Cameo and Brilliant Proof Coinage of the 1950 to 1970 Era and why he decided to republish it this year.

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The post CoinWeek Podcast Episode #184: Franklin Half Dollars and 1950s-’70s Proofs appeared first on CoinWeek: Rare Coin, Currency, and Bullion News for Collectors.

In this episode of the CoinWeek Podcast, CoinWeek Editor Charles Morgan sits down with rare document dealer Kenneth Rendell to discuss the many storied events of both his personal and professional life as detailed in his new book Safeguarding History: Trailblazing Adventures Inside the Worlds of Collecting and Forging History (2023), published by Whitman Publishing.

Kenneth’s book is a remarkable achievement in autobiography. In it, Rendell pulls back the curtain to a life fully-lived and reveals the inner workings of a fascinating niche of the collecting industry.

Charles and Ken talk about life, loss, famous hoaxes, and what makes all of us susceptible to being fooled by con artists.

Mobile phone users. Stream this podcast for free by downloading the podomatic app or subscribe to the CoinWeek Podcast on iTunes.

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The CoinWeek Podcast is brought to you by PCGS. PCGS is the official coin grading service of the brand new International Money Exposition, to be held October 26-29 in Nashville, Tennessee. To learn more about PCGS and its full range of grading products, visit www.pcgs.com.

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©2023 Collecting Media, LLC

Coinweek is an independent online media source for rare coin and currency news, with analysis and information contributed by leading experts across the numismatic spectrum.

More news and videos about coin collecting at CoinWeek.

The post CoinWeek Podcast #183: Safeguarding History With Kenneth Rendell appeared first on CoinWeek: Rare Coin, Currency, and Bullion News for Collectors.

Mobile phone users. Stream this podcast for free by downloading the podomatic app or subscribe to the CoinWeek Podcast on iTunes.

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In this episode of the CoinWeek Podcast, CoinWeek editor Charles Morgan talks to Gary Adkins and Col. Steve Ellsworth–two past presidents of the American Numismatic Association (ANA)–about the inaugural International Money Exposition (IMEX), a brand new coin show the two have put together that will be held at the Music City Convention Center on October 26-28 in Nashville, Tennessee. They discuss what went into making IMEX happen and what the coin show has to offer both the new and the seasoned collector (and dealer).

The CoinWeek Podcast is brought to you by PCGS – Join PCGS at the IMEX in Nashville for insight authentication and grading – of your rare coins. PCGS will also take home your banknote submissions. Meet the expert Steve Feltner on Friday October 27 from 10:30 to 12:30. For more information, visit www.pcgs.com.

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©2023 Collecting Media, LLC

Coinweek is the Gold Standard for independent online media concerning rare coin and currency news; with analysis and information contributed by leading experts across the numismatic spectrum.

More news and videos about coin collecting at CoinWeek.

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The post CoinWeek Podcast #182: A New Coin Show Debuts in Music City appeared first on CoinWeek: Rare Coin, Currency, and Bullion News for Collectors.

Mobile phone users. Stream this podcast for free by downloading the podomatic app or subscribe to the CoinWeek Podcast on iTunes.

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In this episode of the CoinWeek Podcast, CoinWeek editor Charles Morgan talks with author Nicholas Bruyer on the subject of United States paper money and its multi-faceted role as a money of growth and of last resort.

Charles also discusses Nicholas Bruyer’s new book, U.S. Treasury Notes, 1812-1865: An Illustrated History (Stack’s Bowers, 2023), which offers readers a trove of information that will help illuminate not just the issue and circulation of Treasury Notes but also provide some context for the coins that circulated around the same period. [CoinWeek published a First Read of Bruyer’s book earlier this summer. —CW]

The CoinWeek Podcast is sponsored by PCGS. To learn locate a PCGS coin or banknote dealer near you, and learn so much more about collecting and the numismatic market, visit www.pcgs.com.

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©2023 Collecting Media, LLC

Coinweek is the Gold Standard for independent online media concerning rare coin and currency news; with analysis and information contributed by leading experts across the numismatic spectrum.

More news and videos about coin collecting at CoinWeek.

The post CoinWeek Podcast #181: Nicholas Bruyer on Treasury Notes appeared first on CoinWeek: Rare Coin, Currency, and Bullion News for Collectors.

Mobile phone users. Stream this podcast for free by downloading the podomatic app or subscribe to the CoinWeek Podcast on iTunes.

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In this episode of the CoinWeek Podcast, CoinWeek’s Ancients writer Mike Markowitz drops in to help new collectors tackle the subject of Ancient Coins.

Even for seasoned collectors, getting started in ancient coins can be intimidating at first, but Mike has great advice for anyone who’s ever been curious about Classical Numismatics but worried that they’d end up way over their heads.

With some fairly straightforward advice, learn how to get started in this fascinating and richly rewarding corner of numismatic study.

The CoinWeek Podcast is sponsored by PCGS. To learn about this quarter’s grading specials, on-site grading at the PCGS Invitational, and more, visit www.pcgs.com.

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©2023 Collecting Media, LLC

Coinweek is the Gold Standard for independent online media concerning rare coin and currency news; with analysis and information contributed by leading experts across the numismatic spectrum.

More news and videos about coin collecting at CoinWeek.

The post CoinWeek Podcast 180: Ancient Coins Demystified appeared first on CoinWeek: Rare Coin, Currency, and Bullion News for Collectors.

Mobile phone users. Stream this podcast for free by downloading the podomatic app or subscribe to the CoinWeek Podcast on iTunes.

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In this episode of the CoinWeek Podcast, CoinWeek’s Ancients writer Mike Markowitz discusses the problems with authenticating and grading ancient coins. Mike gives you an overview of the qualities a collector can look for that align with the different grades on the Sheldon Grading Scale, as well as unique approachs that go beyond what a collector of classic and modern U.S. and World coins might be experienced.

Grading ancient coins can be a complex issue that presents a serious challenge for even the most well-trained classical numismatists, but beginners need not fear the topic.

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The CoinWeek Podcast is sponsored by PCGS. To learn about this quarter’s grading specials, on-site grading at the PCGS Invitational, and more, visit www.pcgs.com.

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©2023 Collecting Media, LLC

Coinweek is the Gold Standard for independent online media concerning rare coin and currency news; with analysis and information contributed by leading experts across the numismatic spectrum.

More news and videos about coin collecting at CoinWeek.

The post CoinWeek Podcast 179: The Problem With Grading Ancient Coins appeared first on CoinWeek: Rare Coin, Currency, and Bullion News for Collectors.

Mobile phone users. Stream this podcast for free by downloading the podomatic app or subscribe to the CoinWeek Podcast on iTunes.

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In this episode of the CoinWeek Podcast, CoinWeek Editor Charles Morgan talks to Aaron Berk and Mike Nottelmann about their excellent Ancient Coin Podcast.

Aaron is a noted antiquities dealer and expert in ancient coins. Mike is a specialist in U.S. coins and the longtime co-host of the Coin Show Podcast. Together with Aaron, he takes the listener on a journey into the ancient coin-collecting hobby from the perspective of a new collector.

The resulting mix of expert and neophyte is relatable to most collectors and the behind-the-scenes expertise that Aaron brings opens the door to a deeper and more sophisticated understanding of the complexities of the ancient coin market.

During our program, Charles asks Aaron to further discuss the controversial sale of the gold Eid Mar, a topic Aaron and Mike recently delved into on episode 26 of the Ancient Coin Podcast.

We recommend that you listen to Aaron and Mike’s podcast if you want to learn more about ancient coins and that you listen to this hour-long discussion with Aaron and Mike with CoinWeek.

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The CoinWeek Podcast is sponsored by PCGS.

At the Central States Numismatic Society’s (CSNS) , PCGS will offer an exclusive CSNS Show label. To take advantage of this exclusive label opportunity, stop by the PCGS booth and submit your coins for show grading.

Learn more about this unique event by visiting www.pcgs.com and plan to join the action in Schaumburg, Illinois starting April 26! Don’t miss out on the chance to see some of the finest collections compete side-by-side and take in one of the best coin shows in the country.

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The following is a transcript of Charles’ conversation with Aaron and Mike:

Charles Morgan: Aaron and Mike, thank you so much for joining me on the CoinWeek Podcast. It is a real pleasure actually not only to have you on, but to see the growth of the great Ancient Coin Podcast that you guys are doing. I have to admit, I don’t much listen to US coin podcasts. I check in and dabble on occasion, but I’m not really, what I would call, a listener or a reader of other people’s work product, and only because I like to read it when there’s some time between when they published it and when I get to it, because I don’t want to really influence my own work.

With Coin World, for instance, a competitor of CoinWeek’s, I have in my garage every Coin World from probably 1971 to 2018. I’m always amazed about how good it is, but I go through the back issues because there’s some historical distance. What you guys are doing with your podcast, it’s certainly an area I want to learn more about. It’s not something I regularly write about, but for the last couple of years, we’ve been promoting more Ancient Coin content. As the editor of a site, it’s been an enormous learning curve to go from new useless guy to having a basic familiarity of many of the concepts, but still feeling like there’s just a mountain of information that I don’t know.

In some respects, the program you guys are doing is you’re taking somebody who is savvy about coins, active in coin collecting, and introducing them to something new. In some respects, I imagine there’s some element of your own childhood, Aaron, in this because you and your sister grew up with your dad, who’s like this icon in the ancient coin market in the United States. I’m sure you went to coin shows before you wanted to, and then you went to coin shows because you wanted to, and you just were exposed to all of this. But to share that with somebody else has to be just a really thrilling experience. So, I just wanted to have you guys, tell you, first of all, how good a job you’re doing. And then, also just get your take on what this whole experience in this journey has been like.

Aaron Berk: Yeah. To answer your question about growing up in the coin business. I guess, I didn’t realize my dad was famous at all. He was just dad. But I think my first ANA [show], I’m told I was in a baby carrier under the table. So, that was my first ANA experience. Of course, I don’t remember, but I’m sure a coin maybe fell into my basket at the time. But yeah, my sister and I grew up going to the office in Joliet, Illinois, which is where were at the time, and putting stamps on catalogs, and helping with closings, and doing all kinds of fun stuff like that, and occasionally attributing a coin. But it’s definitely an interesting life growing up as far as that goes.

I think I can speak for my sister that we’re both really proud to have our father still, because he’s still going strong at 80, but also to follow in his footsteps and actually make our own pushes in the industry and making our mark. I think both of us have done that. And so, I feel very fortunate, humbled, and also proud to have done what we’ve done so far.

Charles: How about you, Mike? What’s this journey been like for you?

Mike Nottelmann: Well, it originally sounded like you were describing me when you were talking about somebody a little savvy about coins, but not really knowing much about it, because truthfully, what you see with me is what you get. I really knew nothing about them going into it. I looked forward to the opportunity to learn from two of the all-time greats. When you have opportunities like that, you really need to jump on them.

Aaron: Yeah.

Charles: Well, I’ll say one thing. I’m relatively new to the industry. I’ve only been working in coins for like 10, 12 years maybe, which seems like a long time, but it’s not. I remember meeting Aaron, I think it was pretty much Aaron when you definitely had already come into your own, starting to be one of the leading bases, Harlan J. Berk, Ltd. I was just so impressed, not only to see somebody in my own age cohort running a major deal, but just knowing you, like you said, knowing your sister, it’s just amazing the amount of talent that exists beyond the coin thing. I feel like either of you would have been successful, whatever you decided to do. It just happens that you decided to do coins.

