Steve D'Ippolito

What form would 21 take? I am starting to remember that numbers ending in 11 are of the лет form but 21, 31, etc use год. Is that correct?

24% were monetarily reformed = Deutchmarks to euro, lira to euros, francs to euro etc so just a change, not a failure of the fiat currency

12% destroyed by independence = A newly independent country just introduces its own currency, so not a failure of the fiat currency

21% destroyed by war = So not a failure of the fiat currency

23% still in circulation.

 

So 80% of the fiat currencies were not failures.

 

The 20% that failed due to hyperinflation might have been caused by other reasons than a fundemental problem with fiat money, the only real problem with fiat money is the over printing of currency, which is also a political & economic problem.

 

In the same way that "words" are very useful, they can also be used for evil purposes, so it goes with fiat money, used wisely it can offer flexibility, used badly it creates problems. By using a gold or any other "standard" that flexibility is lost.

 

Not that I would recommend to hold cash as it loses its value, is far better to invest in property, land, stocks, shares, bonds etc.

 

For some points against the inflexibility of the Gold Standard http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/politics/whynotthegoldstandard.html and the countries that suffered more from recessions & depressions because of it.

 

If there is any merit in a global economy of having a gold based currency why is it there no country in the world that uses it?

Many of those currencies didn't fail due to a hyperinflation to be sure, but they almost invariably are a poor long term store of value because of a slow loss of value. The US, for instance, seems to find a 1-3 percent inflation, year upon year, to be acceptable; at least people don't bitch too much about inflation when it's kept this low. (On the other hand, it's gone as high as 12 percent a year, even 18% for a period of a month or two.) It's a hidden tax on any form of savings, and it happens primarily because governments and central banks create more money (through a convoluted process sometimes) to cover government spending more than it actually took in in revenue. So even a non-failed fiat currency allows for dishonesty by the issuing authorities. The very inflexibility of gold prevents this sort of thing. And since governments benefit by being able to fire up the printing press to cover deficit spending, they like fiat money on the whole, and that's why no one continues to use gold as a base for their currency. It supplies too much discipline for governments that buy votes with your tax money.

The 60D on the 1917-1977 medal looks like GOD!!! I suspect he would not be amused. On second thoughts..........

Look really closely at the D--it's actually a stylized hammer and sickle.

Obviously the 60 is meant to mean 60 years. But the word for "year" in Russian is год, which translitered is... wait for it... "god" (but prononounced more like goad"). So you COULD really stretch matters and say the 60+hammer and sickle actually does mean "60 god!"

Alas, this word forms its plural irregularly, depending on specifically how many the plural might be. It's "год," (numbers ending in 1) "года" (numbers ending in 2-5) or "лет" (numbers ending in 6-0). So sometimes the "god" thing doesn't work. In fact 60 must be one of those cases where the plural is лет. Which ruins the joke. (Doggone it.)

Russians when giving the calendar year (e.g., 2013) will recite (or write) the number and likely as not add "года" to it (no matter what the last digit of the year is) because that's a different gramatical case of the word год, and in writing will abbreviate it "г." That even sometimes shows up on the date on coins, either abbreviated (as on Nicholas II rubles and gold) or not. In fact on the 1826 half ruble in my avatar, the date below the eagle reads "1826 ГОДА." "1826" by itself just wouldn't say it, for a Russian.

Frankly, MS61 is a grade I don't really understand - and it seems to me that sometimes MS60 is used for a really nice looking AU58.

Conversely I've seen MS60 coins that were horrible, and AU58s I'd rather own. Those 60s are coins that are, technically speaking unworn (i.e., "Mint State") but really undesirable for some reason (lots of bag marks, a really unsightly spot of toning, etc. You almost wish they could assign an "MS-50" grade to them. Conversely it seems some AUs look vastly superior to MS-63s in many ways, you are trading unsightly bag marks (e.g., a ton of acne on Liberty's cheek, for Morgan dollars) for just the teeeny-tiniest bit of rub, or perhaps lots of "chatter" in the fields because someone long ago put the coin and a key in his pocket for an hour. That's a coin you wish they could grade as an AU-63.

