These aren't bars that are short of gold. The fakes are said to contain legit gold, but stamped with the names of refineries that did not issue the bars.
It is said to be a way to launder conflict gold. Many of the forged bars are said to originate in China.
Over the last three years, over 1000 bars worth over $50,000,000 have been found.
It is difficult to search for these stories, because there is a crypto currency also called “Italian Lira”. The crypto version has a total market cap of 1 BTC (about $14,000 USD).
The memorial was intended to show the difficulty of Lincoln as the decision maker during the Civil War. Lincoln knew his actions would lead to many deaths. French's monument is a powerful representation of the necessity and undesirability of war. Even if you have seen the actual memorial it is enlightening to see the earlier, smaller versions, that the artist used to work out the design.
The actual sculpture was carved right here in the Bronx in 1922 by the Piccirilli brothers. They were Italian immigrants. An article by Lucie Levine points out "The brothers faced anti-immigrant sentiment even as they worked to realize some of the United States’ most patriotic sculptures.... The Lincoln Memorial Commission rejected French’s suggestion to have “Piccirilli” inscribed on the pedestal of the Lincoln Memorial."
DYNASTS OF LYCIA. Kherei, circa 430-410 BC. Stater, Tlos mint.
Obv: Helmeted head of Athena to right.
Rev: ππππππππ-πππππ (Lycian; =kerαΊ½i-tlawi); Gorgoneion within border of dots in a circular incuse.
There are two or three known examples. The photo is my composite of the Jameson specimen and the example auctioned in Switzerland by Nomos.
The inscription is in Lycian and names the ruler and the city of issue.
A Coin World article by Paul Gilkes reports that the US Mint has suspended the Mutilated Coin Redemption Program “pending the development of additional safeguard”.
As previously reported here, the US government pays $19.84/pound for dimes, quarters and half dollars that are bent, broken or corroded. Chinese recyclers were returning 'coins' that did not have the metallic composition of original coins. Every year millions of dollars of such coins are somehow being found in China by firms that recycle cars and electronic equipment.
The counterfeiter was killed in a shootout with US Marshals in May 2018.
https://youtu.be/KDR5W7zJzMk. 70 minutes.
1923 wasn't a stellar year. The works are mostly auction catalogs. Included is Henry Chapman’s Ancient and modern foreign and American gold coins collected by the late Enrico Caruso, the sales catalog of the opera singer's coin collection.
No illustrations. This is the copy from the American Numismatic Society library. The catalog is 'priced' (sale prices recorded in the margins).
Briefly noted: An 8-year-old paper by Eleni Drakaki, Andreas Karydas, et al: “Evaluation of laser cleaning of ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine coins”. Successful results are claimed, sometimes in conjunction with mechanical cleaning.
The article is a followup to an earlier paper, “Laser cleaning on Roman coins”. The image for this post comes from the first paper.
“Three-dimensional reconstruction of Roman coins from photometric image sets”, a 2017 Journal of Electronic Imaging paper by Lindsay MacDonald, Vera Moitinho de Almeida, and Mona Hess.
The present study combined two datasets representing the surface topography of the two Faustina coins (Fig. 1). First, they were scanned by a 3-D color laser scanner, producing a point cloud of the surface shape. Second, they were photographed in an illumination dome with directional lighting. The two representations were combined to produce a digital elevation map (DEM) of each coin with the accuracy of the scanner and the fine detail of the photography.
I calculate that $200,000,000 in $20 bills would weight 10 tons and would completely fill a 12' moving van.
Catalogers of high grade modern coins often boast about coins having only a few specimens, or even no specimens, known in a higher grade.
Ancient coin catalogers will sometimes say "finest known" but they rarely say things like "only a population of 43 coins better".
On NGC's slab verification pages, for example https://www.ngccoin.com/certlookup/4629247-016/NGCAncients/, there are no population reports comparable to modern coins. That page says "Total Graded by NGC: Not Available".
Yet I noticed the Heritage Auctions web now includes NGC Ancients population reports. I noticed this watching their Long Beach auction yesterday. Here is an example from a recent Heritage online-only auction: https://coins.ha.com/itm/ancients/g...m-9h-ngc-ms-5-5-3-5-test-cut/a/231836-61011.s . The auction listing displays the slabbed population with the grade of the current lot highlighted in yellow.
