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EBay Coins Best Practices:  Part 1 of 3

2/20/2015

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EBay Coins Best Practices: Part I Avoiding Misrepresented Coins

With an unsurpassed selection and being the single biggest numismatic marketplace in the world, eBay is one of the best resources for buying coins online. Regardless of the coin you are seeking to fill in that empty spot in your collection, chances are that someone on eBay is offering it for sale.



Unfortunately due to its popularity buying from a seller on eBay can be somewhat risky, as it can be with any online market. Scammers are still able to get away with their tactics despite eBay’s efforts to stop it happening. Given the huge number of transactions that occur on a daily basis, it is no surprise that some scammers slip through the cracks. This just means that coin buyers need to particularly vigilant when searching the website’s numismatic section, and be aware that there are many coins being misrepresented and over-graded there.

It is extremely difficult to distinguish the good from the bad when all you have to go on is a brief description and a couple of images.

I have successfully used eBay to buy and sell coins for my private collection for almost a decade. It is not surprising that I have managed to amass a significant amount of experience from my dealings with both honest and dishonest eBayers. I truly believe that with vigilance and suitable caution a coin collector can avoid being scammed by an unscrupulous eBay seller.


This is Part One of an ongoing series I am writing on eBay Best Practices, in which I am going to highlight some of the most common eBay misrepresentation scams and provide tips on avoiding them.





Over-grading is probably the most common scam seen on eBay. Of course one buyer’s opinion of a coin’s grade may be that it is MS-61 while the seller may feel it is MS-62, and that is only natural given that we are all human, and you as a buyer are very likely to give the seller the benefit of the doubt. Those tiny differences in grade are not of great concern. The over-grading scams I am referring to are the ones where it goes beyond normal differences of opinion and moves into the area of obvious scamming.

Too often lately sellers are representing their coins as high Mint State when they in reality Extra Fine and Abut Uncirculated coins. The Morgan dollar listings seem to be rife with this scam primarily because there is a substantial premium on uncirculated coins. In an effort to further hoodwink potential buyers scammers will enclose the coin in a 2 x 2 cardboard flip and endorse the outside with absurd claims such as Blast White Gem and MS++++ Proof-Like!

It is not uncommon for the seller to go one step further to try to justify their claims and that is to write an outrageous price on the flip, with the obvious intention of having the potential buyer believe that the price on the flip is what the seller originally paid for it.

A very large number of such coins have been cleaned, dipped and polished to make them appear to have a brilliant white surface and therefore be of a higher grade, but in reality they are still just circulated specimens. Surprisingly, given these coins are at best marginal AU, coin collectors are still buying them. You would think savvy coin collectors would not take the seller’s description at face value and judge for themselves based on the listing images. Even if they did do that images can be ‘doctored’ to make the coins appear better than they really are.

Be suspicious of any coins that have the appearance of being perfectly smooth. The seller has very likely overexposed the photo on purpose to the point where surface scratches and marks are not visible. A seller may also enclose the coin in a plastic holder that will conceal any imperfections just enough to have you believe the surfaces are smooth and clean. Look closely for wear signs on the high points of the coin’s design. If the photo does not allow minor design details to be seen you can be pretty sure that the seller is trying to hide something. Caveat Emptor (Let the buyer beware!).

In an effort to avoid being scammed in this way some buyers will opt to buy only slabbed coins and coins that have been certified and graded by a professional grading service. Sadly, there is room for misrepresentation within the slabbed coin market too, with some third-party grading services not be as ethical as others.

While some grade according to a set of strict guidelines others are not as professional. There are four third-party grading services that have earned themselves a good reputation. They are PCGS and NGC in the top tier, followed very closely by ICG and ANACS. They have become well-known for being consistent and honest in their grading practices. Unfortunately the quality of others sinks well below these four.

When buying from a seller on eBay I won’t give coins graded by any company other than the top four consideration, and yet will gladly pay full book price for coins graded by NGC and PCGS, and a slightly lower amount for those graded by ICG and ANACS.

Fortunately coin collectors looking to buy only coins that have been graded by one of the first tier grading services can now easily search eBay by Certification type. This greatly reduces the chances of having an over-graded slab turn up in the results.

The next scam I would like to touch on is the one where listings of supposedly unsearched’ bags or rolls of coins pop up, hoping to entice hopeful coin collectors into buying.