Just maybe for our viewers to understand this, this is not an indictment against US coin collecting and the market that exists, but you can sell a US coin fairly easily. If you have a nice coin, it’s in the right holder, has the right grade on it, you have the right price for it, you’ll probably sell it without being a rare coin expert. In fact, I can tell you from experience, I know people who are not rare coin experts who have convinced rich people to buy multimillion-dollar coins.

Aaron: True.

Charles: So, it doesn’t take any special expertise to do that. Now, the better US coin dealers, they have a lot of business acumen, they have a lot of salesmanship ability, but they typically also know a lot about coins, at least in that area. But you’re talking about a period of like 230 plus years of American coins. You’re talking about a handful of mints. Maybe if you’re really adventurous, like someone like John Kraljevic or something like that, you know all of the Americana angles. So, you’re knowing metals, tokens and all that kind of material.

Ancient coin dealer, you have thousands of years, tens of thousands of coins, like all sorts of civilizations that have come and gone. You have various qualities of pieces, depending if they are pulled out of the ground nine days ago or if they’ve been in historic collections for a period of time. Those historic collections are spread to the four corners of the Earth. The literature written about them is in all sorts of different languages. The coins themselves are written in different languages. It is a monumentally different thing. We’ve become so specialized, I think, in the American coin market, we fail to grasp the fact that the major coin collectors in the beginning of the century, they were collecting ancient coins and US Coins.

Aaron: Right.

Charles: So, it has to be just an absolute testimony to how much work you’ve had to put into this to become an ancient coin expert.

Aaron: There’s a ton of osmosis that goes into this, and you really need to have a lot of time that goes into it over– I’ve been doing this now 31 years. I started in antiquities just to give a little background. When I came to work for my dad, he said, “What do you want to do?” And I said, “I don’t know. What do you want me to do?” And he said, “Nobody’s doing antiquities. Do that.” “Okay.” So, I jumped into that, which actually gave me an advantage in coins, I think, because once you develop a good artistic eye for antiquities, then that helps develop your eye for coins, because when I look at an ancient coin, I try to look at it artistically like it’s an antiquity. It is an antiquity. But I don’t look at it like some coin collectors and dealers might look at it. I look at it for, does this look like a Greek or Roman statue in the way the iconography has been cut, how the die has been cut?

So, there’s a lot that goes into that. Especially when you’re evaluating coins for collectors in auction, or buying stock for the company to sell, or when clients come to me and say, “Is this a good die?”, you really have to have that experience and knowhow. And so, antiquities did help me do that. I did that for the first 10 years, and I’ve done that for my whole 30-year career.

And then, I moved into ancient coins probably 20 years ago even though I was around it my whole life. So, it takes a good 15, 20 years before it really starts to stick and becomes easy. But even today, my dad will see things that he’s never seen before in his over 60 years of doing this. He says that’s what keeps him passionate about doing what we do, because we always see things that we’ve never seen before. An auction comes out, we’re like, “God, I didn’t even know that guy existed.” And so, that can keep you interested and passionate about what we do for a long time.

Charles: It’s funny you say that, Aaron. One of our ancient coin writers, Mike Markowitz, I’m sure you know who he is. I remember I was at the New York show with him three or four years ago, maybe two years before COVID. We walk up to your dad’s table and I’m filming a segment and Mike’s going to talk to your dad about something. Your dad has a coin. He’s telling a story. And then, Mike turns the camera, and he starts talking about it like that. Your dad says to me, he goes, “He really knows his stuff.” So, we’re walking away after the segment is over, we get the microphone back, I turn to Mike and I go, “Mike, you should take that home with you. That’s the most valuable thing you’re going to take home today from the show that Harlan Berk thinks you know your stuff.”

I know Mike has spent untold number of years really passionately thinking about it. So, Mike, I’m going to put you in a scenario. You’re walking along the bourse floor and you walk up to some tables of ancient coins. What is going through your head at this point? Are you still overwhelmed?

Mike: Overwhelmed? Well, when you take my experience of about a year, I still am such a newbie to it that there are whole parts of it that I still really don’t know about. So, for me, I’m looking for things that I either recognize or I’m looking for things that I have been taught to look for. I’m trying as hard as I can to identify probably the major ones. So, it’s like your shekels of Tyre and stuff like that. Aaron did a piece with me a couple of weeks ago where he decided that he was going to put different coins in front of me and see what I could tell him about them. One of them happened to be a shekel of Tyre. I couldn’t even get it. So, I was like, “I’m not going to get busted on that one again.” That was the first coin that we went over.

So, it’s one of those things where I’m super patient with myself. And as long as Aaron thinks that I’m doing okay as far as coming along, which I know he does, I’m not going to be intimidated by it and I’m just going to try and soak it in.

Aaron: Yeah. And just to give a little background on the podcast, Mike came to work for us–God, what was it, three years ago now?

Mike: Yeah.

Aaron: Mike has been doing a podcast with Matt Dinger for 12 years?

Mike: Thirteen.

Aaron: Thirteen years. So, I knew he had that experience of doing podcasts. I had always kind of wanted to do a podcast. And so, I talked to him one of the first days and said, “We should do something together at some point on ancient coins.” But we needed to flesh out how we wanted to go about that. I’d been told, “Oh, you should write a book.” People are telling me, my dad did the 100 Greatest Ancient Coins. He’s actually working on Volume III now of Ancient Coin. Volume II actually is out of print now, if you can believe that. So, he’s working on Volume III.

I thought about it, about doing one on collecting, and then I was saying to myself, “You know what? A podcast is going to be a lot more dynamic, and I can change it and I can continue to do it.” Once I do it in print, it’s stuck there. That’s it. Where with the podcast, I can continually make changes and updates. So, our formula, the way we do the podcast is we introduce ourselves and then I go into talking about auctions that are going to be coming up. So, talking about auctions in Europe or in the United States and bringing up a specific couple of lots to get people familiar with other auction houses around the world and highlights of those auctions so we can then talk about individually those coins and give a little bit of history about them.

Sometimes, we have what’s called the “doofus purchase”, which is like somebody way overpaid for a coin, we kind of teach people what not to do, possibly, and why that was– [crosstalk]

Mike: Why it was unwise.

Aaron: Yeah. A lot of people do love it. Some people think that they don’t want to be the doofus guy, [chuckles] but it’s really the whole point of– One of the biggest reasons for doing the podcast was to teach people about ancient coins, because I saw a lot of people buying ancient coins improperly. Like you said, there are people out there who can sell anything at any price. And so, I felt like a lot of that was happening on the negative side. So, it was really important to me to start putting out information to new clients. So, I wanted to be like for beginners, but I also wanted to still be able to reach out to the advanced collectors as well. By talking about current auctions, we hit the advanced collector because they know quite a bit. And some collectors like Mike [Markowitz], they know more than I do about a certain area because that’s what they focused on.

So, then we get into the educational part of the podcast, and we pick out some subject and I do that. And then after that, sometimes, we’ve had little games like Mike mentioned, like I’ll have an image of a coin and he has to guess who it is, so to get clients familiar with what ancient coins look like.

All of this is based on the fact that Mike doesn’t know anything, and I’m supposed to be teaching him about ancient coins. And so, he is hitting it from the novice side, like a lot of our listeners and watchers are, and then still I can hit the advanced side as well. So, that’s the whole premise of the show.

Mike: Yeah. Then, we wrap it up with a little pearl of wisdom also, something to make you a better collector.

Aaron: Correct.

Charles: Well, to me, the great thing about it is– when we’ve published our own content about ancients, I allow our writers to go as deep into something as they want to because I think the Celator was a really great publication when it was going on, and writers actually wanted their material in there. It wasn’t really a profitable enterprise for anybody, except for the profit of actually growing the game, if you will. I felt like with that being gone, I just wanted to provide the platform. If somebody wanted to come to our site and we have really good material on it, then that’s great. If we had some introductory material, that was great too.

I really think with collecting– Although I think the Red Book is the most important book in all of numismatics, at least in this country, because it really sets a standard for how to see things, I think the quicker a collector is able to break the bonds, the shackles, if you will, of the Red Book and understand that, that organizes things so that you can use that organizational structure for whether you’re collecting trade tokens or whether you’re collecting assay metals, or German marks, or Greek coins, or whatever. Now, you understand how numismatists may organize something, but go on and explore the world and do it your own way, because not everyone’s going to be Louis Eliasberg and have every coin ever struck. So, the idea of using that book as your bible to all things numismatics is very limiting.

So, I always look at it like, what is the on ramp for other areas? With ancient coins, frankly, it’s intimidating and daunting. The first thing that made me feel like, “I can start to figure this out,” was a friend of mine had great collections of aes grave coinage from Rome. He did a really interesting presentation on it locally at one of our coin clubs. The thing I was blown away by it is I had seen Carthaginian coins from the same period, and I’d seen Greek coins from the same period. When you compare them side by side and you think about the great Roman Empire, Rome must have been just a total backwater at this period of time when you consider that they had basically these huge paperweights as coins.

Aaron: Right.

Charles: So, it just started to make me think, “Well, if I could think of that and conceptualize the ancient world in such a way, then clearly, I can start to figure out other things.”

Aaron: Sure.

Charles: That was really the beginning of my journey, but I’m sure if you did the same quiz to me what you’ve done to Mike, if I haven’t done a coin illustration on a certain thing or published an article on a certain topic, I’d be completely at a loss.

Aaron: Right.

Charles: Mike, you should do the same quiz– [crosstalk]

Aaron: Denominations and some of the denominations between periods can have the same name, but be a completely different coin. So, there’s so many nuances.

Mike: Everything is so different too. One of the things that really stood out of our last episode was, here you have an emperor who was emperor for a year, and then you have one that was an emperor for three years, and the guy who followed him was six months. So, stuff is changing all the time. Because it’s changing all the time, that makes it seem like a lot more time is passing than actually is.

Aaron: Right.

Charles: Yeah. Mike, have you ever done the game on Aaron, where you pick the coins to see if you can stump the expert? Have you tried that?

Mike: Well, I do that every day at work. So, it’s like, “Here, Aaron, what is this? What is this?” I don’t think I’d want to do that mostly because he’s just too good. But also, if anybody knows me and my penchant for games, you have to know that there is going to be something coming somewhere.

Aaron: Right. Look, and I’m not perfect either. I always admit that on the podcast, because I’ll get done with the podcast and somebody will say, “Oh, you were wrong about this,” or whatever. We don’t edit any of the show. Only time we’ve ever edited, we’ve had my dad on once, we had David Hendin on once for interviews. So, we had to cut them in. But really, when we start the show, we just tape it. As soon as it’s done, Mike sends it to me and I post it. There’s no editing. So, it’s almost live in a sense, because we don’t make any changes to it and fix anything, unless it’s glaring like a huge mistake. In the beginning, we had some problems because Mike and I were getting used to each other as well.

Mike: Sure.

Aaron: So, I would be talking about something and I couldn’t see his screen, and he’d have something up that I wasn’t talking about yet or vice versa. Now, we’ve got a really good system.

Mike: Yeah, now we’ve got it tight. It works.

Aaron: We’ve got it tight. There’s little nuances. Now, we just finished our 27th episode. So, we’ve got a pretty good track record of doing them. It’s been a learning experience, but it’s been fun as well. And also, it teaches me, because I have to go back and refresh myself on certain areas before I go into the podcast.