I guess what I am getting at, is if PF can be a parallel designation (you can theoretically have PF-3 if it's really, really worn) to the Poor, Fair, AG, G, VG, F, VF, XF, AU MS sperctrum, why shouldn't MS be such? MS would then mean only that a coin is not worn but may have suffered some extreme other type of damage; Poor-AU would mean the coin shows signs of at some point having been out in the real world. You wouldn't have a coin being hideous but bumped up to a numerical 60 just because it has no sign of wear, nor a beautiful coin knocked down to 58 because it does. That solves the problem of a line being drawn through the specturm because one specific type of damage is arbitrarily NOT permitted above a certain number, but any other kind is.

Allow me to emphasize and underline what people have said above--if the coin is dark, it does not "need cleaning"! A cleaning will damage it much more than the tarnishing did. Leave it alone.

I've heard a lot of stories about people asking a coin shop over the phone about a coin they had. And the dealer says, basically, "Bring it in, I'd like to see it," and would warn the caller NOT to clean the coin. The individual however decides for some reason he had better do so (maybe thinking the dealer would use the "dirtiness" of the coin as an excuse to offer less money) and ruin the value of the piece.

In fact, the dealer is being honest with the guy. The dealer (and his customer collectors) do NOT want to see a freshly polished coin, and everyone loses out when that happens--the seller (who may have just destroyed half or more of his coin's value), the dealer (who makes a percentage margin on the coin, and now has a smaller number to take a percentage off of) and the collector (who no doubt wanted an undamaged coin and may turn his nose up at this one).

I tend to diss the modern coin designs coming out of the mint (I still gag on the shield cent) but I think they did a fantastic job with the five star generals coins. You cannot get the set any more but last I looked the three coins were available individually.

They are nice.

Technically, though, the "dinosaur" isn't a dinosaur! It turns out to be something far more interesting in many ways, it's a "mammal-like reptile."

About 320 million years ago the hardshell egg laying lineage (amniotes) split into two, and the finback critters are "synapsids"--a term which means one fenestral opening in the skull--more specifically, they are pelycosaurs. Synapsids are ancestors of therapsids, which in turn are ancestral to today's mammals. In fact by the strict rules of cladistics we are considered amniotes, synapsids, pelycosaurs and therapsids ourselves even though we don't lay hardshelled eggs or have a fin on our backs (but our remote ancestors did).

Bathygnathus belonged to the specific group of pelycosaurs (sphenacodontia) from which the therapsids arose. Sphenacodontia split into two lineages, therapsids and sphenocodontidae, and bathygnathus is on the latter branch--so it's not quite our ancestor, but it's darned close. Bathygnathus lived about 270 million years ago during the Permian, which was the last period before the start of the Mesozoic (which is typically caricatured as the "age of the dinosaurs"). When I was a kid the "dimetrodon" was fairly famous, it too was a sphenocodontidae and therefore also not quite our ancestor.

The other big branch of amniotes is the "diapsids" (two fenestral openings) which are ancestral to two large groups: Lepidosaurs--most reptiles as we know them today (lizards, snakes, amphisbaenians, and tuatara), and Archosaurs (dinosauria and crocodilomorphs--self-explanatory terms). Birds in turn are the only remaining lineage of the dinosaurs; they stem from a branch very closely related to the famous "Velociraptor" and not all that far off from T-Rex. (If you want to visit the real world Jurassic park, go to an aviary.) It doesn't taste like chicken, it tastes like velociraptor.

At some point long ago, "anapsids" (no fenestral opening) developed and became the turtles, but exactly how they fit in (are they a sister linage to diapsids or did they branch off of lepidosaurs?) is still unsettled--other extinct lineages with "anapsid" skulls existed but they may have developed independently.

OK, I hope you found that digression into "extreme genealogy" interesting.

But now... back to fabricated metal discs!

I wish I could afford one, but I am not terribly interested in them. They are basically a pattern coin (and I have complained to Ken Bresset that they should be moved to the pattern chapter of the Red Book).

Bit of a die clash (I think) there on the obverse, at 9-10 o'clock.

You gonna show me? Or kill me with suspense?

Hmmm

Better not let you die.

It would appear that the photo is quite grainy. My apologies.

No great finds, but an amusing story. I asked a dealer if he perchance had anything from Georgia (not Jawjuh, the other one). He pointed to a gigantic bargain bin and said, "yes there is something in there". There must have been a thousand 2x2s and envelopes, of various colors.