Here is how this type of listing typically works. The seller makes a claim that he has just come into a significant number of rare coins. Of course he supposedly knows nothing about coins or just doesn’t have the time to go through them all, and so his loss is your gain’. While there may be a distinct possibility of discovering a really rare find such as a pile of Wheat cents in a lot of unsorted coins, the reality is that it is highly unlikely that anyone selling coins on eBay is that lazy or that generous to sell a bag of coins without picking through them for the valuable ones.

That being said some of the larger, better established numismatic companies do from time to time offer rolls of coins, however finding a seller willing to allow keys and semi-key dates to leave their hands at a bargain price is extremely rare.

Just be aware when considering a listing that states it is for a roll or bag of unsearched’ coins that it is very likely that it has been thoroughly picked over and what they are offering is the dregs’. One of the cunning practices that sellers have recently begun utilizing is to offer a roll of coins that they state are one particular type, Wheat cents as an example, and then put a coin on each end that is perhaps Indian Head cents or Barber dimes.

Some very clever sellers have taken to the practice of showing the obverse side of a 1916 Mercury dime at the front end of the roll and a Denver mint Mercury dime with the reverse side facing out at the back end of the roll. This is designed to lure the prospective buyer into believing that somehow a couple of 1916-D dimes just happened to fall into a Wheat penny roll. Buyers will pay many times their actual value based upon this assumption.

Fortunately the majority of people selling coins on eBay are completely honest and worthy of trust, but if you buy coins from eBayers often enough you will undoubtedly have the misfortune to come across a seller or two who is only too happy to misrepresent their coins to try and increase their profit.

Future articles will go into some of the other considerations that are important when buying coins on eBay, such as evaluating a seller’s feedback score and avoiding counterfeits. My hope is that you found the information in this article to be of help when you next go shopping on eBay, and as a general rule it is wise to remember that what sounds too good to be true most likely is!

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EBay Coins Best Practices:  Part 2 of 3

2/20/2015

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EBay Coin Best Practices: Part II Counterfeit Coins

In part one of my series articles on eBay best –practices, I explained about misrepresentation tactics which are adopted by coin sellers and how you can avoid them. In this article; I’m going to bring into light scam counterfeit coins that are more dangerous than initially though.



For many years now, eBay have been reputed as a counterfeit haven and while it has worked hard to crack the whip on deceitful and counterfeit coin sellers over the past few years, the truth remain that there are still fake coins that are sold through the online business platform every single day. Although some counterfeits can easily be identified, it’s now becoming a tedious task determining the authenticity of a coin exclusively from a few pictures. The guidelines in this article will help you minimize the level of risk which you are exposed to when shopping for coins from eBay.




Some types of coins are more frequently counterfeited than others. Some numismatists assert that at least a third of ancient coins which are sold on eBay are counterfeits. One of the key reasons for this is the lack of standardization. The level of quality which hand-minted coins offers varies considerably and just like in the ancient coins, there is massive variation in the designs and strikes, therefore offering counterfeiters enough room to wiggle. Two most counterfeited ancient coins include Alexander the Great tetradrachms and the Athenian, the cost of each selling at hundreds of dollars.

The services offered by third party grading experts remain largely underutilized as most of the ancient coins that are sold are not slabed. This means that the seller’s reputation takes utmost importance. It helps when you stick to sellers who have PNG logo in the listings they put up for sale. Sellers that have PNG approvals will certainly be able to adhere to strict code of professional conduct and ethics, and so the authenticity of the coins which they sell is guaranteed.

When it comes to contemporary coins, there are still many counterfeits in eBay. Among the U.S series of coins that are mostly counterfeited include: Draped Bust Dollars, Indian Head-Quarter Eagles and Trade Dollars. Whenever you are buying coins that form part of these series, it really helps to be extremely of key and semi-key dates. But beyond the specified series, there are several other keydate coins which remain counterfeited and include the 1909-S VDB penny, the 1877 penny, the 1893-S Morgan dollar and the 1937-D three-legged nickel among others. When shopping-for –keydates, you should look at the following signs of counterfeiting: lack of patina and strange color, porosity on the younger coins, unusually smooth or rough areas , especially around the mintmark, visible seams and extremely weak strikes. Other things which you should look at are inaccurate design details, varying levels of wear in the rear obverse as well as the reverse. Your commonsense comes into play here, and if you are unable to see some of the coin’s features properly, you shouldn’t place a bid.

