Making Cents - The Case For Ending The Penny

Inflation has made the penny barely worthwhile nowadays. 

Indeed, the early symbol for a penny originated with the Roman denarius - a coin that once was a day's pay for a Roman legionary. When English translations of the Bible referred to a penny they were, in fact, referring to the denarius.

The days when a penny was a day's pay are long, long, long gone. 

Verily, even most people's thoughts these days are more costly than a penny.

Inflation has eroded the purchasing power of the currency, and now the lowly penny may be making its final farewell.

The United States 1 cent coin costs 3.69 cents to make,  a 20% increase this year alone, currently costing the US Treasury a loss of $179 million dollars per year minting them for them to sit in people's drawers or jars, and weigh down their purses.

As such, Trump has instructed the Treasury to stop producing them.

While from a sentimental standpoint, keeping the penny is attractive as the US has had pennies since 1787, it is likely time to join other nations such as Canada in letting the penny make a graceful exit from our money supply.

Other US coins have gone by the wayside. For example, the last United States half penny was last minted  over 150 years ago in 1857 and the lack of 1/2 pennies hasn't been missed or remarked upon. 

Expect the penny to be removed for circulating currency if Congress agrees, and the costs of items to be rounded up or down accordingly.

The end of the penny, after all, just makes cents.

A Neat Hanukkah Discovery

The Times of Israel: ‘Miracle’ hoard of Hasmonean coins discovered during Hanukkah in Jordan Valley dig

 The Hasmoneans were the descendants of the Maccabees, so finding a hoard of coins belonging to Alexander Jannaeus during Hanukkah is rather cool, and timely.

These coins, made of bronze,  are known as prutahs or lepta (plural: leptons).

 For my Christian readers, these prutahs of Jannaeus are agreed upon by scholars to be the coins referred to as the "Widow's Mite" in the Christian bible  (Mark 12:41-44 and Luke 21:1-4).  These coins are rather inexpensive at $35-$75 or so, and are a nice addition to any coin collection or just to have as a very neat historic item with significance for both Jews and Christians.

A Very Valuable Donation - But It's Not Rare

The Detroit News: Rare coin left in St. Clair Shores Salvation Army red kettle

An anonymous donor has been putting a Krugerrand in the  kettle each year.

A Krugerrand is a very nice donation, as its  a valuable one-ounce South African gold coin worth around $2,700. That the donor has been doing this for 12 years is highly impressive on the donor's part and very generous too.

But Krugerrands, while valuable, are not particularly rare, nor even scarce. In the 70s and 80s, millions were minted per year. In the 1980s Krugerrands were 90% of the gold bullion coin market with millions minted. In 2010, the most recent year with mintage figures being available, over 520,000 were minted and almost 750,000 the year before.

If you want to invest in gold, a Krugerrand is likely not a bad way to go. After all, you get to posses a very beautiful coin you can appreciate as it appreciates in value.

Just because a thing is valuable doesn't mean its rare, nor is rarity a synonym for valuable, and the headline writer should know that.

EID MAR

This is a good day for lawyers to check their forum selection clauses in their contracts.

Choosing a bad forum can lead you and your client to feelings of being stabbed in the back, front, and sides.

This is a also a day to ask for a steak knife to accompany your Caesar salad.

Yes, Brutus actually struck a coin commemorating his assassination of Julius Caesar on this day back in 44 B.C. 

One of these historic surviving denarii is up for auction on this very day, a most auspicious day for such a coin to be sold, in Denmark. Ths coin is estimated to go for between $425,435 to $496,346 U.S.

Queen Elizabeth II And Modern Numismatic History

The Royal Mint has released a series commemorating the reign of Queen Elizabeth II and the longest reign of a monarch in the history of the United Kingdom.

Interestingly, these coins will also be the first coins to bear the portrait of the new monarch, Charles III, on the obverse of the coin, making the end of an era:

 

This makes for quite an interesting holiday gift to the coin collector, investor, or historical enthusiast that's on your list.

With brilliant uncirculated crowns that have two portraits of Queen Elizabeth II on the reverse going for around US$17, and 50 pence with a different reverse design consisting of coats of arms going for $13.14 on the low end, there's plenty for the starting collector.  You can also, if there's a goldbug in your life, get a commemorative memorial sovereign for $830.00.

These will only be on sale through December 31, 2022 or until they run out. A neat opportunity to pickup a piece of history.

Another Neat Archaeological Find In Israel

The Jerusalem Post:  2,000-year-old ‘Freedom to Zion’ coins found in biblical heartland   

The two coins, one from the First Jewish Revolt and the other from the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome were found during archeological exploration in the northern Judaean dessert.