And so, it’s always good for me. I always learn something new every time I do that. Because a lot of times, if I’m looking up coins for a client, representing them in an auction, or I’m writing up a coin in our sale, or I’m trying to sell a coin, I’ll go and research it and figure out everything I need to know about that coin, if I don’t know anything. But if I never had that coin or that area, then maybe I don’t focus on it as much.

So, as a dealer, as soon as you start to get material in those areas, then you learn everything about it. So, by doing the podcast, sometimes I hit areas that I haven’t hit before, and so then I have got to brush up a little bit. Or, maybe I’ll go deeper into a subject I hadn’t really done before. So, it’s good for me too as a dealer, because I’m learning as well while doing these podcasts. So, it’s rewarding in that way.

Charles: Hey, can we talk about a topic that you brought up one of your recent episodes?

Aaron: Yeah.

Charles: I want to know a little bit more, if you will, because you gave a really thorough and great breakdown of the controversy surrounding the gold Eid Mar, Roman numismatics was involved in. One of the things that something I’m always aware of is that knowledgeable dealers, it’s their business because the thing that they’re actually offering to a collector is basically very esoteric information. So, you would go to Dave Akers if you’re collecting gold coins, because you would assume that Dave Akers’ research in the 1970s and 1980s in the gold coins meant that you would have the upper hand on certain types of information when you’re making your purchase.

I would have to think when it comes to the great rarities of ancient coins that you, your father would have seen these coins, would have probably have notes on things. You’ve probably lot viewed this material before. It’s all in that head, right? But my working theory is that, going into any major discovery or sale or anything that if it’s something that’s an important property that you guys have an insight, whether you have a collector for that coin or whether you’re in the market for it at the time, you still have an insight, an opinion, or something.

I also understand some of these opinions are not publishable, printable, conveyable to the public, because some of it’s on the gossipy side, some of it may not be verifiable. You certainly don’t want to be responsible for any tortious interference or any of that. So, there’s a business reason, there’s a legal reason, there’s also a personal reason. So, there’s information that a dealer will know that he will not convey. Like I said, and there’s a reason.

You recently handled one, a hold example. We had this great video of you opening it when it came to your office. So, clearly, you have a sophisticated collector base who may be in the market for a coin like that.

Aaron: Right.

Charles: Clearly, you knew the existence of this coin. How much of this controversy did you have an inkling about? Or, were you a major player, perhaps maybe a major player in a coin like this, but then this comes out and you’re shocked and chagrin by it? It just doesn’t seem like a gold Eid Mar with a made-up pedigree shows up out of nowhere. And the son of one of the most sophisticated ancient coin dealers has been in the industry for– you’re talking about decades and decades, just knows that it just popped out of nowhere.

Aaron: Yeah.

Charles: It seems like an interesting situation at this point.

Aaron: So, first off, yes, I knew about– when Roma sold the gold Eid Mar in 2020, I was the underbidder on the coin. At the time, I took a lot of the pedigree with a grain of salt on some level, because I was being told by several collectors that were offered the coin five years earlier that there was no pedigree offered. But my client, who I was representing, the pedigree wasn’t as important as the coin itself. And so, in hindsight, I’m glad we didn’t buy it. But it’s also ironic, because that coin sold for $4.2 million and if we wouldn’t have bid, it probably would have sold for $3 million, because when we got into the bidding, we brought an extra million pounds hammer when we were bidding.

So, that drew the hold one, which was on display at the British Museum since 2010 off display. Who knows if the client would have taken it off display, if it didn’t sell for $4 million? And so, ironically, then we’re able to buy that coin for 2.2 million Swiss francs hammer. So, it’s about $2.5 million, $2.6 million all in something like that in dollars. That one has a pedigree going back to the 30s. So, I knew about that hold one because my dad actually bought it for Barry Feirstein, which is the collector way back when, in 2001 or 2002, and he paid 120,000 Swiss francs for it back then. Then in 2004, Barry Feirstein sold his clutching through NAC and it brought $430,000, something like that. And now the client got over $2 million.

I was involved with both scenarios on the public buying side of things. The one thing I have to say, and I like Richard Beale at Roma very much. So, I have toed the line a little bit as well, but the one thing I can say is you never lie about pedigrees. That’s a big no-no in the industry. I’m not afraid to say it, and most of the dealers in our industry in ancient coins feel the same way. Anybody who’s ever gone to jail, they’ve gone to jail historically for faking pedigrees. That’s just something you just do not do.

Charles: Let’s talk about that real quick to dissect it for people so they understand what’s the difference between the need for a pedigree on a coin like that and a pedigree for an 1804 dollar. The deal is that we don’t have cultural property laws, or export laws, or anything like that about any US coin. So, it doesn’t matter if something comes out of somebody’s antique cabinet. They got at a flea market and it’s a super rare US coin. There’s no restriction that exists that prohibits someone from trading it. On a coin like this, this completely falls in a different category, right?

Aaron: Right. And really, I’ve made this point on the podcast is that there are no laws that say you can’t own ancient coins. It’s a matter of what can flow in and out of countries freely. And so, most source countries, it’s illegal to export out of those source countries, except for England and Israel. Those are the two countries that you can actually export out of. You can also export out of Germany, but you have to have now a 20-year pedigree to be able to do so to get export papers. So really, what it comes down to is a passport for ancient coins so they can move in and out of countries.

If you have a pre-1970 pedigree, that means museum institutions can purchase. It was part of the UNESCO treaty (PDF link) that was signed back then to keep museums and institutions from buying looted material after 1970. And so, a lot of this material that comes up for auction that’s pre-1970 pedigree brings sometimes 2, 3, 10 times what the coin is worth, because the pedigree itself is worth as much as the coin can be in some cases. It definitely will add 30% to 50% to the value or more, like I just mentioned. So, on a coin like this, to get somebody to spend millions of dollars, you’re going to pull more people into the fold if you have a pedigree before 1970 than if you didn’t, because there are collectors now in the upper 1% and 2% collecting base that will only buy pre-1970 pedigree coins.

So, in fact, the Sheikh of Qatar, who was buying in 2010 through 2012, he was only buying pre-1970 pedigree coins. And so, there was a problem with a gentleman who was faking pedigrees in New York for a sale, and they were making up pedigrees just for the Sheikh. And so, a lot of times greed plays into that. So, you want to try to get clients that normally wouldn’t buy a coin like that, and they will only do it if it has a pedigree.

So, on a coin like this, he supposedly paid for a pedigree. He’s admitted to that. There’s going to be some major consequences from that. Because of that, the coin, my guess is– because this is all hearsay at this point, the court case isn’t finished yet. The owner of the coin, who was an American, nobody knows who it was, gave up the coin to New York, even though it was out of state, probably because New York had information about when and where the coin was looted from, which supposedly was Greece, which makes sense because Brutus was actually issuing coins in not only Greece but Turkey at the time. So, it could have very well been Turkey, but they may have had information that went back to Greece. So, based on that, they can say, “Well, it was recently looted. And so, now not only does it have a tainted pedigree, but now we know when it came out and it’s going to go back to Greece at this point.”

Charles: Essentially, in that case, basically, it becomes maybe the property of the state. It’s like a cultural artifact and it gets tied up. So, without this passport, these coins are subject to seizure, especially if they’re rare.

Aaron: Yeah, it depends on, for us, our laws, it has to do with what can come in and out through customs. And so, the laws that are created are just based on what customs and how customs looks at certain things. So, if there’s restriction on Italy, the restrictions are going to between a certain date. And so, if those coins come in without a pedigree before that restriction date, then it could be seized at that point. So, when we do importing in from Europe on any auction, we have to make sure that our Ts are crossed and our Is are dotted. As long as you tell the truth about everything, there’s usually never a problem. My dad has a great line, “If you don’t lie, you don’t have to remember what you said.”

Mike: Sound advice.

Aaron: Yeah, sound advice. That’s how we’ve tried to always run our business. Nobody’s perfect, but I feel like that helps out quite a bit in that regard. There’s coins that come to market all the time that you’re like, “Well, that has no pedigree and it’s a million-dollar coin and it must be recently looted.” But there’s no proof of it anywhere. And so, it’s better never to make up a pedigree on something and you don’t know one way or the other when the coin came out. The auction house will say, “Oh, it came from an old family,” or whatever, but there’s no actual physical proof of that.

One thing I always do with my clients is I always make sure that whatever we’re bidding on that we make sure that we’re not going to have a problem down the road. Like I said, luckily with the gold Eid Mar, we didn’t buy it, because that would have been a problem. But in hindsight now, my client now owns the only one in private hand. He has a hole in it. Yes, but it’s the only gold Eid Mar that’s available in the market, because the other two now are going to be stuck in museums and they’re never going to come out. So, maybe that’s increased the value of his, I think so. So, it worked out for me and my client, but it didn’t work out for the buyer and for Roma.

Charles: Well, can I ask you a question about the market then? Obviously, the gold Roma Eid Mar sells for a record price. And a coin like that gets picked up by all sorts of major news wires and you see like Daily Mail and maybe CNN, other places might have had a thing on it. That obviously has to have a positive impact on the ancient coin collecting market and the ability for people to become interested in it, reach out and try to get involved, or buy coins, or think that ancient coins are all valuable or whatever.

But then to turn around and have the situation where the coin gets seized and there’s this allegation of illegal activity, that has to then have a negative impact on the market and make people feel like, “Well, I don’t know if I want to buy that, because maybe they’re all illegal to own.” In your opinion, just spit balling it here, is it a net positive that it sold for $4.6 million and then was called back? Or is it a net negative, because this high-profile coin that set a record price, that sale is considered dubious and specious in a way?

Aaron: I think both. I think that the price itself and the sale itself happened in 2020, and that’s always going to be history made, and that’s a positive for the ancient coin industry. The negative side obviously is that gentleman, that Roma faked a pedigree when they shouldn’t have done that. And so, that actually tainted the coin. So, if they wouldn’t have lied about that, they probably would have been fine ultimately.

I think historically, we’ve had these problems come up before and have hit the press all over. It’s bad in the beginning because it gives a negative view of the coin industry. It gets the archaeologists, who are constantly trying to fight against people collecting anything, to have a reason to vilify all of us. But I can say just from history that the ancient coin market has survived and I believe it will survive this quite well.

In fact, Roma had their mail bid sale like a couple of weeks after this whole stuff came out, and their sale still did gangbusters. I had clients that were like, “Should I still bid?” And I said, “Yeah, but let’s just bid on things that are known pedigrees, just to be safe.” I still spend close to $100,000 for clients in their sale, and people ask me, “Did you bid?” And I’m like, “Yeah, I bid.” I still supported them, because coins are still coins and the collectors are still collectors. And so, will Roma survive this? I think they will, but that’s yet to be seen.

In general, I’ve seen prices still very, very, very strong. NAC is about to– their sale is now up online. I’m going to actually be traveling to Zurich for the auction and there’s some major coins in that sale that could break the record for the gold Eid Mar. Who knows? It’s hard to say. But I expect that sale to do amazing business. I know Heritage is getting ready to sell the Hunt specimen Eid Mar, again, which we actually own. This will give you an idea of history again. So, the Hunt specimen silver Eid Mar denarius, which represents the assassination of Julius Caesar. That’s what we’re talking about, this gold one. But there’s about 80 to 100 in silver. We own that coin, that Hunt specimen coin. We paid $100,000 for it in something like 2008, and it wasn’t a good time in the ancient coin market at all. We held that coin. Actually, published it in our catalog, didn’t sell it. We ended up selling it a year later for $112,000 or $113,000. So, we made $13 grand.