I asked if he could remember what color it was, and he said "blue, I think" so I picked a blue one at random. It was the coin! But it was a totally different time period from what I was looking for.

Gotta warn you though... it ain't small, not by a long shot!

Hi Steve - would love to see them! I've sent you a PM with your personal login information for the rnumis fakes uploader.

 

There's also an overdates project under construction at the same site. More news on that later!

 

The fakes php & sql web code, while somewhat specific to rnumis, should be straightforward to any web developer and could easily be adapted to ANA needs. I'd be happy to hand it over as is or otherwise coordinate with the right person, if ANA so desires.

 

 

Steve

Got the login, thanks!

I have one significant overdate. Apparently my 4 kopek "livonia" piece is a mule of a reused pattern die with the date and the normal production die for the other side of the coin. Anyway, the date is an overdate (because the pattern is from the year before), and as of the time I bought it, it was the only one known (certainly helps to be able to put "unique" on a coin in an exhibit!).

As for the last, thanks! First things first though, I have to get elected to the ANA board and convince the rest of them that this is a good idea!

I'd like to thank everyone involved, even though I no longer collect Russian!

I've been advocating that the ANA do something like this though obviously they'd want to concentrate on US coins. (I wonder, though, if your code would be useful for that and whether that could be arranged.)

I do have some fakes I could upload to this; it's on my to do list to get my scans transferred over. (They were sold as "novodels--copies made for collectors" rather dishonestly (or ignorantly?) as the copies were not made by the Russian mint.)

And for the Russians here I need to photograph my 1777 Siberian ten kopeks sometime. It's the one I held back from the sale.

This has the advantage that in general, half dimes are MUCH cheaper than corresponding half dollars, and similar things are no doubt true for other countries. Of course with gold the price effect can be expected solely based on the bullion value, but for silver the numismatic value overwhelms the bullion value.

If collecting trimes, note that there are three sub-types and that the second one is significantly more difficult than either the first or last. I still don't have one in fact.

Type 1: MUCH larger picture

Type 3: MUCH larger picture

Here's the link. It's called Acme License Maker. It's fun.

 

http://acme.com/licensemaker/

Fun it is.

Alas for Colorado the font is just totally wrong.

Of course the zero on actual Colorado plates looks wrong, it's an ellipse instead of being squared off like all the other letters.

http://milepost61.wordpress.com/2009/08/30/license-plate-logistics/

And I'd rather have more coins

Like I said, definitely one of us.

Oftentimes when people at an ANA show realize I am staying many miles away in a Motel 6 rather than in the convention hotel they look at me funny but then I point out I am saving something like $200 (or more) doing it this way (even including the ridiculous charge to park my car in the convention center). I then point out I'd rather spend the money on coins, and they sort of get the point.

I understand. But for me right now, love of the coin

Yep. Definitely one of us.

As for the question: I like lots of detail (sharp strikes) and some good toning so I have a feeling the coin hasn't been monkeyed with.

As for design I seem to be developing a like for the draped bust design of all things! (Gold bullion tastes, chicken bullion budget.) But there are many other designs I like.

And of course I was once an obsessive Russian Imperial collector but ended up selling. I was the name on the cover of Elmen's November 2008 sale.

I love those Art Nouveau French pieces, they never get votes in PCI though

i love eye catchers

not perfect grade, but a good bit of wear brings out the colour better sometimes.

Barbers hold up surprisingly well to wear, and I think Barber himself designed them with that in mind. The parts that wear first, heck they don't have much detail on them in the first place. Contrast with the following designs (which are beautiful when fully struck and unworn) and see that the walker's liberty turns into a vertical bar with not too much wear (or a crappy strike, which was common).

Barber apparently considered the mercury dime, standing liberty quarter, and walking liberty half to be "failures" for that reason. And by his criteria he was correct.

Well I've got a few:

That's probably my most attractive large cent.

I do have an 1802 but it doesn't seem to photograph well (at least the photos don't do it justice).

Most of us have kept at least one.They maybe cull but we love em.

Mine is a 1832 capped bust half dime and a 1954 seated half dime.

And just so y'all know, I wouldn't get rid of either, they started my love affair with smalls.

I'd definitely hang on to that 1954 half dime. Unless it's really an 1854.

Thanks for the help, kind sir!

And (duh) it was SIXTY years ago.