Coins DIG

The rarest New Orleans double eagle, the 1856-O, realized $1,437,500 May 29 at Heritage Auction Galleries Signature Sale® held in conjunction with the Long Beach Coin, Stamp and Collectibles Expo.

Overall, the auction, which included U.S. and world coinage, brought the firm $17.7 million.

Called Specimen-63 by the Professional  Coin Grading Service, the coin is the finest surviving example of the 1856-O, Heritage said.

All prices reported here include a 15 percent buyer’s fee.

In just two year's time, the U.S. Small Business Administration's Patriot Express Pilot Loan Initiative has supported more than $315 million in loans to more than 3,750 veterans and their spouses who are using the SBA-guaranteed funds to establish and expand their small businesses. As a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which raised loan guarantees to 90 percent, and eliminated fees temporarily, the number of Patriot Express loans increased to record levels in April and May of 2009.

A hoard of gold coins found by a builder in the cellar of an Oxfordshire flat has sold at auction for £76,360.

The 400-year-old coins, minted during James I's reign, were valued by auctioneers at about £50,000 and were found in Chipping Norton 30 years ago.

They were bought by private buyers and trade dealers in a specialist coin auction in London.

The two rarest coins were sold earlier to the British Museum. There were 50 bidders for the remaining 57 coins.

Some 70 million visitors are expected to visit Shanghai in 2010 for the World Expo where China hopes to "bring the world at home, and for the world to feel at home." To celebrate the occasion, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is issuing silver and gold proof World Expo Shanghai 2010 commemorative coins.

Three coins have been struck in the first series release: a 1/3 oz, 23 mm, .999 fine gold piece denominated in 150-yuan, and two 1 oz, 40 mm, .999 silver coins with a face value of 10-yuan.

Kansas Big Brothers Big Sisters Inc. was recognized Tuesday with a business excellence award from the Kansas Department of Commerce.

The nonprofit organization is one of four winners in the southcentral region. Overall, the department of commerce awarded 28 companies the business excellence award as part of business appreciation month.

The other southcentral region winners include:

• Sharp Realty & Auction in Augusta.

• Intrust Bank in El Dorado.

• Countryside Feed LLC in Hillsboro.

Among all the collectible items you might want to diversify your investment portfolio with, rare coins offer the most potential for profit, as there are more wealthy coin collectors than there are say, collectors of stamps, baseball cards, comic books or just about anything else.

Sadly, counterfeiters have figured this out too. A simple search on eBay and a few online auction sites show that it’s common for rare coins to attract bids of $1,000 or more — and that means huge profits for those who can pass off counterfeits bought for a few dollars as the real thing.

When gold breached the $1,000/oz mark this February, the mass media were full of reports of unprecedented coin demand and long wait times for bullion buyers. You couldn't open the paper without seeing a piece about the gold rush.

Although the press has now set gold aside for hotter stories, I can tell you demand for gold coins continues at unprecedented levels worldwide, and production is still struggling to keep up. Take a look at these recent reports:

***Sales of the Austrian Philharmonic gold coin soared 544% in the first two months of 2009 (vs. the same period the year before), with production at the country’s mint running quadruple its usual volume.

Demand has risen among businesses seeking better ways for its employees to communicate and work together, especially in this virtual world. To address that need, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft announced plans at Interop Las Vegas on Tuesday to expand their existing partnership to offer enhanced communication tools and services to customers.

Combat medals, badges and bronze stars stand at attention surrounding 87-year-old Maj. Gen. John Raaen's living room; tokens of distant memories brought vividly back to life and gleaming along the painted walls.

His is no lone archive of war here in the Mayflower Retirement Community. There are rooms like Raaen's just down the hall, around the corner or up a stairway, beckoning tales of heroes just waiting for visitors to take an air-conditioned stroll down memory lane.

Raaen is among the many retired military personnel living at the Mayflower Retirement Community turning a wistful eye toward the life they once knew and the friends, comrades and family they honor this Memorial Day.

In keeping with this column's focus on "Basics & Beyond," this month I will go back to basics and review a Smithsonian Book written by David Ganz: Guide to Coin Collecting. Ganz is among other things a lawyer, a politician on the local level, the author of many numismatic books and articles, and "a nationally recognized numismatics expert." In other words, Ganz is definitely someone qualified to produce a coin collecting guide.

In Chapter One, Ganz starts at the very beginning, with the history of coin making. He writes, "Coinage began some 2,800 years ago in the kingdom of Lydia, located in modern-day Turkey. In Lydia, coins were made of electrum, a natural gold-and-silver alloy.&" Obviously, even at the very beginning, gold and silver were important indicators of value. In his discussion, Ganz mentions Chinese spade money, cocoa beans, and "knife money" that was used in a number of countries.