Then, a number of years later, Harrod sold it and it brought a half a million. And so, that was a crazy price at the time. Nobody was getting prices like that. It was totally two people fighting it out in an auction. But I know all the history of that coin because we actually owned it. In fact, our ancient coin database, when we create a new record, it’s the image of that coin. That was our original because that’s when we were building our databases out.

So, it’s really interesting to see how the ancient coin market has gone. Knowing all the history of these coins, and my dad’s owned a lot of these coins, and so he’ll tell me like, “I’m getting ready to bid on a coin that might bring $2 million or $3 million in the NAC sale.” And my dad could have bought the coin in the 1970s for $100 grand. So, it’s just interesting and to be able to give that information to collectors is fun.

Charles: Yeah. Talking about that silver Eid Mar, just for the viewers to have a little context on that, the “Hunt” is Nelson Bunker Hunt. He was the Texas billionaire who tried to corner the silver market in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He lost a fortune on it. He still died rich, not quite as rich, but he was ancient coin collector par excellence. He had just an amazing collection of coins that he assembled through his life. So, that is a very strong pedigree.

Mike, I wanted to put you up for a few minutes and ask you directly a question. I want you to give your rundown, if you will, for what you would recommend people do if they want to follow your journey, have their own version of your journey, and get into ancient coins from other areas of numismatics. What information that they have from collecting modern coins or slab coins, what have you on the American side, what information is transferable into ancient coins? What would you recommend they do in the first three to six months to get their feet wet in this?

Mike: There are several things that I would consider to be just absolutely canon between collecting coins, no matter which ones you’re collecting. It could be the ancient or US and modern. One is, do your research, buy the book before you buy the coin. Research what you’re looking at. Have an idea. It’s okay when you first start out to buy things just to buy them, because they interest you, because you want to look at them. But at some point, you have to start trying to figure out what you have, and where it comes from, and where it fits into the market. I think that’s where a lot of people make their early mistakes. It’s okay. You’re going to learn from those mistakes. That’s the tuition you’re going to pay.

But the biggest thing I think is just that knowledge is the key, that the person who knows the most at the end usually wins. It’s just as true for ancient coins as it is for the US. The things that appeal to ancient coin collectors very much are the same things that US collectors look for. They look for good specimens, a nice shape, something that has historical significance, or describes an area, or a period of time that they find romantic. So, it’s trying to figure out what the fakes are. And most importantly, I think, is finding somebody who you can rely on and you can trust to just guide you and help you a bit. You’re going to learn a lot from books, but it’s always good to have somebody to bounce an idea off of. Somebody to say, “Am I getting this right? Is this really what you’re talking about when you say fine style? Is this the right era for this type of coin?” Just things like that.

Charles: A lot of people tend to be self-conscious. When you’re having a hobby, something you’re trying to avoid is to feel bad about yourself. [laughs] So, how do you overcome that feeling of maybe inadequacy about what you know or maybe what you can afford when you’re dealing with something like this? Obviously, Aaron is a super nice guy. I’m pretty sure. I can tell you from experience, my son is showing a budding interest in ancient coins, and he put together a really nice assemblage of pieces. I’m sure he didn’t charge me the market rate for it, let me buy it for him. I’m sure you put up with a lot of new collectors in the industry. And I say put up with, you’re also putting up with a lot of advanced collectors, because everybody puts their own kind of BS forward sometimes.

But what I’m saying is, how do you overcome that feeling of not feeling like you know what you should know when you’re exploring a new area in the hobby? How would you recommend people overcome maybe that fear?

Mike: Well, I will say that humility really helps. In my particular case, I come from an area that I actually know quite a bit about. And so, to absolutely start over from scratch and more importantly to do it on tape in front of the world, I think that takes a little bit of extra. But I don’t mind. It’s never been an issue for me because I think of myself as an educator. I think of myself as somebody who is really trying to push knowledge. I’m doing it from the negative side. I’m pulling it from the vacuum. I’m trying to show people that it’s okay to be unsure, that it’s okay to still be learning, that nobody knows everything. That people start out sometimes with no information, and that that’s okay.

If as long as you are passionate about it, and that you keep going at it, and as long as you look for good information, because the information is really key, there’s a lot to learn. I think that most collectors are really, really– understanding of that and other people, and they tend to nurture those people a little bit better, and they’ll help them out as much as they can. I think everybody likes to think that they’ve helped somebody along in their journey. So, being at the bottom end of the spectrum, if that’s what you are, it’s really not a bad place to be. It’s really quite a nice, warm place where there’s a lot of people to help you and a lot of people that have advice.

Charles: How about you, Aaron? I guess maybe one working theory is that coin dealer probably makes more money off of a beginner collector than somebody who doesn’t collect coins at all, right?

Aaron: Typically, when a new collector comes in and they want to buy something, I try to talk them out of it honestly. That’s how I built a lot of good relationships with clients, because I feel like you shouldn’t just run into this right away. I tell them, “Here’s my dad’s book.” Sometimes, I’ll give him a free copy, depending on who they are. If it’s a kid, I always give it to them. I had one collector who I didn’t sell anything to him for almost a year and a half. And every time he would come in, he’d say, “What about this coin?” It was my coin, and I’d say, “No, it’s a piece of crap. Don’t buy that.” And so, now he’s one of my better clients, and I’ve sold him hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of coins. But in the beginning, I didn’t sell him anything because he wasn’t ready.

So, I have no problem telling a new collector to take their time and to really focus on what they want to do, because that first purchase will always be the worst one that they’ll make, typically. A lot of collectors come back to me like a couple of years later and they say, “I need to get rid of that coin.” Some say, “Well, it was my first coin, so I’ll keep it.” So, it had sentimental value. And some people say, “Well, it’s not even the area I’m collecting anymore,” because they realize that wasn’t where they were going to go.

Just to get back on the podcast a little bit, one thing that Mike and I always wanted to do was to not make it feel like an infomercial about our company. That was always a tough balance for us. So, I had a collector recently ask us like, “Why don’t you do more pricing and show off more coins in your buyer bid sales?” I will promote the sales when they come out and talk about them like I would any other news portion of that part of the podcast, but I don’t want to focus too much on my company, because I do want to make sure that I’m being neutral in what I’m putting out there. The whole point of it was to help the new collector and to give them the tools, whether they use us as a company or me as a dealer or another dealer to give them the tools to be able to feel comfortable buying ancient coins. That was the whole premise of the show to begin with.

I feel like we’ve done that with new collectors, teaching them on what to do and what not to do. I think that we’ve given something to the advanced collector who maybe doesn’t know a certain area, and so then they learn about something they didn’t know anything about.

Charles: Well, I think it’s a great premise. When we set out to do our podcast, my guiding thought was that coins are interesting things. I say coins, but I really mean every bit of it. They’re collected by interesting people. In some respects, the hobby in numismatics, the objects we collect kind of become the totem that allows us to have these great relationships and stories. I can’t tell you how many of my fondest memories about this industry don’t involve me buying or selling a coin or working on something. It’s like a conversation after dinner, after a show, or something, or going somewhere with somebody, going on vacation with somebody, lifelong friendships. In reality, the community is a subculture we’re all part of.

Then the other thing, I always thought, since I have the ability to publish and create things, because that’s what we do, why don’t I do the things that I want to consume? Like if I was a consumer. And so, when I was thinking about podcasting, well, I imagine stacks in the 50s and 40s where you had all the top New York collectors just hanging out like it was their clubhouse. I was just imagining the kinds of conversations that were happening over the counter. And so, I was like, “Well, just do those conversations and have that experience. Imagine that experience.”

What you guys have been doing on your podcast is very, very much in tune with the thing I would be looking for in the market. It’s like what I want to hear. I want to hear people talk about it. I want to hear that interesting, fascinating conversation over the counter about something. I think, like you said, Mike is bringing in a perspective of someone trying to learn. Frankly, that’s most people are collecting coins.

Like I said, one of my best friends is an ancient coin collector, he’s on the Board of Trustees at the ANS, and he goes, “Oh, they picked me because they wanted a southern cracker on the board.” Like, “They wanted diversity and represent the guy that didn’t know anything.” It’s just like, even like a guy at that level to feel like, “Oh, he’s still learning everything,” that is an experience that’s shared by many, many people. We can’t all be David Hendin and spend 30 years in the Levant. [crosstalk]

Aaron: Also, what’s really cool about our podcast is Mike knows a lot. He knows everything about US coins, and I don’t. And so, I’m kind of an idiot when it comes to US coins. So, a lot of times, I’ll bring up specific things about US coins and the US market, and Mike can give that perspective. And so, even though he doesn’t know anything about ancient coins, he can give this perspective from the US coin market. So, that’s helpful in bringing the two closer together and showing the differences between the two, which is really, really cool. It’s a lot of fun to have Mike there for that reason alone.

We do have one advertiser now. We have a winery that wanted to advertise with us, but we don’t– like NGC or Heritage or any of these people, they don’t pay us. So, we can talk about the difference between slabbing ancient coins and not slabbing ancient coins. I have a negative view about slabbing in some ways and positive other ways. People always think like, “Oh, Aaron, you hate slabs.” Well, no, I don’t hate slabs, but I talk about the negative sides of it and what to look out for. And so, I think that gives us an advantage over some of the news portals that don’t want to step on NGC’s toes because they’re advertisers. So, I think that gives us a great advantage to be able to speak candidly about certain things, but not to attack them because that’s not really my goal. My goal is not to attack, it’s to educate. And so, I think that gives us a unique perspective and a good place to be with our– [crosstalk]

Mike: We can be critical without being beholden to them.

Aaron: Correct.

Charles: Aaron, are you suggesting that perhaps the population report of the Athenian tetradrachm is not representative of the total overall market?

Aaron: Correct. [laughs]

Mike: [laughs]

Charles: Especially, when one brings $50,000, [laughs] which is what happened.

Mike: Yeah.

Charles: Give it 2,000 more years of time, folks, and then I think it’ll probably– [crosstalk]

Aaron: Yeah, it’s so funny. Yeah, the ignorance that can be out there– and there’s ignorance in anything. If you just don’t know, you shouldn’t be putting your money into it until you really know. I always say to people, if you don’t want to use me as a dealer or my company as a dealer, go find a dealer that’s legit and work with them, especially if you’re spending real money and make sure that that dealer is accountable for mistakes that happen as well. Because we talk about that on the podcast all the time, is that you always know whether it’s in the coin business or in life, that when the worst things happen, you really see the people’s personalities and what they are willing to do or not do at that point. So, having a good dealer standing behind their product and making sure that they’re there to fight for you when a problem occurs.

If you’re sitting there just screwing all your clients on what you sell them, then you’re not going to be very happy when you get those coins back. [chuckles] And so, I want to make sure that every collection that I get back from collectors that now want to sell, that I’m proud to resell them and find homes and hopefully do well for the client. If I didn’t screw them, then it’s going to be fine in that regard. It’s amazing to me when I see these multimillionaires spend money in places they should not be spending money in.

Charles: Absolutely. They want trophies. They don’t really care what kind of trophy it is.

Aaron: It’s not a good trophy.

Charles: Well, guys, I appreciate you guys taking the time out to come on. Again, good luck on what you’re doing. I think you’re doing a great job. It’s amazing. You’re almost at 30 episodes on this already and that you’re in for it for the long haul. A lot of people, they don’t commit the time and effort to do it for the long haul. So, I’m glad that you’re doing it. It’s a great program. I’m happy to help, support it, and get people aware of it. We’ll continue to repost them and accordingly. In fact, I think we need to catch up. I think we’re behind several episodes. But I do appreciate you talking to me about it and letting me experience it a little bit on the side here. You guys are welcome back on anytime you want. It’d actually be a hoot for me, Aaron, to get you and your sister on together one time.

