Volume 19 Issue 4 Liberty Coin Service s Monthly Review of Precious Metals and Numismatics April 10, 2013

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1 Volume 19 Issue 4 Liberty Coin Service s Monthly Review of Precious Metals and Numismatics April 10, 2013 What would you do and how could you get by if, with no advance warning, your banks were closed for twelve consecutive days? This is no longer a theoretical question. Just ask the citizens of Cyrus who suffered this very problem in March (except for the 132 government officials, individuals, and businesses who suddenly transferred their funds to safety just before the bank holiday was announced purely coincidental, of course). Then, what would you do if your government or your banks confiscated some of your balances in savings and checking accounts? Again, Cypriot citizens are finding out now. On top of this, the countries using the Euro, Canada, and New Zealand are in the process of planning to do similar confiscations of bank accounts (deceptively described as bail-ins ) should a major bank get into severe financial trouble. How would you react if the bank where you stored physical precious metals that you owned sent you a letter saying that you could no longer take possession of these assets? Customers of the huge Dutch bank ING are dealing with this right now. But wait! There s more! What steps would you take if your government suddenly enacted a law allowing the government to seize inactive bank accounts for retirement plans, college funds, trust accounts, and others in less than half the waiting time than used to be the case? Well, Australians now are subject to losing those assets after only three years of inactivity instead of the previous seven year grace period. Is A Global Financial Collapse Underway? Bank Holiday! Retirement Account Assets At Risk! Bank and Government Seizures Of Checking And Savings Accounts! 2013 Year-To-Date Results Through April 9, 2013 Precious Metals Palladium +4.1% Platinum +0.9% Gold -5.3% Silver -7.7% Numismatics US MS-65 Morgan Dollar, Pre % US MS-63 $20 St Gaudens -8.0% US MS-63 $20 Liberty -8.7% US Dollar vs Foreign Currencies Japan Yen +14.2% South Korea Won +7.1% Great Britain Pound +6.0% South Africa Rand +5.5% Canada Dollar +2.4% Switzerland Franc +1.9% Singapore Dollar +1.5% Euro +0.9% Hong Kong Dollar +0.2% China Yuan -0.4% Australia Dollar -0.9% India Rupee -1.0% New Zealand Dollar -2.9% Finally, how would you feel to know that seven of the 37 members of Crossborder Bank Resolution Group that helped enable such actions were high ranking officials from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation? Would you now be as frightened of leaving assets with banks as I am? After seeing these events come to pass thus far in 2013, wouldn't you think it was long past time to stock up an extra couple weeks worth of groceries and other house- Brazil Real -3.3% Mexico Peso -5.5% U.S. Dollar Index % US And World Stock Market Indices Nikkei % Dow Jones Industrial Average +12.0% S&P % Russell % Australia S&P/ASX % London FT % NASDAQ +7.2% Dow Jones World (excluding US) +2.5% Frankfurt Xetra DAX +0.3% Shanghai Composite -1.9% Sao Paulo Bovespa -8.3% 10 Year US Treasury Note interest rate 1.752% -0.4% Intrinsic Metal Value Of U.S. Coins Lincoln cent Lincoln cent 1982-date 0.50 Jefferson nickel non-silver 4.82 Roosevelt dime, 1965-date 2.19 Washington quarter, 1965-date 5.46 Kennedy half dollar, 1971-date hold supplies, reduce the amount of funds you kept in bank accounts, and finally got around to acquiring some physical gold and silver that you hold in direct custody? This isn t even the entire list of major financial crises popping up around the globe in the past month. Here s a few more: Japan announced that it will initiate a program of inflation of its money supply that will be the greatest in world history. The plan calls for roughly a doubling of the money supply within two years. This is a scale larger in absolute terms than the $1.02+ trillion annual inflation of the money supply promised by the Federal Reserve, eu- Inside this issue: Patrick A. Heller s Upcoming Speeches page 2 Liberty s Outlook Report On Facebook page 3 Many People Think Gold Is In A Bubble page 4

2 (Continued from page 1) phemistically called quantitative easing. In the past five weeks, the Japanese yen has fallen 6% against the US dollar. US hedge funds as a group acquired a net short position in the silver market at the same time that Japanese citizens are waiting in line at bullion dealers as long as three hours to get rid of their yen in return for tangible physical assets like gold and silver. Last Friday, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics issued one of its worst Non-Farm Payroll and Unemployment reports in years. Despite the headlines, the information about the household survey, where the number of people with jobs are actually counted, there were 206,000 fewer job holders in March than in February. Beyond that, the percentage of age-available people who had jobs fell to its lowest level since years ago! Saber-rattling by North Korea is a military and political problem rather than financial. However, the South Korea won has dropped 6% versus the US dollar in the past five weeks, even as the dollar itself was falling against almost every other currency during that time other than the yen and the Euro. If you were a top US government official taking note of all