DailyDirt: Coins Worth More Than Gold

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Tue, Jan 10th 2012 5:00pm — Michael Ho

The US has stopped minting a huge surplus of dollar coins but will continue to make them in just enough quantities to satisfy coin collectors. Interestingly, coin collectors have been bidding on some extremely rare coins lately. Here are just a few examples of some valuable coins out there.

A penny from 1793 sold at a recent auction for $1.38 million. That's the most a US copper coin has ever sold for at an auction. This coin was especially rare because it was never released into circulation. [url]
Another coin that never made it into circulation was the 1933 Gold Double Eagle -- which was printed but then retracted when US currency left the gold standard. One of them sold at an auction in 2002 for $7.5 million and continues to hold the record for the most ever paid for a gold coin. [url]
A rare 1787 gold Brasher doubloon just sold for $7.4 million and just missed breaking the record for the value of a gold coin. It's still worth well more than its weight in gold (26.66 grams ~ $1,500). [url]
To discover more stuff on economics, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

As always, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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Filed Under: auction, coins, collectors, dollar, doubloon, gold, mint, penny

10 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2012 @ 5:22pm

authenticity sells?
stamping out an old piece of copper with a not-too-complicated design isn't exactly hard to do... but the value of a 1973 penny and its rarity is in its authenticity.
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Violated (profile), 10 Jan 2012 @ 5:29pm

Beholders
Clearly value in the eye of the beholder. Melt those down and they would then be worth little. Instead it is all blah, blah, blah something happened on such date and rare just because things happened one way and not another.

A good market these days are Chinese antiques like Ming pottery when then Chinese are spending millions to buy them back.

I have books here older than all those coins but age alone does not affect value much unless all rivals vanish. My oldest book is dated 1701 and in Latin.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2012 @ 6:04pm

1793 not 1973
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Michael Ho (profile), 10 Jan 2012 @ 6:17pm

Re:
Oops. i'll fix that typo in the post! THANKS!

If it were 1973... everyone would be looking in their pockets for a few million bucks to auction off.
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Michael Ho (profile), 10 Jan 2012 @ 6:40pm

The demand for coins is rising..
I guess I should have added the following link, too:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/09/144790896/people-want-more-coins-thats-a-good-sign-f or-the-economy

More demand for coins is good for the economy! :P
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2012 @ 10:59pm

"from the urls-we-dig-up" dept
More like from the commercial breaks for the 2am airing of "American Loggers" dept.
Next up on Techdirt, the how damn lazy can you be? dept, sponsored by Forever Lazy.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Jan 2012 @ 6:02am

No 3D printers in 1933!
Small correction: coins are minted, not printed!
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another anon, 12 Jan 2012 @ 9:30pm

FAIL
Stopping production of dollar coins. Outstanding.
Americans make me laugh, but you especially make me glad I'm not American.
Those ridiculous dollar bills and those utterly pointless 1c coins should be gotten rid of entirely.
But noooo... the yanks are too stupid to cope with that. No rounding up/down: too complicated.
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Michael Ho (profile), 12 Jan 2012 @ 11:18pm

Re: FAIL
We'll just wait until our currency's value has inflated 10x and then announce a reverse-split so that the penny is worth as much as a dime used to be... then the penny will be forever relevant. :P
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Alex Fortran, 8 Apr 2014 @ 4:00pm

Law of Supply & Demand
Due to stoppage of coins being minted by US, what more can you say about actual gold coins that have been previously minted. I guess those who have been holding on to them have the leverage of hedging against inflation. In fact I have placed an article in my website that speaks about Gold Eagle coins are still a sound investment.
http://krugerrandprice.net/gold-eagle-coins-a-sound-investment/
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