Aaron: That would be fun.

Charles: Yeah, good luck, best of luck, and look forward to the next episode.

Mike: Thanks, Charles.

Aaron: Thanks, Charles, for everything you do. You put out great content. CoinWeek is wonderful. I always use CoinWeek all the time when promoting the industry and showing people where to get good content. And so, I really appreciate what you’ve done with CoinWeek since you’ve been there. I don’t think we mentioned it, but if you want to find our podcast, it’s the Ancient Coin podcast with Aaron Berk. All the episodes are on YouTube, and you can go to our website, and we have a tile on our homepage that will link you to all of them as well.

Charles: We’ll put a link in the description here too. All right, thanks, guys. Have a great rest of your week.

Aaron: Thank you.

Mike: Thanks a lot. Take care.

Charles: Thank you.

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©2023 Collecting Media, LLC

Coinweek is the Gold Standard for independent online media concerning rare coin and currency news; with analysis and information contributed by leading experts across the numismatic spectrum.

More news and videos about coin collecting at CoinWeek.

The post CoinWeek Podcast 178: Podcasting About Ancient Coins with Aaron Berk and Mike Nottelmann appeared first on CoinWeek: Rare Coin, Currency, and Bullion News for Collectors.

Mobile phone users. Stream this podcast for free by downloading the podomatic app or subscribe to the CoinWeek Podcast on iTunes.

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In this episode of the CoinWeek Podcast, CoinWeek Editor Charles Morgan talks to Tom Uram, a former member of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC) and the current President of the Pennsylvania Association of Numismatists (PAN).

Tom is an example of the power and possibilities that exist within the coin collecting hobby. He has worked tirelessly over the years to bring excitement to coin collecting, and as a result, he will be the next President of the American Numismatic Association (ANA).

Tom is a doer. His dedication is evidenced by his role in the CCAC, his heading of the Pennsylvania Association of Numismatists, and his efforts to get the United States Congress to authorize the 2021 Morgan and Peace dollar bullion coins program.

Charles and Tom have a candid conversation about the hobby, how to grow it, and how we get more active collectors to be active members of the broader coin culture.

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The CoinWeek Podcast is sponsored by PCGS.

At the Central States Numismatic Society’s (CSNS) Annual Convention, PCGS will be hosting a Set Registry Showdown. Two of the best collections – J&L and Escalante – will go head to head in this battle. Attendees will have the opportunity to view each collection and make their own judgment as to which is superior.

Learn more about this unique event by visiting www.pcgs.com and plan to join the action in Schaumburg, Illinois starting April 26! Don’t miss out on the chance to see some of the finest collections compete side-by-side and take in one of the best coin shows in the country.

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©2023 Collecting Media, LLC

Coinweek is the Gold Standard for independent online media concerning rare coin and currency news; with analysis and information contributed by leading experts across the numismatic spectrum.

More news and videos about coin collecting at CoinWeek.

The post CoinWeek Podcast #177: Tom Uram on Coins & Clubs appeared first on CoinWeek: Rare Coin, Currency, and Bullion News for Collectors.

Mobile phone users. Stream this podcast for free by downloading the podomatic app or subscribe to the CoinWeek Podcast on iTunes.

* * *

For more than 40 years, numismatist Donn Pearlman has worked with major dealers and market makers to bring broad public attention to the many amazing stories that unfold in the coin-collecting hobby.

In this episode of the CoinWeek Podcast, Donn discusses some of the big projects he worked to promote, including the gold coins, ingots, and other treasure recovered from the SS Central America shipwreck site; the cans of gold coins of the Saddle Ridge Gold Coin Hoard; and the discovery of the lost Walton specimen 1913 Liberty Head nickel.

Donn also discusses writing the script for a coin-collecting documentary starring legendary American actor James Earl Jones. We also cover the demographics of the modern coin-collecting hobby on this podcast and how there are actually more younger collectors now than people think.

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The Coinweek Podcast is brought to you by PCGS. Submit five or more coins for grading and be one of the first to receive a new PCGS Coin Stand – perfect for displaying your favorite PCGS-graded coin.

Whether your favorite coin is a rare 1799 Large Cent graded VF30 or a 2023 First Strike Silver Eagle, what better way to admire your PCGS certified coin than proudly displaying it on your desk, bookshelf, or mantle.

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CoinWeek is the #1 website online for news and information about numismatics.

For four years running, the CoinWeek Podcast has been recognized by the Numismatic Literary Guild (NLG) as the hobby’s Best Audio Program. CoinWeek has also won the NLG Award for the best Numismatic Website for six of the past seven years!

©2023 Collecting Media, LLC

Coinweek is the Gold Standard for independent online media concerning rare coin and currency news; with analysis and information contributed by leading experts across the numismatic spectrum.

More news and videos about coin collecting at CoinWeek.

The post CoinWeek Podcast #176: Selling Coin Stories with Donn Pearlman appeared first on CoinWeek: Rare Coin, Currency, and Bullion News for Collectors.

In today’s episode of the CoinWeek Podcast, CoinWeek Editor Charles Morgan talks to Joe Menna, Chief Engraver of the United States Mint.

Joe has devoted practically his whole life to art and now, as the main art director at the Mint, he gets to bring that lifetime of thought and devotion to bear on a task that is both an exciting personal opportunity and something bigger than himself: the creation of a national coinage that we can all be proud of. A task that Joe takes very much to heart.

To a collector, there is much to be learned here about recent Mint history, how the Mint works behind the scenes, and what being the Chief Engraver… a position officially revived after almost 40 years… entails in the 21st century.

To an artist, there’s a lot that can be gleaned from Joe Menna’s open and earnest discussion about his experiences as both a student and a professional – as well as his thoughts and feelings on art itself. From José Luis García-López to Van Gogh, he’s not afraid to mix the low and the high, the popular and the fine.

We talk about all this and more, next, on the CoinWeek Podcast!

Mobile phone users. Stream this podcast for free by downloading the podomatic app or subscribe to the CoinWeek Podcast on iTunes.

* * *

The Coinweek Podcast is brought to you by PCGS. Submit five or more coins for grading and be one of the first to receive a new PCGS Coin Stand – perfect for displaying your favorite PCGS-graded coin.

Whether your favorite coin is a rare 1799 Large Cent graded VF30 or a 2023 First Strike Silver Eagle, what better way to admire your PCGS certified coin than proudly displaying it on your desk, book shelf or mantle.

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CoinWeek is the #1 website online for news and information about numismatics.

For four years running, the CoinWeek Podcast has been recognized by the Numismatic Literary Guild (NLG) as the hobby’s Best Audio Program. CoinWeek has also won the NLG Award for the best Numismatic Website for six of the past seven years!

©2023 Collecting Media, LLC

Coinweek is the Gold Standard for independent online media concerning rare coin and currency news; with analysis and information contributed by leading experts across the numismatic spectrum.

More news and videos about coin collecting at CoinWeek.

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The post An Interview With US Chief Engraver Joe Menna appeared first on CoinWeek: Rare Coin, Currency, and Bullion News for Collectors.

Mobile phone users. Stream this podcast for free by downloading the podomatic app or subscribe to the CoinWeek Podcast on iTunes.

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In this episode of the CoinWeek Podcast, CoinWeek Editor Charles Morgan talks to Brian Bass, a coin dealer and a former telemarketer who lets us in on the tricks and high-pressure tactics that so-called “boiler rooms” use to sell overpriced coins to the unsuspecting. In this interview, you’ll get a rare insight into the shady side of the rare coin market.

The Coinweek Podcast is brought to you by PCGS. Submit 5 or more coins for grading and be one of the first to receive a new PCGS Coin Stand – perfect for displaying your favorite PCGS-graded coin!

Whether your favorite coin is a rare 1799 Large Cent graded VF30 or a 2023 First Strike Silver Eagle, what better way to admire your PCGS certified coin than proudly displaying it on your desk, book shelf or mantle.

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CoinWeek is the #1 website online for news and information about numismatics.

For four years running, the CoinWeek Podcast has been recognized by the Numismatic Literary Guild (NLG) as the hobby’s Best Audio Program. CoinWeek has also won the NLG Award for the best Numismatic Website for six of the past seven years!

©2023 Collecting Media, LLC

Coinweek is the Gold Standard for independent online media concerning rare coin and currency news; with analysis and information contributed by leading experts across the numismatic spectrum.

More news and videos about coin collecting at CoinWeek.

The post CoinWeek Podcast #174: Coin Telemarketer Confidential appeared first on CoinWeek: Rare Coin, Currency, and Bullion News for Collectors.

In this episode of the CoinWeek Podcast, Editor Charles Morgan speaks to former United States Mint Director David Ryder. Absolutely nothing was off the table. Charles and David Ryder discuss Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s notorious trip to Fort Knox; whether we are stuck with an “imperial” coinage; why eliminating the cent would me a mistake; how COVID-19 impacted the Mint’s ability to meet the nation’s coinage needs; whether the low mintage of the privy marked Eagles was a mistake; why the United States Mint decided to redesign the American Gold and Silver Eagles, and much more.

Mobile phone users. Stream this podcast for free by downloading the podomatic app or subscribe to the CoinWeek Podcast on iTunes.

The Coinweek Podcast is brought to you by PCGS. The PCGS Members Only Show will be held from Wednesday, February 22, to Friday, February 24, 2023, at Park MGM in Las Vegas, Nevada.

PCGS members can take advantage of this exclusive event to buy and sell coins, have their coins graded on-site, and talk directly with PCGS representatives who will be on hand to answer questions.

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CoinWeek is the #1 website online for news and information about numismatics.

For four years running, the CoinWeek Podcast has been recognized by the Numismatic Literary Guild (NLG) as the hobby’s Best Audio Program. CoinWeek has also won the NLG Award for the best Numismatic Website for six of the past seven years!

©2022 Collecting Media, LLC

Coinweek is the Gold Standard for independent online media concerning rare coin and currency news; with analysis and information contributed by leading experts across the numismatic spectrum.

More news and videos about coin collecting at CoinWeek.

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The post CoinWeek Podcast #173: My Time at the United States Mint, With David J. Ryder appeared first on CoinWeek: Rare Coin, Currency, and Bullion News for Collectors.

Mobile phone users. Stream this podcast for free by downloading the podomatic app or subscribe to the CoinWeek Podcast on iTunes.

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In this episode of the CoinWeek Podcast, Editor Charles Morgan speaks to Dana Samuelson, Former President of the Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG), and Doug Davis, Director of the Anti-Counterfeiting Educational Foundation (ACEF), about the work the coin industry is undertaking to assist the United States Federal Government in fighting counterfeit coins.

You can visit the ACEF’s website here.

The Coinweek Podcast is brought to you by PCGS. The PCGS Members Only Show will be held from Wednesday, February 22, to Friday, February 24, 2023, at Park MGM in Las Vegas, Nevada.

PCGS members can take advantage of this exclusive event to buy and sell coins, have their coins graded on-site, and talk directly with PCGS representatives who will be on hand to answer questions.

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The following is a transcript of Charles’ conversation with Doug and Dana:

Charles Morgan: So, I’d like to thank Doug Davis from the Anti-Counterfeit Education– what is it? “Foundation”, right? And Dana Samuelson from American Gold Exchange. Is that right?

Dana Samuelson: Yes, sir.