If you are not sure about your counterfeit identification skills, you can minimize your risk by sticking to reputable coin sellers. However, a high feedback rating does not always guarantee you anything! If you really want to minimize the amount of risk which you are exposed to, you have to go with a PNG seller or stick to well known coin dealers on eBay. There are several national dealers who use eBay to get rid of their excess inventory and if you have a dealer or a company you trust, you may need to find out if they have an eBay account. You might find awesome dealers on eBay as compared to what you would get on the company’s main website.

Another important consideration which you should make is the location of the coin seller. Most of the counterfeited US coins originate from China, so avoid Chinese -sellers. Shipping time and custom fees are reasons enough why you should not deal with them, even without consideration of counterfeiting risk. Eastern Europe is also another counterfeiting hub, but they concentrate mostly on European crowns than United States coins. By shopping on eBay, you will find it easier sorting out results by country.

The best way to go is to restrict you to local coins dealers. Well, you may miss out on a few bargains, but you can save on faster shipping and related costs. However, you shouldn’t lower your guard too much for the American sellers because they could also expose you to risks. In case a coin looks suspicious, consider checking the seller’s reviews. If they have a history of sourcing for coins from Chinese sellers, chances are that they are selling counterfeited coins at a small premium.

Unfortunately, even the slabbed coins do not offer complete safety net anymore. Very high quality counterfeit Chinese coins that look more authentic have started appearing on eBay. The counterfeiters mostly target the NGC and PCGS slabs because they are the ones which demand premium grading services. Most of the counterfeit slabs are keydate coins which include the 1916-D Mercury and 1893-S Morgan. This makes it pretty hard to distinguish the slabs from authentic coins. They exercise high level of caution, use high quality tools and craftsmanship to come up with counterfeited coins that resemble the original ones.

These are low quality coins that are stuck in excellent quality slabs or low grade coins stuck in authentic alloys. The counterfeit detection methods discussed above still apply; therefore you shouldn’t trust a coin just because it’s slabbed. Check the certification number of the slab on the website of the grading services company. A database match does not guarantee authenticity because there are a few counterfeiters who also copy-genuine-codes hence making it hard to differentiate genuine from counterfeits.

There has been an improvement in the quality of counterfeits that are brought to the market, therefore making it cumbersome to differentiate real from fake coins. While eBay is an awesome resource for coin collectors, it is imperative that you exercise caution when shopping for coins. Stick to reputable sellers, avoid too good to be true sellers and use your common sense.

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EBay Coins Best Practices: Part 3 of 3

2/20/2015

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EBay Buying Strategies:  Sorting & Filtering Search Results

2/20/2015

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5 Things You Can Do to Increase the Value of Your Rare Coins

2/20/2015

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Anyone who has spent a number of years collecting rare coins has a high likelihood of what I refer to as ‘found money’ in their holdings. What I mean by found money’ is that there are things that you can do to your coins to improve their appearance and value. Here are some suggestions:



Send Your Coins to CAC

CAC is considered to be a very important factor in the upper segment of the market. CAC coins tend to command an attractive premium and I believe a coin with a CAC sticker is considerably more marketable. It is very inexpensive to submit a coin to CAC, with typical costs between $10 and $20 per item. When you submit your coins to CAC you get the added advantage of having an expert (John Albanese) take a look at them for very little cost. Before committing to sending all of your coins to CAC, try sending a small number of your best coins and see if you get CAC approval on all of them. If you do you can be fairly sure you are doing something right. If two or three of them get turned down then I would be looking for a new dealer.

Attribute Your Coins

A date collector of early half eagles would be well served by buying the Bass-Dannreuther book on early gold and attributing coins to BD’ numbers. If you get really lucky you may find a very rare die variety among your coins. This doesn’t necessarily mean an instant financial upgrade, unlike it might if it were part of a series of Large cents or Bust half dollars which are highly collectible by variety. I am sure you would far rather not read about some lucky collector stumbling upon an extremely rare variety of 1806 half eagle, and would instead prefer you get to enjoy the potential financial upgrade.