The coins were found in two separate locations in the region.

Finding the Bar Kochba coin in the northern Judaea is significant.  It;s apparently the first time such a coin has been found in the northern region that used to be the 11th District in Judaea.

Back then, the area constituted the 11th district of the province of Judea. Its capital city was Aqrabat; a modern Arab village with the same name still stands on the same spot.
“The coin from Wadi Rashash indicates the presence of a Jewish population in the area until the end of the Bar Kochba revolt, in contrast to what was previously believed by researchers: that the Jewish settlements north of Jerusalem were all destroyed during the Great Revolt and the area not resettled afterward,” Raviv said.
“This coin is in fact the first proof that the Akrabat region, the northernmost of the Judean districts during the Roman period, was controlled by Bar Kochba’s administration,” he noted.

 A very neat find that's going to change our understanding of history in the region, at least a little bit.

A Piece Of History Now In Hand

A delivery from across the Atlantic washed up on my door last night:

The Brexit 50 pence coin, dated the day of Brexit had arrived.

Peace, Prosperity and Friendship with All Nations.

A fitting proclamation for the restoration of British sovereignty.

Brexit Commemorative Coin

Coins aren't just medium of exchange, they also can be used to convey messages and record historic occasions.

The Royal Mint today is striking fifty pence coins to commemorate and celebrate Brexit.

Withdrawal from the European Union 2020 UK 50p Coin

The commemorative coins are offered in brilliant uncirculated condition, proof condition, and in a special set with the commemorative from when the UK joined the EU - a Hello and Goodbye set as it were which per their website, seems to already be sold out.

It's the end of an era, and when looking at the special set, you see Queen Elizabeth II as monarch throughout the period from 1973 to today, with both her younger self and today's stately portrait adorning the coins.

There's also a commemorative gold sovereign being offered, but it appears the mintage of it is already sold out.

Interestingly enough, they have opened up the mint and provided limited spaces for Brits to come in and strike their very own Brexit 50p coins, but as you might guess, all the spaces are already booked for the event.

I think I need to buy a BU or proof coin to mark this rather historic event as the UK exits the EU and becomes its own fully sovereign nation once again.

A Nickel Ain't Worth A Dime Anymore - Yogi Berra

Nickels may not be worth a dime, but this particular one is worth a lot more than a dime, in fact, it just sold for 45,000,000 dimes.

Photo taken by Heritage Auctions - Provided by Heritage Auctions with permission, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21547957

The Detroit News: Rare nickel sells for $4.5 million at auction

Stack’s Bowers Galleries sold the Eliasberg 1913 Liberty Head nickel Wednesday night during the American Numismatic Association’s World’s Fair of Money at the Philadelphia Convention Center.

It is named for financier Louis E. Eliasberg, who bought the coin in 1948 and amassed one of the greatest coin collections in U.S. history. The Eliasberg 1913 Liberty Head nickel is one of only five ever produced and is considered the finest-graded example of its kind.

The sale set a new record price for 1913 Liberty Head nickels.

Rare Ancient Jewish Coins Found in Jerusalem

Two impressive new and historically important finds of ancient Jewish coins from the First Revolt against Rome (66-70 AD) have been recently discovered in Israel.

A hoard of Year 4 bronze coins were recovered at the Ophel excavation from a cave near the Temple Mount. Likely buried there as the Romans were besieging and then conquering Jerusalem, its an impressive find of some very rare coins, as the Year 4 bronze and silver coins are quite rare and scarce, mainly because by then the Jews were losing the war and only Jerusalem and a few other outposts remained under Jewish control.

In addition to the hoard of coins found in the cave, a Year 4 Bronze was found in an ancient sewer duct, along with a sword and other accoutrements, under the Hagai Road that led to the Temple helping to verify Josephus's account of the Siege of Jerusalem that fighters and others took shelter form the Romans in drainage ditches where many were killed.

Talk about finds that just ooze history.

Two impressively historic numismatic finds found in Jerusalem within a short time and a short distance apart this year. Very neat indeed.

When Is It That A Penny Goes For A Pretty Penny?

When it is a United States 1793 Penny and just sold for $300,000.

Fox News: Rare US penny sells for $300G at auction in Florida

One of the first circulating coins released from the US Mint into circulation, only 500 have survived in various conditions.

Note that these pennies were rather large with a diameter of 26.5 mm, and quite substantial as a dollar worth of these pennies weighed 3 pounds.

Ancient Collection of Ancient Jewish Coins Found

A coin collector's collection is found, at least 1940 years after they were hidden away, with some coins in the collection dating back 2,150 years.

