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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Fred Weinberg, post: 2886542, member: 86437&quot;]The China Mint started it&#039;s modern minting of</p><p>coins in 1979, and by 1982, premiered the Panda</p><p>Coin program - which turned out to be incredibly</p><p>successful, after the first year of slow sales.</p><p><br /></p><p>I had a good relationship with Marty Weiss of Panda</p><p>America, (since 1973) and and in 1985 I had my own</p><p>company - and the ANA in Baltimore that year was to</p><p>be the very first ANA that I would have my own table,</p><p>instead of working for another company. (Numismatics, Ltd.)</p><p><br /></p><p>The China Mint announced that they would, for the very first</p><p>time, strike a silver medal commemorating THEIR first ANA</p><p>(or any coin show) - one side had the ANA logo and wording,</p><p>and the other side showed a very nice section of The Great Wall</p><p>of China.&nbsp; &nbsp; Mintage was 500 pieces, and they were issued in</p><p>small plastic (think Mini-PCGS holder) holders.</p><p><br /></p><p>Retail price was set at $20 each, and although the China Mint&nbsp; (CM)</p><p>was set up late Monday/first thing Tuesday morning at the ANA Baltimore,</p><p>they apparently didn&#039;t sell any of these medals - (maybe a very few).</p><p><br /></p><p>My wife at the time, Ellen, had worked for Panda America earlier -</p><p>and&nbsp; she came back to our Table on Wednesday afternoon, saying</p><p>that the CM was embarrassed, as they were not selling any of their</p><p>silver medals - I told her it was because they were $20, and silver</p><p>spot was about $7-$8 at the time, they were overpriced.&nbsp; She said</p><p>we had to buy some to help out the Mint, so we bought 100 of them</p><p>for $15 to help them out.&nbsp; I put one in one of my error coin showcases,</p><p>with the Great Wall side up Wednesday afternoon, and forgot about them.</p><p><br /></p><p>Late Thursday morning or so, an error collector customer of mine was</p><p>looking at my showcases of errors, pointed to a coin in one of the cases,</p><p>and said &quot;How much is that Error?&quot;&nbsp; - I saw a double struck something in</p><p>the case, priced it, and he said, &quot;No, that one --&quot; I said &quot;No, that one&#039;s</p><p>not an error, it from the China Mint&#039; He said &quot;yea, that One&quot;, I said no,</p><p>that&#039;s not an error, he said yes it was, I pulled it out of the showcase,</p><p>and immediately saw what it was - the words &#039;The Great Wall&quot; were</p><p>on the coin perfectly BACKWARD, though the words were in order ! </p><p><br /></p><p>Since almost no one at the CM spoke English, I believe that someone</p><p>there took the design given them, but that copy (or another), was</p><p>copied in reverse, and so they copied it as they saw it - all of the English</p><p>letters were backward - who would have known the difference at the time?</p><p><br /></p><p>In any case, by Thursday the issue was sold out, it was a hot topic on</p><p>the bourse floor, and even the security guards were asking people, as</p><p>they left the bourse, &quot;Do you have any of those CM medals? I&#039;ll pay $100&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Yep, they went from unsalable at $20 to hotter than a pistol at $100.</p><p><br /></p><p>I still have three of them from that show - and although they did go up to</p><p>about $6K a few years ago, they are currently worth about $2,000, maybe</p><p>a bit more for a 69.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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