Charles: Okay. We’re going to talk today about the importance of the work that the ACEF is doing in regard to combating the scourge of counterfeit bullion and collectible coins, and how that fight has gone from just knowledgeable collectors educating each other about what to look for to involving the federal government’s law enforcement, the Secret Service, and other levels to try to put a stop to this. I think most collectors have an idea that there are fake coins out there, but I don’t think they realize the scope of the problem.

A few years ago, I talked with Beth Deisher, who was at the time heading the Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force, the precursor to the current organization. And she had some very eye-opening details about just the industrial scale of this issue. I’m sure in the years since, it’s just gotten worse. We may have– and I don’t know, we’ll find out if we took a breather during the COVID, a quarantine period, whether it was just still proliferating at that point. We had a national coin shortage. So, it seems like a perfect opportunity to try to pass some fake circulating coins.

So, we’re going to let these two gentlemen share their experience and expertise in this area and try to drill down on this topic so you’ll better informed and you’ll know who’s fighting this fight for you and how you might be able to contribute to the ultimate goal of succeeding against this. So, thank you, gentlemen.

Dana: It’s my pleasure to be here with you. Thank you for having us, Charles.

Doug Davis: My sentiments exactly. We appreciate the opportunity to provide some education in the area of these counterfeits, which is plaguing the market right now.

Charles: So, Dana, tell me how you got involved in this fight and why, as a coin dealer, you think that this is like an existential threat to not only the hobby but to the overall industry. We’re talking about bullion investors, we’re talking about coin collectors, we’re talking about even somebody going to spend money in the public space.

Dana: Well, thank you. I was fortunate to be on the Professional Numismatist Guild Board for 12 years, and I was president of PNG from 2015 to 2017. It was under my watch that we became aware that there was a small but growing proliferation of spurious bullion products coming into the US market, primarily from China. I’ve been in the business since 1980 and I had the good fortune of working for Jim Blanchard early in my career. And Jim Blanchard was the man who helped to found ICTA, the Industry Council for Tangible Assets, by calling 10 of his trading partners into a meeting in New Orleans and said, “You’re going to each give me $10,000 and we’re going to start this lobbying organization.”

So, when I was presented with the problem of this industrial-scale counterfeiting issue growing at the April 2016 Central States Coin Show, there are about five or six of us in the room. Kathy McFadden, who is the head of Victor, Beth Deisher was there, Bob Rugerman, the executive director of Victor was there. I just said, “Hey, we’ve got a problem here that’s bigger than just us coin dealers. We need to have Secret Service involved, Homeland Security involved.” We know some of the mints are already responding to the problem. The Canadian men had already started to put frosted little maple leaves on the back of their gold and silver bullion items. So, I said, “We need a task force.” It was just cloning Jim’s idea from back in the early 80s to create ICTA. I said, “We need a task force.”

Kathy McFadden, head of ICTA at the time, said, “Well, I’ll spearhead it.” We have the time and effort to do that. And Beth Deisher was actually formidable, incredible in helping to put the task force together. This was in April. We had our July meeting around the ANA in Los Angeles. That year, we had about 50 people in the room, including Homeland Security and Secret Service, who have stepped to the plate. Prior to that, Secret Service thought that a counterfeit $100 bill was not as big a problem as a counterfeit 1 oz gold eagle that has a $50 face value and a street value at the time of about $1,300. They’ve since come to the realization that this is a big problem.

Now it’s small, but it’s growing and it’s not going to stop, which is why it’s very important that the work of the task force continues to be supported, and people understand that there is a problem, and they do need to understand what they can do to sidestep it and prevent themselves from having a problem as ultimate consumers. Now as a dealer, we can pretty much, most of the time, easily tell that a bullion item or a vintage coin is spurious. But it’s not easy for the public that doesn’t see near the volume that we do. So, that’s probably the long part of the short story you want me to say, Charles. That’s how it was created.

Charles: And, Doug, what are you seeing now as far as the threat to the market and the type of material that’s coming in and the buy-in that you’re getting from the federal authorities?

Doug: Sure. Well, first of all, the mission of ACF and the work that was being done, first of all, was to educate really law enforcement, and legislators, and everything in regard to the big problem and then, providing them with resources to help them try to solve– not solve the problem, get the interest there and them realizing how big of a problem is, if it is. The key to it of it is, it’s gotten to the point where, in my opinion, it’s compromising the integrity of the numismatic and the precious metals industry. Not only that, but also the US monetary system because of the amount that’s being flooded in the US marketplace and everything.

But right now, we’re seeing just about everything that’s coming across in regard to the reports we get, dealers that are calling in and what they’re seeing coming across the corner. The third-party grading services have done an outstanding job coordinating with us and providing us with information to move forward and some of the investigations that we’re involved with. But it runs the gamut, not just numismatic coins, but the bullion coins. It’s not just the US products. It’s worldwide mints around the globe. So, it’s creating a twofold problem. Two-fold problem from law enforcement standpoint, and then the problem within our industry.

Like Dana pointed out, if you are a big dealer and you see this kind of stuff all the time coming across the counter, that’s great for the big dealer. But counterfeiters now and the people that have turned and seeing the opportunity to prey on individuals that are uneducated, they are using some unscrupulous means to use that opportunity. Even going out to the mom-and-pop shops or say that they’re in the suburbs of the major cities that don’t see this type of counterfeits coming across the counter like the other bigger dealerships do. So, it’s creating a problem for them. And then, it’s even creating a bigger problem for the normal investor or the numismatic collector.

But what created the biggest problem that we saw, and Dana pointed out when we really got started in 2017, is there was always a previous history of counterfeits on the market, but it’s just blown up exponentially in the last five years. But what really sparked it was when COVID hit, and people were uncertain of the US economy, and what was going to happen. They were uncertain about what was going to happen with the banking industry and everything.

I think a key to that was that when the bank started shutting down, you couldn’t go into the bank and get your money. The ATM machines weren’t being restocked and everything and they had nothing. I think that created a mental issue with them is that, “Hey, what am I going to do?” So, then you have the volatility of the metals market going crazy and people started looking at another means of investment in the normal conventional ways of doing things.

What that did was then that triggered the rush into the numismatics and into the precious metals market, because that provided them an avenue where they could have something in their hands. They could buy it. They could buy a roll of eagles, they could buy gold coins and everything. They could put it in their safe at the house or whatever. It was something tangible they could hold in their hands. At least, you could barter for a loaf of bread or something like that, where if your dollars were in the bank, you couldn’t get to, then there was issues.

So, then what we saw was then the internet blew up. Everybody started shopping and buying off of that. Well, the counterfeiters of coins and precious metals saw that as a big opportunity to start focusing in on the numismatic industry and the precious metals industry, and started doing all kinds of advertising. They went directly to the social media platforms, websites. The counterfeiters were buying hundreds and hundreds of domains.

The key to what they were trying to do was that their marketing plan was that, if I have thousand domains that I bought, each domain, I want to make $250,000 in a two-week period, and then I’ll shut that down and go to another one. They were using Facebook pop up ads as a way to entice and prey on individuals that are uneducated in precious metals in the numismatic marketplace. But these people were so scared of what was going on. They wanted to funnel their money into something else and that’s what was happening. But that targeted them as victims and that raised the red flags of the counterfeiters.

Organized groups and individuals have found a way to buy counterfeits through these black-market websites or not even black market. We’re talking about Alibaba and those type of websites where you can buy rolls of counterfeits, although they advertise them as shown being copy or fake counterfeit or whatever. But in actuality, and the ones that we have bought through these websites is 100% of the times, the one that we target have come back and have been counterfeit. And so, you can see.

What it did was, you might have had– The internet was a big part of buying power. But when COVID hit, it was 10 times you had the audience than you did previous to that. So, that gave them the opportunity to go in all kinds of directions. But the other problem with that was that not only hurt victims, just the normal individual, or the business investor, or whatever the case may be, but they took it a little farther. They actually violated the intellectual property rights of coin dealerships of organizations such as PNG, ANA because they used creative marketing techniques to prey on those individuals that are uneducated in these two areas.

So, when you look at one of their sites and see that, you see a video of them putting mint tubed eagles in a green monster box, and then putting the tape around it, and then it shows it rolling out the door into an armored car and everything, you think you’re getting it from the US mint. When you see in their ad, as it scrolls down that we are associated with the ANA, PNG, ICTA at that time, and now it’s changed. NCBA. What they were trying to do is to give credibility to their products. And even in the verbiage that they have in their ads, it sounded great.

They did great research in there and putting it all together, but we picked those apart when we see those and we can see that they’re using templates, basically the same thing, just using a different organization or a dealership and everything. But you have to realize that when they’re using a dealership logo or brand and everything, you’re not only hurting the reputation of that, but you’re losing a lot of money. When it turns around that now there’s some credibility. We’ve seen a lot of US mint products being counterfeited and everything. You don’t want people to be scared of buying US mint products. But they are counting everything within a mint product. That’s the outside packaging, that’s the holder that it’s in.

They’re even counterfeiting the certificate of authenticity in there. Unless you’ve looked at it and you really research it, you really pick it apart, or you realize that when you order stuff that you can’t get a refund, you can’t get in contact with them– When we investigate it and everything, we see that they’re using addresses that are ghost addresses. When you look and see where those locations are, it’s in an empty field or it’s in a warehouse district with nothing there. So, again, it’s creating major problems we see every day and we are attacking it from different forefront. So, that’s what we’re looking at.

Again, it’s become an amazing problem. I don’t think it’s going to get any better anytime soon, because the technology is getting so good that even some of the pros in the business are getting stumped on some of them, these things, because when we see a flaw or we see a mining area error or whatever, and it’s advertised, a week later, it’s corrected and new products been out, and so now you have to look at something else, whether it’s a different metal. You can’t just use the conventional ways of the pain test and so forth. You got to use all those different types of tests right now, because they’re just trying to pull the wool over everybody’s eyes and changing metals and so forth. So, that’s what we’re being faced with.

Charles: I point out that, Dana, you said that the bigger dealers have the in-house experience to be able to ascertain if coins are spurious. I think that’s actually getting much harder, because Jack Young writes a series of articles for us, where he describes families of counterfeit coins, where maybe the counterfeiters take a host coin that’s genuine, they replicate it, beat it up a little bit in their re-creations. They have been successful in getting these into third-party holders, like genuine third-party holders. They’re the minority of coins that get submitted that get through that.

But to what Doug was saying, I’ve seen the Facebook ads that he’s talking about. It looks like you’re going to an actual brick & mortar coin shop. When you click on it, there’s pictures of jewelry cases of coins, and books in the back, and it looks like they’re all about education. And then, they’ll have graded Morgan dollars or something for sale. We had a reader of our site about two weeks ago buy 10 of these coins, these PCGS-graded Morgan dollars, supposedly PCG-graded coins, they get them, and all of the serial numbers are the same. So, they didn’t even bother to print like a sequence of serial numbers for these fake coins. They just gave him 10 copies of the same counterfeit, and then he paid $25 a coin. That’s one thing that you have to be aware. Don’t let your own enthusiasm and this belief you’re getting a good deal color over the correct amount of suspicion you should have about a reputable third-party graded Morgan dollar in a nice uncirculated condition.

So, what we’re seeing on our end is a lot of brand confusion because Facebook ads can lend a ton of credibility to a counterfeiting operation, because people are seeing their family members and their friends and all of these people they already trust and interface with. So, when they’re given a spurious ad, they’re not on guard. They just take it for granted that a big company like Facebook wouldn’t allow a bunch of criminals to sell scams on their site. And apparently, there is no check for that. They just allow this to happen.