The Times Of Israel: Cache of Hasmonean-era silver coins uncovered in Modiin

Dr. Donald Tzvi Ariel, head of the Coin Department at the antiquities authority, said the cache contained one or two coins from every year between 135 and 126 BCE.

“It seems that some thought went into collecting the coins, and it is possible that the person who buried the cache was a coin collector. He acted in just the same way as stamp and coin collectors manage collections today,” he added.

“The findings from our excavation show that a Jewish family established an agricultural estate on this hill during the Hasmonean period,” Tendler said.

Coins were also found there dating to the first Jewish Revolt against Rome, including one marked Year 2.

Another very neat find. Coin collecting has been going on for a very long time, and collecting a shekel and half shekel of each year for 9 years is a pretty indicative trend. It has been long known that the Medieval and Renaissance nobility collected coins, and it's neat to find evidence that coin collecting was going on in antiquity.

Cache of Classic Coins Alleged To Be Proceeds Of Crime

Allegedly, one of the biggest coin collections in Michigan was built from the proceeds of Medicare fraud.

The Detroit News: Detroit area doctor could forfeit coin trove worth millions in fraud case

A West Bloomfield neurologist who reaped millions by allegedly cheating Medicare spent more than $9.3 million on baseball cards, ancient coins, collectable currency and stamps — a rare collection he could soon lose to the government.

Dr. Gavin Awerbuch amassed the collection — including coins from ancient Rome — using cash generated by an alleged five-year crime wave, according to federal court records that offer rare insight into the secretive world of coin collecting. At the upper end, the world is filled with hobbyists who, due to security concerns, protect the scope and value of their prized possessions.

This doctor is a very serious collector or investor, spending millions on coins. In a five year period he spent more than $9.3 million at 16 coin and collectible dealers.

Apparently the Feds have already seized millions of dollars from him along with the coins and real estate.

It will be interesting to see how the case works out and what happens to this impressive collection.

Found Gold Coins? You Can't Keep 'Em. On Incentives and Valuable Archaeological Finds

Or as kindly pointed out to me by Murphy's Law this post could also be titled: "2,000 reasons to keep your mouth shut".

And that is the problem.

The story from the UK's Daily Mail: 'Priceless' trove of 2,000 gold coins used by 10th Century Caliphate which once ruled much of the Middle East is found off the coast of Israel

In what is every warm-blooded diver's dream dive, a bunch of divers came upon a treasure trove of 2,000 Fatimid-era gold coins, off the historic and beautiful port of Caesarea, so in Israeli rather than international waters.

Unfortunately, as is often the case in the majority of countries around the world, the law provides that the divers don't get to keep any of the find when it is found in a country's territorial waters, and it all goes to the state.

Lest you think this wouldn't happen in the USA, try and take an artifact you discover, that no one else knew existed, from the bottomlands of the Great Lakes. Your head will spin as to how fast you will not only lose the item but have all your dive-gear and possibly your car (if it drove you to the dive site it can be fair game) confiscated as well. States are touchy about treasure located in their national waters.

2,000 gold coins provide a powerful incentive to shut up and pocket the find and not tell anyone you found them, especially if you won't receive a finder's fee. This creates some bad incentives as hiding the find would prevent archeological discovery, documentation and exploration of the site and creates an illicit market in the coins.

Passing off 2,000 gold coins of the era would cause quite a stir and lead to them being prosecuted, so the divers rightly followed the law by reporting the find.

The divers should be, and would be in a more perfect world, allowed to keep some percentage of the find considering it was unknown to exist until they found it and it was found by their efforts. This would ensure the site to be properly explored, preserve the coins and reward the finders to keep them and future finders honest and willing to come forward about such discoveries.

A great find and hopefully they'll at least be publicly named and given credit for the discovery, and it wouldn't hurt if they could be allowed to keep a few coins for themselves.

Not So Semper FIDES - A Coin Of Probus

Obverse: IMP C M AVR PROBVS AVG. (Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Probus Augustus) Large bust of the Emperor in armor facing right and wearing a double diadem.

Reverse: FIDES MILITVM. (The loyalty of the Armies) III in exerge. Personification of Fides standing facing right, holding a legionary standard in each hand.

Mint mark is III for the Lugdunum mint in Gaul, today known as Lyon. The III indicates the third officinae produced this coin.

The loyalty of the armies was of paramount concern to a Roman emperor, especially in the third century when they were keenly aware of how often emperors were overthrown my their own legions. After all, Probus had just led his army to overthrow the prior emperor Florian in 276 just three months after Florian had been elevated to the purple.