of these events, what would you do? Well, we know for sure what one of the actions was Suppress Gold And Silver Prices Over the past several years, standard times for the US government s trading partners and allies to slam precious metals prices were at 3:00 AM Eastern when the London market opened, at 8:30 AM when the COMEX opened in New York, at 10:00 AM before the London PM Find hundreds of numismatic items offered for sale today in our ebay store. Gold, silver, and copper coins, exonumia, paper money, and other collectibles. Search for seller Treasurechestofliberty. fix, at noon, going into the COMEX closes about 1:30 PM, then after the ACCESS market opened at 2:00 PM. Price suppression was also evident upon three-day holiday weekends (like Easter) the release of terrible financial news (such as the monthly jobs reports), and of important statements made by the Federal Open Market Committee or by the president, Secretary of the Treasury, or Federal Reserve chair. In the past few weeks, price suppression tactics have come out almost around the clock, right from when Asian markets open about 6 PM Eastern time to any time when the gold or silver spot prices are threatening to pass technical buying point prices. For instance, yesterday the price of silver ranged 4% just during US market hours. We did have some customers who heard that the price of silver had fallen to near $27, but found it to be over $28 an hour later when they contacted us to buy. As I warned last month, with the extreme amount of terrible financial crises looming, expect gold and silver prices to be extremely volatile. Rather than being frustrated by the difficulty of being able to purchase near the bottom of a short-lived price dip, realize that such volatility almost certainly bodes well for much higher prices in the not-toodistant-future. An Urgent Action Plan The possibility of a bank holiday affecting some or all of the US is now much greater than before that event hit Cyprus. Unfortunately, for a short-term bank holiday, owning physical gold or silver isn t that practical. Think of what you would need if you could not access your bank accounts, write a check, or use a credit or debit card for a week or two. Those who could best manage such a crisis would be those holding some quantity of the local spending currency. In America, that means having physical custody of paper US dollars. The idea leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but it is a practical survival asset. Next, think about stockpiling nonperishable food as it goes on sale in the grocery stores. You don t have to go for freeze -dried foods, which cost much more. Instead, get canned and packaged products that will last a year or so that you can rotate by consuming them as you obtain more replacements. With food and other household goods, don t just think about having enough for your immediate family for two weeks. Think of all the nearby relatives, coworkers, and neighbors that don t prepare Patrick A. Heller s Upcoming Speeches April 16, Lansing, Michigan, Delta Rotary meeting, Collecting Coins For Fun And Profit, at noon. Carrabba s Restaurant, 6540 W. Saginaw Hwy. Free admission for Rotary members and guests. May 7 (rescheduled from April 2), Monroe, Michigan, Monroe Coin Club meeting, Create Fun-Filled Numismatic Presentations For The General Public, at 7 PM at the Recreational Area of the Mable Kehres Apartments, Dixie Highway. Free admission. June 24, Webberville, Michigan, Webberville United Methodist Women meeting, Collecting Coins For Fun And Profit, at 9:00 AM, 4215 East Hold Road. Contact Nancy Ann Webb at CutsieCat@aol.com for details. July 11-13, Las Vegas, Nevada, Freedom Fest, History Of Rome Through Coins, exact time to be determined at Caesar s Palace. There is an admission charge to attend Freedom Fest. See August 30-September 2 (tentative), San Diego, California, Libertopia, Consumer Protection Tips When Purchasing Physical Precious Metals, time to be determined at the Town and Country Resort Hotel. There is an admission charge to attend Libertopia. See October (tentative), Spokane, Washington, Silver Summit, Consumer Protection Tips When Purchasing Physical Precious Metals, time to be determined at the Davenport Hotel, 10 South Post Street, Spokane, Washington. There is an admission charge. There is an admission charge to attend Silver Summit. See For more information on any event, call or path@libertycoinservice.com. for a bank holiday. Being able to help them out will pay dividends in the future in terms of mutual cooperation in any future crises. Since you will never know when your paper assets like bank accounts, retirement accounts, and the like might be seized by the government or banks, I highly recommend a minimum of 10% or your investment portfolio or net worth be held in the form of physical gold and silver held in your direct custody. Any long

