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I attended our local annual coin show yesterday and today. All in all I enjoyed the show except for an unpleasant experience I had today.

I was looking for something in particular and a buddy sent me to a dealer's table. It turned out the item was not to my liking. I am always on the lookout for nice counterfeits and I asked the dealer if he had any counterfeits. He said that he had two - a counterfeit $2 1/2 gold piece (not an Indian) and a very nice altered coin. (I don't want to go into any more detail about the coins because I don't want to even hint as to who the dealer is.) So I looked at the $2 1/2 and it is OK but not great. (By that I mean it would probably fool a lot of people but it was not good enough to fool someone ...

Recently, I was looking through some of the older commemoratives, came across this coin and fell in love with it. So I bought an example of it in MS, just in the original mint box with paperwork. This is a really great coin. Just another forgotten commemorative from the past that thankfully makes them affordable, despite a mintage of only 45,866 in MS. 437,114 proofs were produced. If I don't have a preference between the PF and MS version, I usually buy the lower mintage.

The obverse depicts a soldier assisting a wounded foe. While the reverse depicts little round top with a very interesting, deep, quote by a little known hero of the civil war.




The name Joshua Chamberlain, ...

I recently bought this MS68 Mercury Dime and I am really surprised how different it looks depending on the lighting conditions and angles.

The three images below are all of the same coin.

IMAGE #1
This first image was made with seller supplied photos as it appeared on the auction web site. I think this is the view as it was captured by NGC when they graded the coin as part of their certification look-up process. I imagine they used a pricey SLR camera.


IMAGE #2
This second image was made by me (iPhone) where I had angled some glare from bright indirect sunlight off the coin. This lighting condition appears to have maximized the color and color variation. It's interesting how the green ...

In attending a local coin show this past weekend, I was thinking about something. When I go to look at the wares of a dealer with whom I have never dealt, I always politely ask whether he/she is a full-time coin dealer. If a dealer tells me he is a part-timer/weekend dealer, I don't rule out doing business with him/her. But I must admit, learning this does subconsciously (and perhaps consciously to some degree) color my thoughts about the level of numismatic expertise and overall competency of said dealers. Personally, the three dealers with whom I have built the closest and longest relationships are full-time dealers. I know them to be supremely knowledgeable about numismatics and they always seem to have the answers to my questions. Some ...

Well I bit the bullet and finnally bought this coin from Sphinx Numismatics.....
I had been watching it for months, many months, as he relisted it several times... each time I was hoping the price would lower, but it never did .... So after losing a low grade Macrinus tet today on ebay due to my computer's internet dying right as I was about to enter my bid 10 seconds before the auction ended (I'm almost sure I would have won it considering the ammount I was going to use as my 'Max Bid' it ended up selling for $52USD) I'm kinda glad I didn't buy it now though here is the link:

Link to Macrinus Tet that I didnt get a chance to bid on due to internet issues: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270777712834&ssPageNam e=STRK:MEWAX:IT ...

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things



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