Super Heroes Soar As Do Gold And Silver

Release: NOVEMBER 14, 2025

    As regular readers know, I no longer believe in the idiom “time flies.”  Rather, I’m convinced time is now on a rocket sled traveling beyond the speed of light.  Case in point, it seems just a year or so ago I was in grade-school.  Nope.  It’s been many decades.

    We’re all pretty much on the same sled.  Christmas is just a month away.  Hannukah, a bit less.  But, both will be here in no time.

    Thoughts of my public grade school and Christmastime are melded with memories of something impossible today.  In our public school we actually had Christmas shows replete with carols.  When I revisited that school a year ago, there were no signs of Christmas.  No drawings of decorated trees or wreaths or Santa.  I was told by teachers the only images now allowed are snowflakes and winterscapes.  Secularism is the law....

Checking Modern Cents Makes Sense

 

Release: NOVEMBER 7, 2025

    In barely a month we’ll be celebrating, or at least be aware of, the pending 250th anniversary of the United States.  Anyone who recalls our Bicentennial in 1976 will surely agree that time flies.  In 2026, we’ll also witness the demise of something on which our country was founded – the lowly penny.  Next year, our circulating US cent will officially be a thing of the past.

    It may take a year or two.  But, as has happened elsewhere, such as in Canada, any future pennies will be found only in commemorative uncirculated or proof sets sold by the Mint.

    While the departure of our cent may seem inconsequential, the coin actually represents the very foundation of the United States.  American pennies pre-date the US by almost a century....

The Most Valuable Collectible Commodity

Release: OCTOBER 31, 2025

    An idiom some proclaim is, “I remember when a million dollars was a million dollars.”  For the record, it is and always will be.  It’s a finite number.  I’d wager what they mean is how the buying power of a million dollars, or even one dollar for that matter, has changed over time.

    Around 1980, I mentioned to the owner of a company I worked for how full sheets of the famous Graf Zeppelin stamps issued in 1930 were slated to go to auction in New York.  That was huge.  Few such sheets exist.  The “Zepps” have long been favorites of stamp collectors.

    A set of three single Zepp stamps in 1980 could sell for $8,000 or $9,000.  Rare full sheets could bring upwards of a million.  To that company owner I commented that whoever sold them could essentially retire.  His dismissive response was, “No one can retire on a million dollars.”  I thought, “I’m sure there are 250 million people who would like to try.”

    It’s clear how the buying power of a dollar has changed.  In just the 45 years since 1980, it has dropped 400 percent.  That means, a million dollars today would have been the equivalent of four million dollars then.  Inflation has steadily chiseled away at our buying power....

Will 2026 Silver Dollar “Trump” Our Anniversary?

Release: OCTOBER 24, 2025

     Just over a century ago, citizens of the United States and, for that matter, the world, thought they had seen it all.  In 1918, the “war to end all wars” was finally over.  Germany had surrendered and the planet was experiencing peace.  World War I was so devastating subsequent wild celebrations were rampant.  (In retrospect, probably a bad time for the government to enact prohibition on alcohol....)

A Silver Salute To The Seas

Release: OCTOBER 17, 2025

     I was alive and aware in 1980.  I recall that January when the price of silver teetered on $50 per ounce.  That was unheard of – so much so, lines of people hoping to sell their silver bowls and flatware to coin dealers wrapped around city blocks.  Previously, silver had quietly languished at just a few dollars per ounce.  However, that year, two investors known as the Hunt brothers tried to corner the market in silver.

    I still don’t see how that’s possible.  I’m not savvy enough to understand how one can corner a market where 26 million new metric tons of the metal are mined annually.  It doesn’t matter.  Word got out the Hunts were trying to do just that.  Silver made endless news headlines and the price soared....

Ask Not What Some Coins Can Do For You

Release: OCTOBER 10, 2025

     I once took a metal detector to the neighborhood where I grew up.  I had no expectations of finding long-lost treasure but hoped to unearth anything from when I was a kid.  I previously had searched a nearby school grounds.  Along with some old bottle caps and can pull-tabs I got a clear “beep.”  I dug with my trowel to reveal a silver Franklin half dollar dated 1963.  Not bad.  It was a fun find.  Maybe I’d be lucky again....

Hobby Shops Have Been Quietly Disappearing

Release: OCTOBER 3, 2025

     Along with so many things, hobbies appear to have changed over the past 30 or 40 years.  Once hobby shops were ubiquitous in cities and towns.  Whether for model planes or cars, coins, stamps, baseball cards, etc., it was hard to travel a few miles or blocks without passing a shop catering to hobbyists.  Even many department stores had areas relegated to hobbies and collectibles.  There, visions of rarities-to-be-found were the dream of collectors of all ages.  Not so much anymore.

    Maybe the problem was too many people passing the shops and not enough stopping in.  Or, the advent of handheld “smart” devices became far more immediately gratifying versus the challenge of assembling a model or filling a stamp album.  Today, the challenge has become finding a stamp, coin or hobby shop much less an actual department store....