Since much of the monies minted in this period was for legionary pay, propagandizing the military virtues of the emperor, his victories against enemies of Rome, and appealing to the loyalty of the armies as in this coin were very necessary endeavors.

Unfortunately, in 282 AD, the loyalty of the armies to Probus ran out and he was murdered by his own soldiers in Sirmium.

This is an interesting reverse variation because most of the cataloged coins of the Fides Militvm series have Fides facing left, not right.

Quick! The Emperor Probus Is Coming. Look Busy.

The Emperor Probus was quite a mobile emperor.

Obverse: IMP PROBVS AVG. (Imperator Probus Augustus). Emperor facing right in armor with double diadem.

Reverse: ADVENTVS AVG (The arrival of the Augustus). Emperor on horseback facing left, right hand raised in greeting, left hand holding a scepter, captive at the horse's front feet and RXZ in exerge.

The Mint Mark R(star)Z is for (R) Rome, Z is zeta or seventh officinae, the mint sub-office where the coin was minted, and the star is a control mark. The green flecks you see on the reverse is verdigris, the result of the underlying bronze being exposed to air for a long time, in this case about 1737 years.

The Adventus series of coins commemorate the visit of the emperor to the city designated in the mint mark of the coin. In this case, the coin was minted for his arrival to Rome in 277 AD.

Other cities featured in the Adventus series include Ticinum (Italy), Siscia (Croatia), Lugdunum (in Gaul), Serdica (now Sofia, Bulgaria), and Cyzicus (western Turkey), which indicates a fair bit of traveling for the Emperor.

Coins of Probus are very fun (and affordable) to collect. There's lots to choose from given the variety of types, legends and symbols that appear on his coins. There are 12 different obverse legends alone, and the emperor can be depicted in various types of armor, helmet and weapons, and that's just on the obverse of the coin. On the reverse are multiple types and lots of different mint marks and legends.

The Virtus Of The Emperor - A Coin Of Probus

Virtus in this case meaning the personification of the military virtues of manliness, courage and virtue. These virtues were vital for a third century Roman emperor to display and propagandize, lest his subordinates consider replacing him with someone more virtuous.

Obverse: IMP C M AVR PROBVS AVG. (Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Probus Augustus) Emperor in armor facing left, wearing double diadem and carrying a spear.

Reverse: VIRTVS PROBI AVG. Virtue walking right, carrying a spear and trophy, Q in the right lower field.

The obverse of the coin shows the Emperor in later roman armor, carrying a spear showing his military virtues, and wearing the double diadem that marks the coin as a double denarius, today known as the antoninianus.

On this coin, the bronze can be seen beneath silver wash on the obverse, but the details of the emperor and his armor remain nice and sharp. A fair amount of the silver wash remains on the reverse with only a few bits of bronze showing through the silver.

This coin, from the Ticium mint, which has a mint mark of XXI. Just like the previous coin of Probus from the mint of Rome, it also has a letter from the word AEQVITI added to the coin's reverse, in this case a Q.

The obverse legend is interesting - Probus a third-century emperor who reigned from 276-282 A.D., is titled as Imperator or emperor, Caesar and Augustus - tying himself to the glory and power of Rome's first emperor and imperial dynasty.

Beating On the Germans - A Coin Of Probus

It's been quite awhile since I did an ancient coin post.

Next in the series is a coin of the Roman Emperor Probus.

Marcus Aurelius Probus was emperor of Rome from 276-282 AD. As typical for many of the later Roman emperors, he wasn't born in Rome but instead in the city of Sirmium a city in Roman Pannonia, located in what is northern Serbia and the current city of Sremska Mitrovica is located right on top of it. So much on top of it in fact that right beneath the city center is the only known unexcavated Roman hippodrome, a huge building 150 meters wide by 450 meters in length. Unexcavated to this day as they'd have to rip up much of the existing city center to get to it. Sirmium was a very important roman city and made some major cultural contributions to Roman life and indeed nine emperors were born there and many others born near or were proclaimed emperor there.

An emperor in this period needed to display military prowess, and there was no better way to show those abilities than beating back a Germanic tribe or two from the Roman Empire's limes.

The reverse: Victoria Germ. Two captives seated at the foot of a trophy. RAA in exerge.

The Obverse: Probus P F AVG. The emperor's radiate and cuirassed bust facing right.

Sear 3375.

While the coin proclaimed victory over the Germans, and Probus did win many battles against them, the reality of the overall strategic situation was quite different. Under Probus, while there were considerable military victories, the Romans began withdrawing from their fortifications along the Limes Germaicus and abandoned the Agri Decumates area of the Roman province of Germania Superior and retreated to move defensible positions along the Rhine and the Danube rivers.

