American Eagle Silver Bullion in Circulation?

Hi I am new to this site. My name is Phil and I have been a coin collector for about 6 years. I mainly collect Standing Liberty Quarters, Large Cents, and early commems, but dabble in many other series.

Has anyone heard about Silver American Eagles Bullion Coins being in circulation on the island of Curacao? A numismatic buddy of mine told me about this and sent me the link below. Apparently they are being circulated at face value. Anyway, just thought that was numismatically interesting, if nothing else. I am going back to reading through posts now, so I hope no one else has brought this up recently so I don't look silly.

Here is a link to the short article about it:

http://www.circulatedeagles.friendpages.com

 

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1st Welcome 2 the forum. Very good read! Unbelievably, good read! Better get over 2 cheaptickets dot com, HeHe Thanks 4 sharing.

 

Seven dollars worth of silver for $1.00 ? Sign me up !

 

sure! The poster in the link claims to have sold 13 CIRCULATED ASEs to his dealer for $7 each. Anyone know what bid is on a circ ASE? Only Friday and yesterday did silver close above 7.20 in May, when this poster claims to have visited Curacao. Then there is the question of how many, many ASEs came to circulate there in the first place.
Beam me to the caribbean scottie- not only are the pina coladas tasty, so are the circulating coins!

 

WOW sign me up,i wonder if you can get gold bullion by changing a 20$ bill in
Curacuo.(JOKE)

 

One time I got 2 1964 JFK halves in my change for a five when buying coffee at a convience store. But at least Jfk halves were meant to be used as money. By the way does the pic on that link look like the coin was in circulation much I cant tell on my pc.

 

No, but I heard that the vending machines their give out Platinum Eagles as change for a soda. :>

 

Not so fast -- what kind of soda ?

 

Coindragon,

do you know the author of the link article? I am having doubts of it is real and wonder what others think. No way to get in touch with who ever wrote the article except in its guestbook.

 

JD, I was also suspicious of the "article" when I started reading it. It seemed more like a diary entry than a journalistic piece. But I think what really tipped me off to the authenticity was the next-to-last sentence.

Think maybe this might be some tourist agency? Looks like it to me. Maybe a little outrageous story to get some visibility???? Sure seems fishy to me.

 

I’ll bet.

If this story is true (which I doubt), I’m guessing these coins were stolen. Otherwise, I agree the story looks like a tourist come-on, judging by the “Curaco is a wonderful island” paragraph.

Another possibility is that the government there has seeded these coins for relatively cheap publicity. They could buy a thousand ASEs for probably $9000 (today’s prices; cheaper four years ago, I imagine) and distribute them. That might be cheaper than buying magazine ads. I don’t give this possibility much credit, because the ASEs aren’t known well enough in mainstream America. But, I don’t believe they would last four years. Somebody would have snagged them by now.

Fun story, though. We’d like to believe it.

 

It's sort of like here in Louisville. When I first moved here, I turned on the bathroom tap in my apartment and yellow foamy liquid came out. I recoiled in horror and went to see the landlord. On the way, I encountered a neighbor and asked him if he'd had the same problem. "Problem, heck!" he said drunkenly, "Itsh beeer!"

Sure enough, all my taps ran cold Budweiser. And it's not just mine. Almost all the faucets in town run beer from time to time, mostly Budweiser, but sometimes Heineken, MGD, or (if your lucky and the barometer is just right) Bass or Guinness.

Only trouble now is, it's very hard to get rid of my out-of-town guests.

 

Did you just have some before you made that post ?

 

Especially every year between 11:59 P.M. on March 31 and 12:01 A.M. on April 2?

 

Greetings!

I was made aware of this discussion thread through a entry in the guestbook on my site about getting American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins in change in Curacao during my recent cruise.

First let me say that I am happy to have found this message board. I will enjoy reading through the interesting posts here.

I am sorry that my account has caused a minor controversy. I have no way of proving that my story is accurate, but it did happen to me. I see how you feel though, if someone told me they got 14 American Eagles in change from different merchants in the same day I would not be quick to believe them either.

It was mentioned in one of the posts that the article seemed more like a diary entry than a journalistic piece. Well, that is basically what it is. I am not a journalist. I am an avid traveller and coin collector who was ecstatic about having my two main hobbies come together in such an unexpected way, so I wanted to tell my tale.

I also see that some doubt that I was paid $7.00 each for the 13 worn Eagles that I sold to my local coin dealer. I sold them the day before writing the story. I was in Curacao in early May. I didn't sell them right away. I believe silver was slightly over $7.00 an ounce on that day. I am a very regular and and very good customer of my local coin dealer, so I wouldn't be surprised if he offered me a few cents more for the Eagles then he would have someone else.

The reason I did not put my name or any contact information on the site is I do not like advertising that I am a coin collector (for security reasons), even though my good stuff is in a safe deposit box at the bank. I also wasn't looking for any recognition or trying to sell anyone anything, so I didn't see the need to put my name on it.

Anyway, thanks for reading my site, and thank you all for turning me on to your interesting message board.

Also, I just put up some pictures of the other coin collecting related items I got in Curacao on the photo page of the circulated eagles site, if anyone is interesed.

http://www.circulatedeagles.friendpages.com

PS...I do not work for the Curacao Tourism Board, lol, I just like the place.

 

EagleEyed,

Hi, welcome to the forum !

If I understand your story correctly, you were part of a cruise ship tour and so you only had one day ashore.

Have you not flown back there for a longer stay (assuming you haven’t) to buy up ASEs in bigger quantities because you don’t have confidence that there would be a large enough number of coins available to make a profit ? Just doin’ a little math, if you could buy a thousand coins you could make about $6000 before expenses, more than adequate to pay for the air fare and lodging, I would think. A trip to a local bank might be in order.

Sounds like a great gig: keep buying drinks on the beach and getting ASEs in change ! A little Jimmy Buffet music in the background or reggae if they play that on Curacao (I never could get into that steel drum stuff).

 

Welcome to the forum EE.

I guess you are living proof that truth is stranger than fiction!

I too do a lot of traveling, but I've never had that kind of numismatic experience anywhere while visiting every continent except Africa and Australia.

Be sure to hang around and join in the fun.

 

Welcome 2 the forum, it's the best, non-biased, coin board.
Good story, I'm glad u responded!

 

I'm still a little stunned by the story but I do find it interesting. Nevertheless, welcome to the forum and I invite you to check out the threads here regularly, if at all possible. It's the best place for coin-learnin' anywhere on the 'net.

Thanks for sharing with us too.

 

Nice story