Then, when it comes to the material that’s out there and circulation, it’s not just collector coins. I think, Danny, you were telling me when were on the phone last that, you saw pallets of circulating quarters in a warehouse before that they were all fake. You don’t just run the risk of buying a coin that’s not real and losing money on that, but we’re actually running the risk of having fake coins just in the regular channels of commerce probably the first time since the colonial period.

Dana: Right. A cottage industry that is becoming more than cottages. It’s becoming a house, and maybe even bigger than that. They’re knocking off modern bullion products, they’re knocking off vintage coins. It used to be just a minor problem with vintage coins, and now they’re adapting in real-time, as Doug mentioned, and they’re becoming more unsophisticated as time passes because as knowledge is imparted on them, why it’s bad, they react to that to fix the errors that they’ve had. It’s a growing problem and it is not just vintage coins. They’re knocking off US quarters for one thing.

Beth Deisher showed me at a FUN show a couple of years ago, a couple of coins she picked up and changed– a couple of quarters she picked up and changed from the Beeline, which is the toll road from the Orlando airport to the convention center, and I looked at them, I said, “Well, they’re pretty bad beat up, but what about them, Beth?” And she had a whole bag of them behind the table that she’d picked up when this problem was just discovered and said, “These are all Chinese counterfeits.” What they were doing was, the design was a little off, so they would damage them, pummel them, make them look like they were horribly circulated to hide the design flaws.

There were thousands of them hitting the market because they were jamming up high, sophisticated counting machines that purely in brinks had because some of them were a little out of around through the aging process that they used. One of my PNG colleagues went to a warehouse. Not me, but one of my PNG colleagues went to a warehouse in Manhattan a couple of years ago to look at product that he was asked to do by Homeland Security. It was 22 crates of quarters, £2,000 each, all Chinese knockoffs of US quarters. They were pretty close to the actual metal composition, but they had a flaw in them that I’m not going to discuss now, but a flaw that we know about.

So, they’re knocking off everything. The public needs to be aware of this, so they can do what they need to do. Their due diligence. It’s important that the public understands that there is a problem and that they do need to drill down. If I had a nickel for every time I reported on Facebook spam, “This is spam,” then a monster box that was getting advertised for a couple of $1,000 less than it should have been trading for was a spurious product and like Doug said, you go to the website that’s advertising the product, and it looks good, but there’s nothing behind it. So, it’s highly important that people on the street that want to buy good that’s too good to be true is too good to be true.

Number one, use your common sense. And more importantly, deal with professionals in the industry who, at least, have the wherewithal to be the first gatekeeper to make sure that the product that they’re delivering is legitimately correct product, authentic for what it’s supposed to be, whether it’s vintage or not. They are now trying to the counterfeits are now trying to knock off PCGS holders. Doug Davis, you had some of those very same Morgan dollars at the FUN show in January. You showed me at your table. Doug has done an incredible job, but he’s a small operation compared to what we’re facing, which is why it’s imperative that Doug and the ACEF get as much support from the community at large and even past that as possible.

We’re grateful that we have Homeland Security and Secret Service involved and the dealer community PNG members have volunteered to be authenticators, if they’re called upon. We’re grateful for that. But it’s a big problem and we need to have as much support as possible, which is why I’m grateful that you’re having us on today, Charles, so we can discuss it and try and help get the word out there of what you can do to make sure that you’re protected, if you’re an individual customer and how you could help to support the ACEF and the fight that it’s up against in protecting the integrity of the product.

Charles: Doug, let me ask you a question. You have a background in law enforcement. What is the profile of these criminals? Are these domestic opportunists, organized criminal syndicates? Is this foreign criminal syndicates? Is this state economic warfare? What really at the heart of this is behind this problem that we’re facing?

Doug: Well, number one is you got the counterfeits. Number one is they’re after the dollar. They’re after the profit. They see a way to make some money pulling the wool over people’s eyes. Again, the uneducated and everything. We’re seeing it in some different avenues from the standpoint of the manufacturers, but the manufacturers have to have a way of distributing this product. And I’ll give you an example. Last year, we seized 5,000 US Silver Eagles coming into the DFW Airport. We worked with customs, border protection and the local secret service office. We had an PNG expert go out there with us. We authenticated and was being counterfeited and everything.

Then, what we saw was that it was coming in from China, but it was coming into a business located five miles from my office, which was great at that particular time. Based on the address of that location, it was in an industrial district and everything. So, when we saw where that address was and at the time that we had the product arrived at DFW, we actually went and set up surveillance at that location at the same time that we were out at the airport and seizing that, and found out in front as we looked is that there were just boxes of stuff coming into that location. And so, once we found out what kind of an operation it was, it was a distribution point for a lot of different other products.

But across the street, the highway, there was a large Asian population strip center, huge malls and stuff like that. And so, we figured out based on some of the packaging that we had people go in and see where they were being sent to from that distribution point, it was going to those type facilities. So, that particular distribution point or distributor there then was distributed to other places, going to flea markets, or going to these Asian bazaars, or whatever. So, again, you’re seeing it’s going from the manufacturer to a distributor that has an organized group or– It may not be organized group, but you have buyers that are looking for that. They can see the opportunity to make that.

For example, if they bought off of Alibaba or AliExpress or whatever, the ad on Alibaba or Express, it shows copy on those coins. But when you buy them, we’ve never seen it where there’s been a copy or fake or whatever. So, they take those rolls that they’re buying and take them to set up at flea market and put them for $5 or $10 under cost and getting rid of them.

Then, the other thing that we’re seeing is that we are actually making the good, honest person turn into a potential criminal, because they ordered three rolls for investment of these eagles, put them in their safe and thinking that’s an investment tool for them at a later date. But then in a couple of weeks, there’s a problem with the family, a car problem, they need the money, so they take them out, they take them to the local dealers and he says, “Well, these are counterfeit.” Well, okay, it’s counterfeit. So, he goes, “Well, heck, I’m out of money. I still need to get my car fixed. What are the cases of these?” So, what does he do? He takes them to another dealer, tries to sell it, and then he goes to another one until he finds somebody that is not educated, even from a professional standpoint and sells them.

Then right there from a law enforcement standpoint, what he has done is he has developed a sequence of events that he’s knowingly, intentionally going in there to commit fraud. Because he knows after the third time that they tell him that they’re no good and he finds a fourth person that will buy them, then that’s enough probable cause to have him arrested for fraud and type. So, we’re seeing that it’s different areas. You can have organized groups, you can have organized, just single individuals and everything. They’re taking the opportunity of what’s going on.

Again, it’s blowing up. It’s getting to the point where I think everybody needs to be concerned. Like Dana was saying, we encourage everybody to make sure that they’re using credible dealers such as PNG dealers, or ANA dealers, or your local dealer. It doesn’t matter. You have to vet the people that you’re buying from. You can’t buy off a Craigslist. You can’t buy off of Facebook pop up ads or websites that are advertising these types of things, unless you do your homework, unless you do the research, and you know and feel comfortable with who you’re dealing with. That’s what we encourage.

But from the standpoint of ACF and the Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force, there’s a lot of things that we’re doing to help enhance investigations and enhance education within law enforcement, the legislators and everything. We, on a daily basis, are averaging and monitoring over 200 websites and social media platforms that are selling counterfeits. We buy off of these platforms, websites, and everything to ensure that what they’re selling is legitimate products.

99.9% of the time, the ones that we’re investigating are not. Once we find out that those sites are selling counterfeit products, then we turn it over to the agencies that we feel like they’re going to go after those individuals. That’s Secret Service. We built great relationships with Secret Service and the different levels of customs and border protection and everything, and we funnel information to them. We funnel information to the US mint in regards to the US mint products that are being counterfeited.

Then like Dana was saying, we have a group of experts within ACTF and ACF that we are able across the country, wherever law enforcement agency needs assistance out on the scene or whatever the case may be, we will get them that expert out there to authenticate those products. We get calls for that all the time. We will fly there to make sure that we can assist those agencies. But I want to give you a good example of how bad this problem of it is customs and border protection did a project. It was about an eight-week deal of screening for just coins in one of the international mail facilities.

At that point, they called us and asked us, if we could provide an expert and come and help them evaluate what they had seized in one of the ports. Well, it turned out, we went out to the facility and everything. There were over 1,500 packages that came in from and 99.9% of them came from China. Each package contained anywhere from $50 to $100 and something coins. The average package, we valued at about $1,000, $1,200. When you think about it– So, if that’s the case, then you have 1,500 victims that have been taken by counterfeits. You multiply that, and a lot of these packages contain two and a half Indian gold pieces. They 1 oz Silver Eagles, and others and everything.

So, then that alone, just in that short period of time, the amount there was a little over, I think, $3.5 million in just that short period. Now, you’ve got these types of facilities all across the country and you multiply that on a daily basis and everything, you can see that the numbers of victims are huge, the amount of money is huge. ACEF and ACTF is playing an important role in supporting law enforcement that really doesn’t have the experience of education in the numismatic industry or the precious metal industry. With our assistance, they are gaining momentum in trying to attack this issue.

Secret Service does a great job. Custom and border protection does a great job. But they cannot do it alone, because they don’t have the expertise or the knowledge. That’s where we come into play in helping them educate them. Recently, in October, we presented a class over 50 different agencies in Kansas. We’ve done it in Florida, we’ve done it in Long Beach, where we had about 75 agencies from across the country. Most of those were Customs, Border Protection, Secret Service, and Postal Inspection Treasury Department. We have one treasury agent that works very closely with me that helps teach these classes across the country. But our efforts in this is that we not only do those kinds of things, but we’re gathering data. We’re developing trends and patterns. We’re trying to identify those counterfeiters. We’re trying to locate those factories in China. We’re trying to identify the organized groups that are buying these in large numbers and getting them out on the street.

You have to remember that, like you were talking earlier, this is organized groups, small groups, individuals that have taken it on themselves to find a way to make easy money in doing it. We’re even targeting those individuals, because when we see those websites and we see packages and reports that come in, then we do a background. We go where it’s located and try to find who’s sending it, who’s buying it, and then we’ll flag those addresses and try to find those locations in the middle, so they’re trying to sell them. But the victims, where we play an important part with the victims, we’re advocates for those individuals.

When they have problems with Facebook or they have problems with– These guys are really good, when they do their webpages and everything, because the number one method of payment they like to use is PayPal. We’ve been very successful in several cases and everything is when people could not get their money back. We have given letters of support showing that the products they did were counterfeit. We give them a history of what’s going on within the market and give them a number of other websites and everything that are doing the same thing. That provides them some proof that individual, they’re not trying to scam PayPal. They’re trying to get their money back from somebody that’s fraudulently selling a counterfeit product.

So, with that letter, a lot of times we can get that reversed into their favor and get their money refunded. But the information that we get and receive off of those reports and everything, that information we gather together, we send it to the agencies that we feel like they’re just going to take it and run with the ball. But we have to remember, we’re doing a huge amount of work to support Secret Service and Customs and Border Protection, those agencies that should be investigating, but there’s not enough manpower for them to do that. It’s too much. So, the work we do supplements them.

A lot of times, we can build a case for them that keeps them from having to do all the background and do all that. When we can go out, and the good thing about ACF and our members and the dealers that help us go out and authenticate them, they’re doing it on their own time. It’s great when I can make a call and Secret Service needs somebody to authenticate, and I’m able to get on the phone, and I have somebody within about 45 minutes, I have yet to not provide them with an expert to go out on a case or to one of their field offices in less than 24 hours. So, that’s critical in those type of incidents and everything. What that does is that lends credibility in the work that we’re doing from the law enforcement standpoint.