Pedigree Your Coins

Having a pedigree can greatly improve the value of a coin that once was part of a famous collection such as those of Eliasberg, Garrett, Norweb or Bass. While some of the coins that came from these collections are likely to have been clearly marked on the NGC or PCGS insert, there are many more, possibly in the hundreds, that for one reason or another no longer have their pedigree. A good move on your part would be to purchase catalogs from all of the major auctions that specialize in your area of interest and take some time to search through them. While there is a possibility that your coin(s) do not look the same as they did in an earlier sale you may be able to trace them if they have an obvious mark. If you find you have a coin that you believe you can easily prove the pedigree of, photocopy the page of the catalog and send it along with the coin to PCGS or NGC.

Reslab Your Coins

Please take note that I the word I used is reslab’ and not regrade’. Regrading is a totally different subject and for the most part is not relevant to this article. When I refer to reslabbing’ what I am referring to is upgrading the presentation of your coins by removing them from those scuffed, worn or dull holders and place them in new ones. You wouldn’t consider selling your house without first giving it a top-to-bottom thorough clean in order for it to present well. I am just suggesting that in order for your coins to look their best you do the same thing, only by putting them in attractive fresh slabs where they will look better.

Create a Cult of Personality

Some collectors become easily recognized and well-known because of what they collect, some because they spend seven figures on coins. Others’ fame comes from having articles and / or books published on their particular specialty.

A collector who has put in considerable time and effort to be seen as an authority on a particular type of coins certainly will find selling his own collection of coins far easier than a collector who is not known within the coin collecting community. This is equally true of those collectors on the NGC and PCGS Message Board. Being perceived as a great collector is much easier to achieve than it was before the Internet.

These five tips are just a few of many that I have. I am sure you have some suggestions and I would enjoy hearing them.

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Gold and Another Stock Market Bubble

2/20/2015

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Is the current monetary, tax and regulatory policy leading us into another bubble in the stock market?

Robert Shiller, a Nobel price winner in economics is among the few professional stock market analysts who I admire the most and whose work I follow always. I got to know about him a couple of years ago when I was convinced that corporate stocks in the market were being over-valued. Most of the people who disagreed with me based their arguments on the price earning ratios which were in agreement with the applicable historical averages. Price/earning ratio is where the price of a company’s stock is divided by the annual earnings of the same company.



I believed that the prices of stocks were exaggerated, which is still the case today, but because the price/earning ratio was religiously followed, and then it was hard for me to put forth a persuasive case. Then something awesome happened-I discovered Shiller’s work. The analysis which is presented by Shiller is based on the price of the stock against long term earnings but not annual earnings of the company. He clearly argues that a financial year is too short to determine whether a stock is underpriced or overpriced. To most people, this makes sense! Factors such as economic situation, accounting adjustments and failure or success of a new product launch are just a few factors that could distort the price/earning ratio of a stock.

But when the price of the stock is divided by long term earnings, these distortions are corrected and as of today, this technique can be used to determine of the price of a stock is high or low.

The only times which times P/(l-t) have been very high is during the 1929 stock crash, the bubble burst of 2000 and the financial crisis which was experienced in 2008. A combination of several economic forces are pushing stock prices to unsustainable heights and among them include such things as low interest rates, labor-cost inflation and low commodity prices. All these prices help to increase the amount of profits registered by corporate, therefore pushing stock prices upwards.

But there is another powerful force which is normally overlooked by many people and which is mostly responsible for the high stock prices in today’s economies: the easy monetary policies put in place by the Federal Reserve. One thing that points to this is the five and half years-of – quantitative-easing, popularly known as QE. The threat posed by high inflation level is what worries most QE advocates. Personally, inflation does not worry me much. For five years now, we have been told repeatedly that QE will spark a rise in inflation, but there is no sign of it in today’s word.

Because the QE policy developed by the Federal Reserve is unprecedented, we may be experience some inflation some years down the line. But for now, inflation ranks low in the list of our worries today. What gets me worried is the huge amount of money that QE has driven into the stock market by lowering the interest rates so that it becomes affordable for potential investors. Investors have adopted stocks investment by large numbers and accepted the high risks associated with this kind of investment.

Other factors that have added to the huge stock market investments include the rising after tax incomes received by investors, minimal capital gains tax and many more. But because the regulator of the financial markets have been gutted for the last two decades and the failure by the authorities to hold anyone responsible for abuses have brought down the protection which we depended on for the last 70 years.