Here is the owl population as of September 7th 2018:
The auction house gives an NGC population report and includes the count ranked star (= "impressive"). They don't mention "fine style" or "test cut" or the x/5 ratings. This particular lot has a huge test cut that doesn't make it into the numerical chart.
I was curious to see the single starred "Choice MS" example in the above population report. It is https://coins.ha.com/itm/greek/anci...22-gm-5h-ngc-choice-ms-5-5-5-5/a/3066-30035.s, and it sold for $36k last month.
Is anyone familiar with Chinese hobo nickel replica maker Gyphongxin? The e-Sylum discussed Chinese hobo nickel replicas but I still meet advanced collectors who do not know the scope of it.
I purchased the "hobo dime" above with the Medusa skull design last year. It looks like a 1916-D. Often the creations of the artist (or artists?) "Gyphongxin" duplicate award winning hobo nickels but I haven't found the prototype for this one. A store on Alibaba.com is selling these for $1.70 and they say they have 9837 pieces available. The seller also has one with a 1916-S reverse with 9995 available.
In hand the coins don't look particularly great. Other Chinese replicas do look great. I recommend anyone interested in the Chinese replica coin production quality listen to Charles Morgan interview Beth Deisher on the CoinWeek podcast.
There is a new wrinkle in how the coins are being shipped. The half-dollar at the top of the page sold on eBay for $4 with free shipping. It shipped from China to the nation of Georgia. (Not the US state, the former Soviet republic.) A different shipper slapped a sticker with a return address in Tbilisi over the first sticker. This process caused the replica to take six weeks to arrive. Why is the seller is willing to pay for double postage and send the coin around the world the long way? I suspect US Customs authorities are looking for and stopping these replicas.
I recommend everyone check out this Alibaba.com store. Perhaps the ancient Greek and Roman coins won't fool you. Perhaps the US coins or the world silver won't fool you. There are a few things in this store that look very good in a photo and sell for a dollar or two.
If your are interested in coins there is little to see except the Numismatic Museum. The museum is a single room in the Central Bank of Iceland building. The room is open weekdays 1pm to 4pm. It is across the street from the Harpa concert hall and borders the park with Einar JΓ³nsson’s statue of Viking settler IngΓ³lfur Arnarson.
The highlights are HalldΓ³r Laxness’s Nobel Prize medal and ThrΓΆstur MagnΓΊsson’s plaster design for the 100 kronur coin along with an obverse die.
There were no Viking coins on display.
Iceland’s 1930 Althing commemorative coins were on display. I had seen photos of these coins but the real ones look much more impressive than the photos.
I would have liked to purchase collector coins. (Some central banks, such as Ireland, have a retail window for collectors.) The guard at the Iceland central bank did not know about coins and the curator of the museum was on vacation at the time of my visit.
Other than the museum there is not much coin-related to do in Iceland.
Coins are still in use but I wasn’t getting many of the smallest denominations in change. At the nearby Landsbankinn bank branch I found a vending machine for coin rolls. The machine is labeled myntrullur which I believe is the Icelandic word for “coin rolls”. It seems to be a rare word — a Google search did not find a single instance. (Web searched found 20k examples of the related Norwegian word myntruller.)
I went to the KolaportiΓ° flea market to look for obsolete coins. I found a booth stocked with stamps and banknotes but not coins. There was a booth with miscellaneous circulated coins of many countries, mostly Iceland, to pick from for a few kronur. That booth also had a single partially-filled coin album with holes for all of the coins issued by Iceland up until 1970. This album would have been an interesting numismatic souvenir but soft PVC held the coins in place and many had turned green.
Another booth at the flea market had a few uncleaned Roman coins. These were not Icelandic finds and the vendor wanted the equivalent of $30 each for them.
Many of the gift shops in Iceland have sets of obsolete coins. The coins for sale are exactly what is offered by http://www.lucky-coin.com/coins although the prices are about 3x what is listed on that site. The frustrating thing about these sets is the mixed condition of the coins. There will be nice AU-grade coins alongside cleaned G coins. It would take several sets together to make a nice set. Also, most of the holders are wrapped with soft plastic so there may be PVC concerns.