The thing of it is when they find a resource that can help put a case together without them doing a lot of work, that’s what investigators want to do. I’ve been a cop and police chief for 40 years and believe me, I want to go to somebody that knows what they’re doing. They can help me put that case together real quick, educate me to where I can help that victim feel comfortable. Then, I know what I’m doing. It’s like, if you had a burglary and somebody came out and you were a regular investigator and said, “Oh, I had a burglary and I just lost my Seated dollar collection in PCGS AU58 or whatever,” and the guy is going to look at you like, “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Well, you can see the look on that.” Victim’s face saying, “Well, nothing’s going to happen.”

Well, we’re providing them resources that we can also help the victim feel comfortable. At least we’re going to give them enough information to do a credible investigation and take it as far as they can. So, that’s where we’re at with it. But we can’t do it without the support of the precious metal industry, and the numismatic industry, and all those that are involved with what’s taking place. But the key to it of it is that people out there, they need to be educated and they need to go to reputable dealers when they’re buying. Unless you bet, unless you know and feel comfortable with that, you could be a victim of a counterfeit crime.

Charles: For collectors looking for some good news on this horizon, beyond the fact that the law enforcement is getting educated that the industry is mobilized, Doug, we have your incredible talent being put into this operation. Are there any success stories about criminal prosecutions, or businesses being shut down, or targets of investigations being brought up on very serious charges, which I think is what the collecting community wants to see? They want to start seeing some of these thieves being put away.

Doug: Well, I think what’s hurt us in the last three years because of COVID is a lot of those investigations is slow and everything. We’re not going to see that. I can tell you without a reasonable doubt that we have major investigations ongoing right now with indictments in the future. But the other thing of it is when we send this individual reports out to these agencies and everything, we’re not getting any information back that they’re going out and investigating them, but I know that they are. That’s one of the things that’s hard is not seeing these arrests made and everything, but knowing that there’s ACF and ACTF that’s going after and providing them with information.

Then, the key thing that we’re beginning to do this year, which is one of our strategic initiatives, is that we’ve got to take the load off of the feds. We’ve got to give them some other resources that they can use and utilize. That goes to the individual states being given the ability to take these cases from the state level. That’s going to require every state have counterfeit statute that they can use to deal with the counterfeit issues. That means that any local, state, county law enforcement officer can make an arrest on somebody that selling a counterfeit coin and they can take it within with the state.

What’s good about that is the one that goes in with that one roll of silver eagles. He may just do it once, but then he may be one of those guys that’s going to get out and do it again and again. But it gives the local agencies the ability to attack it from the local side and then we can really push the big cases to the feds. We can still keep these guys in our intelligence files. We can see these businesses that are selling it and then when you get all the elements for the case and everything, you can get a warrant form and then go arrest them and everything. But that’s where we need to take it.

The other aspect of it is that continuing education. We need to get more out there and that’s what again we’re going to be doing starting this year. Right now in the last couple of years, it’s been developing law enforcement and have them recognize how big the problem of it is and what their role is, even though it’s just never been brought to the forefront like it has now. Secret Services, and they’ll tell you that they really are not into the coins. It’s at paper money. But now, it’s becoming such a big problem that they’re beginning to work with us, and they’re wanting to know more about it, and educate it in that respect. So, that’s what our goal and again, our strategic initiatives are going to be.

We got a great group, our workgroups that we have people involved. Dana has been extremely helpful. Anytime phone calls. But that’s the way all the PNG members have been. The experts that we have outside of PNG have all been very cooperative and it’s going to take us all working together to make sure that it’s not compromising our industries to the point that people are afraid to buy. We don’t want that to happen. We want them to be educated and making sure that they’re, again, vetting who they’re buying from credibility and then hopefully that will solve some of the issues.

Charles: So, Dana, as a dealer and a leader in the PNG, for collectors, what are some telltale signs that you’re dealing with a reputable business selling you authentic products? And then, speaking to your dealer community, what are some best practices that you recommend other dealers employ when they’re dealing with this issue to make sure that they protect themselves and their customers?

Dana: Well, from a client standpoint, you just need to know who you’re dealing with. And that’s long-term dealers, this is our industry, this is our livelihood. So, it’s in our best interest to make sure that the products that we’re buying, because it’s valuable, inventory are correct. So, with my business, I look at almost everything that comes in our door that’s not from a mint distributor or from another trusted trading partner. Anything that comes in our door that we haven’t sold, we vet it and we use sophisticated testing to make sure the merchandise is correct.

From a dealer-to-dealer transaction standpoint, you just need to know who you’re dealing with. We get hung up on price and making profits, especially when the market is tighter, like we’re going into a tighter market now. COVID gave us a really good market where we could earn a little bit better margins and the appetite from the public was really good. But when the market gets tight, dealers that aren’t established or new dealers, they attempted to push things a little bit. So, you need to know who you’re dealing with. It’s always best to make sure that you’re on cutting edge for what the information is, where the products are coming from. It’s mostly China, but what the problems are and what to look for.

I’ve literally taken a drill to kilogram gold bars in the past when I’ve had to, because they didn’t test right or they looked a little funny as from a dealer standpoint, we have to protect ourselves first, so we can protect our clients. From a client standpoint, it’s becoming educated that there is a problem. A low price isn’t always a good deal and it’s best to deal with a long-term dealer and it’s easy to drill down. As Doug said, some of these places, they don’t have addresses or the addresses in empty field, or if they want to get paid by PayPal. That’s not really a traditional method of payment for most dealers.

Now, there are younger dealers coming up. There’s groups on Facebook where there’s a lot of younger dealers and that’s great. It’s new blood for our industry, but they don’t have the experience that we have, some of the older dealers too. That doesn’t mean they’re unethical or they’re going to be challenged, but they just have to be careful. So, it’s just an awareness issue and it’s an issue of making sure that you have the right tools to make sure the integrity of the product is correct and helping to support the community that is trying to defend these issues, which is, we need everybody to help as much as they can.

Charles: So, Doug, what is the website for the ACEF, so that the people listening to this podcast can check it out and see how they might be able?

Doug: Well, that’s at acefonline.org. There’s a lot of good information on the website. There’s going to be a lot more coming in the next couple of months, we’re going to be pushing a lot more. The key to it is evaluating exactly what you want to put on that website to make sure that we’re not giving too much information out to the bad guys and everything, but still educating people of some of the things that are taking place.

The other key thing of it is they can contact me at any time through the website and we’re going to get back in touch with them or one of our investigators are going to get back with them and everything. It may take a little time because right now we’re inundated with offenses coming in all the time. What we’re trying to do is to work with those individuals and trying to give them a strategic plan of what they can do from step one, so forth and so on to help them out. That’s the key component.

We can’t keep up the work that we’re doing again without the support. ACEF and ACF, live strictly on donations from the numismatic community and the precious metals industries and collectors and investors and everything, because they have a vested interest in this and to make sure that, if we don’t take care of the problem, then again, it compromises the integrity of the whole situation and that’s what we’re trying to do our best at doing.

Charles: All right. Well, gentlemen, thank you for all the hard work that you put into this. And thank you for coming on and joining us and informing the community about the work that’s going on. I appreciate it.

Doug: We appreciate you. Thank you.

Dana: Yeah. Thank you, Charles, for the ability to help get some of this information out. And Doug is doing an incredible, incredible job. He is really the spearhead here and he needs as much support and help us he can get. He’s done an amazing job and he’s got a lot of work to do, and any support we can give him in particular is what we need to do. So, thank you.

Charles: All right, thank you. You guys have a wonderful weekend.

Doug: All right, thank you. Take care.

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CoinWeek is the #1 website online for news and information about numismatics.

For four years running, the CoinWeek Podcast has been recognized by the Numismatic Literary Guild (NLG) as the hobby’s Best Audio Program. CoinWeek has also won the NLG Award for the best Numismatic Website for six of the past seven years!

©2022 Collecting Media, LLC

Coinweek is the Gold Standard for independent online media concerning rare coin and currency news; with analysis and information contributed by leading experts across the numismatic spectrum.

More news and videos about coin collecting at CoinWeek.
&nbnsp;

The post CoinWeek Podcast #172: Fighting Counterfeit Coins appeared first on CoinWeek: Rare Coin, Currency, and Bullion News for Collectors.

The CoinWeek Podcast is brought to you by PCGS. Check out PCGS’ new grading specials and take advantage of an exclusive offer to get your modern coins grading at significant savings over normal modern submission rates. Visit pcgs.com/ccspecial to learn more.

CoinWeek Podcast #171: The Spiritual Bank of Seth Paine

This week on the CoinWeek Podcast, we discuss the Spirit Bank of Chicago and its enigmatic founder Seth Paine.

The Spirit Bank of Chicago was founded in 1852 when free banking rules allowed for a rapid explosion of new banks across the United States. Paine’s bank was an outlier as far as 1850s banks were concerned. His bank was a reflection of his deeply felt spiritualist beliefs and it wasn’t long before it and its unorthodox business practices garnered the attention of foes that wished to do it in. It’s a fascinating story of humanism, persecution, and resilience, and you will learn all about it next, when author Nancy Schumm joins us on the CoinWeek Podcast.

Mobile phone users. Stream this podcast for free by downloading the podomatic app or subscribe to the CoinWeek Podcast on iTunes.

* * *

CoinWeek is the #1 website online for news and information about numismatics.

For four years running, the CoinWeek Podcast has been recognized by the Numismatic Literary Guild (NLG) as the hobby’s Best Audio Program. CoinWeek has also won the NLG Award for the best Numismatic Website for six of the past seven years!

©2022 Collecting Media, LLC

Coinweek is the Gold Standard for independent online media concerning rare coin and currency news; with analysis and information contributed by leading experts across the numismatic spectrum.

More news and videos about coin collecting at CoinWeek.
&nbnsp;

The post CoinWeek Podcast #171: The Spiritual Bank of Seth Paine appeared first on CoinWeek: Rare Coin, Currency, and Bullion News for Collectors.

The CoinWeek Podcast is brought to you by PCGS. Check out PCGS’ new grading specials and take advantage of an exclusive offer to get your modern coins grading at significant savings over normal modern submission rates.  Visit pcgs.com/ccspecial to learn more.

CoinWeek Podcast #170: The Wreath Cent That Went to Space

A 1793 Wreath Cent was sent into low-earth orbit in 1965 and thus begins an interesting story about the coin and the numismatic industry. CoinWeek editor Charles Morgan tells the story of a coin that he found while surfing an obscure recent auction catalog in this week’s episode of the CoinWeek Podcast.

Mobile phone users. Stream this podcast for free by downloading the podomatic app or subscribe to the CoinWeek Podcast on iTunes.

* * *

CoinWeek is the #1 website online for news and information about numismatics.

For four years running, the CoinWeek Podcast has been recognized by the Numismatic Literary Guild (NLG) as the hobby’s Best Audio Program. CoinWeek has also won the NLG Award for the best Numismatic Website for six of the past seven years!

©2022 Collecting Media, LLC

Coinweek is the Gold Standard for independent online media concerning rare coin and currency news; with analysis and information contributed by leading experts across the numismatic spectrum.

More news and videos about coin collecting at CoinWeek.

The post CoinWeek Podcast #170: The Wreath Cent That Went to Space appeared first on CoinWeek: Rare Coin, Currency, and Bullion News for Collectors.