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Message:: [QUOTE="John Wright, post: 4544039, member: 107782"]Thanks for the heads-up.No, I don't get CoinWeek, nor do Icheck that site -- but I *DID* devourthat article. I have a few FACTUALdiscrepancies to point out and I thinkhe should have gone beyond the RENlawsuit and wrapped up on Breen too. 1) Under "Early American Cents the author states that the lack of an 1815-dated cent was due to a fire at the mint.  copper blanks were bought pre-cut and ready to be impressed into cents and half cents.  At that time the sole source of these blanks was England, which was unavailable due to our "War of 1812" with England.  The mint ran out of copper blanks in October of 1814.  Bob Julian's excellent detective work published in the January 1995 issue of THE NUMISMATIST showed that there were indeed cents struck and delivered late in 1815. But these were from either on-hand dies dated 1814 or from newly-prepared dies dated 1816. Bob Julian claims the latter, Bill Eckberg makes a convincing case for the former.  The only 1815-dated US coins were a single die-pair each of the quarter dollar, the half dollar, and the very rare half eagle. The afore-mentioned fire occurred in January of 1816 and destroyed the mint's rolling mills, so no silver or gold could be minted until they were replaced in 1817.  So the total US coinage of 1816 was ONLY cents. The REAL numismatic trick-question is "in what year after 1792 were no US cents struck?". Since there are no 1815-dated cents, that is the obvious (but wrong) answer.  The Director's report for 1823 states "there having been no copper coined during the year" -- so all 1823-dated cents were made in 1824 or later, and "1823" is the correct answer. 2) Also under "Early American Cents" the author states "No one undertook, let alone published, an in-depth catalog of the entire large cent series until William Herbert Sheldon, Ph.D., M.D. burst over the numismatic horizon in 1947."  In 1890 Francis Doughty did a valient (but failed) attempt at this, and by 1947 every year (1793-1857) had been published in detail -- but in eight or more separate books, each covering one-to-a-few years. Sheldon was the first to do a good job of bringing all pre-1815 cents under a single cover. 3) under "The Sheldon Scale" the authorconfuses "Grade" and "Rarity", whichare two independent items which hestates (and defines) one as the other. 4) In the next paragraph he says theoriginal (1949) Sheldon grading scalewas 1 to 70. WRONG! "Early AmericanCents" defined and listed 1 to 60 (MS).The '65' and '70' were added in "PennyWhimsy" (1958) to try to account forwhy some MS coins consistently brought5% more (for superb specimens) to 10%more for (for a FANTASTIC gem) thanfor 'other' MS examples of the samevariety. He also added the 'premium'multipliers for "among the best six"and for "finest known example". Buteven those weren't enough to make his'calculation' of value (=selling price)work. Grades as numerical items forcalculations (or 'measurements') aresimply a misleading error. 5) Under "PW and Walter Breen" the authorstates that Breen's 'autobiography' inPW is "a tissue of falsehoods". Sucha statement (though likely true) callsfor references or specific refutationswhich are not given. 6) Under "Allegations of Theft" the authorstates that Ted Naftzger noted discrepanciesin the descriptions of the TJ Clarke coinsand the coins bought from Sheldon. The stinkactually came from Del Bland's comparison ofthe pictures taken by ANS on acquisition ofthe Clapp coins and the actual coins in thevaults of the ANS, not in TJC vs WHS. Thenthere were the Noyes pictures of the Naftzgercollection (after Ted purchased the Sheldon collection), which matched some of the ANS'missing coins'. This was the 'smoking gun'. Though the statute of limitation for the'theft/swap' had passed, the LOCATION ofsome swapped-out coins was now known forthe first time, which made the case 'live'. 7) ANS is in New York. REN is in California.Had ANS filed suit it would have been inNew York. REN (in CA) sued ANS to get the'home court' advantage. But since REN hada progressing case of medically-provenAltzheimer's, most of his later replies incourt were (truthfully) "I don't remember",which was judged as evasive and stronglyinfluenced the verdict. Also, near the end of the article, the author talked about an ANA presentation in 1995, then went on about "and later in 1993" -- oh REALLY? Which (if either) of these dates is reality? Other than the above points, the author has doneas SUPERB, WELL-RESEARCHED, and WELL-WRITTEN job.Thank you GOBS for sharing this with me.[/QUOTE]

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