There is an Iceland Numismatic Association but they don’t meet in the summer. I also tried to contact two eBay sellers based on Reykjavic but there were out of town.
Iceland's circulating coins are nice. They depict fish. Coins aren't issued every year. Some of the coins I received in change were in great condition even though dated 2011 or even earlier.
Another anti-pollution art medal.
Portugal, 1974. Vasco Berardo (1933-2017). 95mm. Mintage 400
Obv: Poluição / Cavaleiro do Apocalipse (=Polution / Horsemen of the Apocalypse);
Bust wearning gas mask and headphones; demon birds behind; artist's signature below. The entire field engulfed in
poisonous vapors.
Rev: Caped rider wearing armor and shield on left arm, holding wrench in right hand, riding right on armored horse
motorized horse through wisps of pollution.
From a series of six horsemen. Pestilence is one of the original four horsemen described in the Biblical book of Revelation. In Berardo's vision the horsemen are Peste (Plague), Fome (Hunger), Poluicao (Pollution), Morte (Death), Guerra (War), and Droga (Drugs).
For Earth Day (April 22) here is an anti-pollution medal from my small art medal collection.
Portugal, 1972. Designer Isolino Vaz (1922-1992), Engraver Luciano InΓ‘cio. 80mm, 272g
Obv: Poluição (Pollution); bust of a malnourished and bald figure, turned to the right, with the hand on the forehead in sign of agony.
Rev: Girl with braids and school gown kneeling plants a tree in the ground. Next to you a shovel. Behind, four flowers, two on each side and in the sky are three stylized figures of birds.; Salve Mos o Mundo; Valadares - V. N. De Gaia / 30-VII-1972 (Save the World; Valadares - Vila Nova de Gaia - July 30 1972. Valadaras was a parish in Gaia city.)
Edge: 147 / 500
Note: This medal was executed in the workshops of JoΓ£o Baptista Cardoso, for the initiation of the Promoting Committee "Recordar Γ© viver" (Recall is living), formed by former students of the primary schools of Vila Nova de Gaia. 500 examples were made in bronze and another 20 in silver, distributed by the "Galeria Arte e Medalha", in Oporto.
The characters have circles at the ends. If the ends had been lines we would call them "serifs". Many years ago I tried to learn the term for characters with circles on the ends but eventually gave up. Today, while reading an article on the typography of James Mitchener's novel cover art, I stumbled onto the term “ball terminal”.
Exactly what I was looking for. Now I can search for this term ... and find very little.
Campbell is an archeologist and his article mentions Islamic State and blood antiquities. Those claims might be overblown but the technical scheme described by the article seems workable for medium and high values items. The startup Kapu already conducted a test of using a digital 'coin' to create a provenance ledger.
Were an artifact to have a blockchain record, each time it crossed a border or was sold to a new collector the record could be updated to show it was legitimate. Conversely “blood antiquities” would have no record and faked records could not be manufactured as they often are today. Border security could then compare records of artifacts declared at customs to databases such as INTERPOL.Some of the ideas, like swabbing antiquities with synthetic DNA, seem fanciful. The basic claim seems solid. Using blockchain technology for art isn't science fiction. An article by Jason Bailey on Artnome explains that the technology is already in use for proving ownership of digital artworks. Verisart and Codex are startups in this space. They hope to convince auction houses to use their technology to record sales.
Codex Protocol is designed as industry infrastructure for art and collectibles. So it's fine wine, classic cars, jewelry, fine art, anything else that sort of fits into that category of items.For ancient coin collectors one problem is that we would like to be able to prove ownership before 1970, or before the 2007 agreement between the United States and Cyprus. These technologies are for recording transactions now, not 50 years in the past. I would be interested to learn what the legal community thinks of these things.
The SciTech Lawyer, a publication of the American Bar Association, just published an article on that very topic. Unfortunately for me, law professor Derek Fincham's article “Can Blockchain Technology Disrupt the Trade in Illicit Antiquities?” is not available to non-subscribers.
In the comments section, discuss if you would be interested in using blockchain to record your ownership of coins, and if you would pay a premium to know the previous owners of a coin back to 2019.