As I wrote in my previous articles, Gold, as one of the superb wealth insurance methods helps protect you in hard times by helping in offsetting losses in your portfolio. In the seven periods where economic turmoil was experienced in the last 25 years, Gold has registered great performance and has outperformed a wide range of other asset classes. One of the notable periods where gold stood out against other investments is during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. I do believe that we are creating some conditions which will cause us a severe economic crisis than what we experienced during the 2008-2009 period. Without doubt, this was the worst economic burst since the great depression.

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2014 / 2015 May Be a Good Year for Numismatics After All

2/20/2015

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Eager to learn about the 2014/2015 Ancient Coin Market? You are not alone.

It is only but a few years ago when I argued that Numismatics (Coin Collection) should enter the hall of fame as a valid asset of its own class. At that time, I believed that a mix of classes would reduce the volatility that exists in the market and reduce the risk of this unconventional wealth being flushed down the drain. Like any other asset, the value of coils can fall and rise with accordance to the trending market forces. The idea of converting ancient or rare coins into an asset is not a toddler. The collection of rare coins dates back to the times of Plato and Alexander the great where people readily paid more for rare coins.



Regardless of what your opinion on the matter might be, I am sure that COINS are a better way out for my investments. Stocks and bonds have their risks and pleura of characteristics you must consider before making an investment. I do not see reason as to why volatility in Numismatics would be unexpected.

Like any other form of investment with a high risk, guaranteed income is just but an illusion that rarely comes to be. Most people feel safer with stocks and bonds since they believe that the government owns banks. This is not true. Banks are not bankruptcy proof. They are just like any other company and can crumble if individual clients pull off.

Look at this; is the house you live in a home or an investment? You might be tempted to choose an answer from these options. In reality, it is neither of the two. Purchasing a house might give us protection against future prices. It is something valued on the mere basis of numbers that could be higher than inflation in the standing market. Moreover, gold is also an asset to keep not as a guarantee of profit but as a security against fluctuating conventional currencies.

Coin collecting projections

By taking a look at the current market trends, it does not take complex algorithms or software to deduce that rare coin prices growth will be expected to maintain a positive gradient through to 2014. The question, however, is what coin should be bought? Which type guarantees tangible if not the best price growths within this timespan? In my opinion, purchasing the highest quality coins in the current market would be undeniably good enough.

Nonetheless, coins like the British and Imperial Roman Market gems will definitely appreciate in the next two or so years. This is so since both nations had string empire dynasties whose power shaped the current physical boundaries and economies as a whole.

Even though the British bronze and copper farthings, half pennies and farthings are not quite a price fetcher in the current market, chances are that their price would inflate with up to 400 percent in the near future. Moreover, hand crafted coins of the Edward the First era have the chance to grow by up to 300 percent since this era has an interesting and rich role in human history. Roman bronze coins, especially the Imperial Coins are also expect to more than double in price in a few years’ time.

The big question is, why bronze? Its neither noble as gold or as hard and decisive as steel. Why would someone want to pay a good deal of dollars for a highly corroded coin whose patina serves no more than tell you where the original collector found the coin? Well, the answer could lie in the uniqueness or the story each coin has to tell. They could be the exact coins used by Trojans in the final days of the famous siege of Troy, or perhaps the money used to pay the highly skilled slaves who fought to amuse the masses in the great coliseums of Sicily. The point is each coin has a story to tell.

Since the most authentic coins have a patina as a stamp of where they were found, some traders could make replicas and forge this patina on their own. Look for natural bronze coins that have been washed in water. The volcanic soil will sometimes still be on some parts of the coin. The effects of natural acids or alkalinity of the soil will have taken its toll on the coin in an irregular way. Such originals are hard to come by. If you get them too easily, think twice.

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10 Numismatic Books to Get You Started

2/20/2015

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Three Gold Collecting Myths that Confuse Buyers

2/20/2015

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There are three common myths surrounding gold collecting. Don’t you be a victim to any of them.

An article I read recently, “The 12 Biggest Mistakes the Media Make When Covering Gold” by Gary Alexander contained some great insights for anyone looking to buy gold. In the article there were many myths that were debunked. These were the kinds of myths that often deter investors and their advisors from adding gold to their portfolios.



I feel that Alexander’s judgment is appropriate. The basis for his assessment is a New York Times column by Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate, entitled “Lust for Gold”. While I have a high opinion of Professor Krugman, unlike most of the gold community, I have to agree with Alexander when he says that Krugman has errors in his thinking when it comes to gold.