Probus also worked on revitalizing the Roman economy but came to an early end. In 282 AD at Sirmium, the town of his birth, he was murdered by a bunch of mutinous soldiers who were angry at having been ordered to do construction on public works rather than military duties.

Inflation in the Roman Empire in this period has reduced the Antoninianus to a silver-washed piece of bronze. On this coin, while it weighs 3.92 grams, you can see the bronze coin through the areas where the silver plating has worn away over time and the weight is bronze not silver.

There's also an interesting factoid about some of the coins of Probus. He, or his mint-masters, liked to throw single letters of the word AEQVITI, or equity, on coins.

In the case of this coin, there's an added A found in the mint-mark. The RA of the mark stands for Rome (R), first workshop (A), so we know this coin was minted at Rome itself. The extra A is for the beginning of the word AEQVITI.

Interestingly enough these extra initials only appear on coins struck at the Rome or Ticium mints (mint-mark XXI) and none of the other mints operating during that period. Get enough coins of Probus from Rome and Ticium, and you can gather the extra letters, which are often found in the legend or on the field of the coin and spell AEQVITI at your leisure and feel very equitable while doing so. Why these two mints put that code in the series of coins is unexplained as is why it was limited to only those two mints and what the point was of adding them to the series of coins.

A nice coin commemorating a Roman victory while holding part of a hidden codeword and thereby presenting an interesting lost mystery to history.

Eid Mar - Beware The Ides of March

The assassination of Julius Caesar and today, the Ides of March, was forever immortalized by the conspirators in his death by their striking of a coin, a silver denarius, to commemorate the deed.

The cap of liberty flanked on each side by the daggers that did Julius Caesar in at the Forum.

Of course, it didn't quite work out as the conspirators hoped.

Instead of a return to thier cherished ideal of the better classes ruling with the Roman Senate supreme and no one man predominant, it instead led to a series of bloody civil wars that went on for 14 years, starting in 44 BC and culminating in 30 BC.

The wars resulted in the rise of Octavian as First Citizen and Augustus - the first of the Roman Emperors ansd the end of the dominant power of the Roman Senate.

Democrat Magical Numismatic Thinking

If Printing our way doesn't work, these brilliant Democrat minds at work have come up with a wacky proposal to coin our way out:

The Trillion Dollar Coin

BizPac Review:

Right on the heels of the Jan. 2 fiscal cliff deadline will come an even bigger concern — raising the debt ceiling. Obama administration economists are seriously considering minting a trillion-dollar coin to settle the issue.

This indicates that these economists are complete morons.

The Washington Times succinctly reports and explains:

Welcome to Zimbabwe. This is not a parody — it is an actual report from the Washington Post:

Some economists and legal scholars have suggested that the “platinum coin option” is one way to defuse a crisis if Congress can’t or won’t lift the debt ceiling soon. ... Thanks to an odd loophole in current law ... the U.S. Mint would produce (say) a pair of trillion-dollar platinum coins. The president orders the coins to be deposited at the Federal Reserve. The Fed then moves this money into Treasury’s accounts. And just like that, Treasury suddenly has an extra $2 trillion to pay off its obligations for the next two years — without needing to issue new debt. The ceiling is no longer an issue.

“I like it,” says Joseph Gagnon of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “There’s nothing that’s obviously economically problematic about it.”

Sorry but that is absolutely insane. Did Gagnon get his economics degree from a crackerjack box? Has he ever heard of Gresham's Law or Zimbabwe?

Never mind that the Treasury gets (31 USC 5134 section (c)(3) seignorage, and the seigniorage on a trillion dollar coin would be pretty massive.

Now, were the trillion dollar coin to be truly worth a trillion dollars, here's an idea of what it would look like:

A single ounce of platinum is currently worth around $1,605.

To get to a trillion dollars worth of platinum would require a metal content of 42,723,634lb 6.2058oz - rounding off we get to 21,361 US Tons.

This is not a coin that would fit in your pocket, heck it won't fit on a truck.

Oh, and world total global supply of platinum is currently only around 7.9 million ounces, or 270 tons so we're going to be short by about 21,091 tons, and that's a lot.

Anything less than a coin that size and you're talking nonsense and magical thinking.

This also gives you an idea of how much trouble we're in considering our debt is far in excess of a trillion dollars, a trillion dollars is less than out current annual deficit.

It's creating something out of nothing by monetizing the debt and would be the ultimate con game. Expect massive inflation if they tried to go through with it.

Dealing with the debt and debt limit via a new magic coin or two isn't going to fix it, and instead will make it much worse.