Alexander highlights the importance the media myths play in causing mainstream investors to have misconceptions about holding gold. I will be writing a series of articles to address these myths, and adding my opinions, and highlight the areas where I believe Alexander is wrong.

Myth 1: Gold is a risky investment.

One of the first things gold critics like to do to perpetuate the myth is show a graph that highlights the decline in gold prices that occurred between the years 1980 and 2000. While it is a fact that gold prices fell 69% during that period, they fail to show the rise of 560% that occurred between the years 1975 and 1980, and where they experienced an even higher increase between the years of 2000 and 2011 (618%).

The gold critics don’t want you to see those figures because they show what is true of all asset classes: gold does well during some periods and may not do so well during others. The viability of any asset as an investment can be skewed based upon an arbitrarily chosen set of data. Krugman, and gold critics like him, can make gold look like a poor investment selecting a period when it performed poorly, but when gold is looked at over a longer term he fails to make his case.

Another vital point that Krugman and his gold critic peers fail to consider is where gold fits into the portfolio of an investor. As I have previously stated in past articles, I believe gold’s correct role in a portfolio is as wealth insurance. Gold provides protection for your wealth during times of economic and political uncertainty, particularly in circumstances such as occurred during the crash of 2008 / 2009.

When you understand the importance of gold as insurance its performance in comparison to other assets becomes irrelevant. Gold’s sole purpose is to provide protection, not appreciate like many other assets are expected to. Gold never truly loses all value however, unlike many other types of insurance. You can be assured of receiving a large portion of the amount you paid for it when cashing it in, unlike the likes of term life insurance or auto and home insurances.

Gold has another advantage over other forms of insurance, and that is that it has a solid track record of 40 years, where it either appreciated or held its value for the most part.

Myth #2: U.S. gold investors are ‘bugs’

In his New York Times article, Krugman made a valid point about how concerning the recent upswing in what he termed ‘goldbuggism’ is.

Fortunately the majority of gold investors purchase gold for wealth protection and not for the potential for it to appreciate, and have no time for the politics surrounding gold bugs.

Sadly, the media has spent recent years focusing on gold’s political aspects i.e. the demand that the gold standard return and the threat of impending government bankruptcy. Many investors who have been considering purchasing gold are often confused and distracted by the political debates.

I believe some economists, like Krugman, may have developed a skewed opinion of gold as an investment as a result of the politics surrounding it. Many of these economists are followers of John Maynard Keynes, who was a very influential economist during the 20th century, and is reported to have believed that gold was nothing but a ‘barbarous relic’. In actual fact, it was the gold standard that Keynes referred to as being a barbarous relic.

Mostly liberals, these economists blame stunted economic grown on the gold standard, and even go as far as to believe that it contributed to the Great Depression. As a result they believe a return to the gold standard would be a Neanderthal move on the part of conservative politicians and economists. In comparison those in favor of a return of the gold standard believe that Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and Roosevelt’s New Deal were only made possible by Keynesian deficit spending. And there lies the basis for much of the political division that is present today.

Gold gets caught in the middle, with controversy surrounding it from every quarter, making it appear to be a bad investment for mainstream investors. Political liberals are so focused on opposing the return of the gold standard that they are blind to the merits of gold as an investment.

For the rest of us it comes down to how advantageous gold is at protecting wealth, as it has done for thousands of years. War, politics and economic problems can all be blamed for much of what has happened through the years, but not gold. Gold is the one constant that provides us with the protection we so badly need during such difficult times.

Myth #3: Gold has no intrinsic value

According to the definition of ‘intrinsic’ as published in the Merriam-Webster dictionary you will see that this myth is entirely without merit. If it were true that gold has no intrinsic value, then the same could be said about paper currency and coins, the very things that make commerce as we know it possible.

Confidence and trust is what makes commerce possible, and the dollar is currently the most trusted of all the world’s currencies. This trust comes about because there is worldwide confidence in the U.S. economy and the fact that we are fully committed to using our national wealth to back the dollar up. That is one of the main reasons the Treasury Department and our Constitution exist today.

While the dollar’s intrinsic value is a relatively recent development, gold has been trusted by people, governments and cultures for thousands of years. Gold has survived in a way that no other currency or asset has, and perhaps when all is said and done, gold’s intrinsic value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

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What makes a coin Valuable?

2/20/2015

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