3 (Continued from page 2) -term financial catastrophe would likely result in the failure of the US dollar, so a credible medium of exchange would be needed. The important point is to start making these preparations today, unless you are already taking action. As we saw in Cyprus, disaster can strike without any advance notice. Liberty s Outlook Report Videos Debut On YouTube As part of the enhancements associated with moving into our larger quarters in January, we have finally started an official Liberty Coin Service Facebook page. Go to LibertyCoinService?fref=ts to find links to my latest writings and interviews, and listen to my awardwinning radio programs. You can also click on the first of what hopefully will end up being 3-4 Liberty s Outlook Reports each month posted on YouTube. The first one was posted in late March. It is much longer than what the average one is expected to be in the future, so don t let the eight minutes of this one put you off. With the able talents of LCS staffer Nic Coscarelli, a recent graduate of Michigan State University with a degree in Video Communications, it will be possible for more people to find Liberty Coin Service in more places. While you are at the Facebook page, please Like and Friend us. See you soon. Look For An Expanded Online Quotes Page Soon Advances in computer and online technology means that information posted on the Liberty Coin Service website (libertycoinservice.com) no longer needs to be constrained by the size of a single sheet of printed paper. LCS s daily quotes page since the late 1970s has been limited to a single page. However, that presented a problem. Most of our mail order customers tend to place much larger bullion orders than do our in-store customers. Because of this, our gold, platinum, and palladium priced-products lists the unit price for 10-piece quantity purchases. However, a higher percentage of our local customers make single piece or small quantity purchases, meaning that the quantity prices on the quotes page are lower than they unit prices many in our store would pay. Good news. In the next two weeks, we should expand our daily quotes to three pages. The current page you see will have numismatic items such as Pre-1934 US Gold Coins moved to page 3. The page that now exists will only list the current quantity prices for existing bullion items, plus more that we will have room to list. The second page will list the single piece or small quantity prices so that we can display this page in our store. Customer prices will still be the same. We will just be more explicit than now that smaller quantities cost slightly more than larger quantity purchases. We will add a third page to list popular numismatic and semi-bullion products, many of which we did not have room to list up to now. We have seen that many other dealers list these products on their websites at prices that are much higher than they need to be. The practice of such companies appears to be to quote a competitive price on the most popular bullion-priced coins and bars, then quote an above-market price for products such as Walking Liberty Half Dollars, Extremely Fine Morgan Silver Dollars, Mint State Pre Canada Silver Dollars, and the like. Once visitors can see that we stock much more competitively-priced inventory than we could previously list on a single page, we expect they will call us for the better deal. Your constructive feedback will help us make these coming improvements even more useful to you. Silver and Silver Coins Silver settled today at $27.64, down another $1.12 (3.9%) from a month ago. As you can see on the table on page 4, the price of silver was relatively stable all through the month of March, especially compared to a turbulent last two weeks in February. However, trading was not as smooth as the closing prices might indicate. A large number of buy orders were executed over the past five weeks, as proved by the increase in the number of open COMEX open silver futures contracts reach a multi-year high. Typically, such strong demand would lead to soaring prices. That they didn t is largely Summary Of Current LCS Recommendations For Precious Metals and Rare Coins How much of your total net worth should be in precious metals and rare coins? Conservative Moderate Aggressive 10% 20% 25-33% How much to allocate for each category of precious metals and rare coins?* Conservative Moderate Aggressive Gold 40% 35% 25% Silver 60% 55% 50% Rare Coins 0% 10% 25% TOTAL 100% 100% 100% *Platinum and palladium both have volatile markets with long-term supply/demand fundamentals that are not as attractive as those for gold, silver or rare coins. While either or both might outperform gold, silver, or rare coins in the short- to long-term, to be conservative we have omitted them from our allocation. related to the aggressive selling of paper silver by the US government s trading partners and hedge funds. Occasionally these sellers actually have to come up with some physical silver to fulfill their maturing contracts. COMEX silver inventories dropped noticeably in the month of March as did the outstanding shares of silver exchange traded funds. The likely source of the physical silver delivered on the market are from these two: the COMEX and exchange traded funds. Unfortunately for the silver shorts, this is producing a visible decline in available physical silver inventories. As I predicted, premiums have risen on bullion-priced silver coins and ingots and delivery times have gotten longer in the past month. Even though the spot price dropped $1.12 from five weeks ago, the cost to buy silver in the form of US 90% Silver Coin (11.8%) only declined by 31 cents. The premium on 90% Coin is now the highest it has been since late 2008 and early I anticipate that it will still go higher, as several vendors are forced to either turn away potential customers or can only offer very long delivery times (note: LCS has 90% Coin for immediate delivery). The premium on 90% Coin can rise much higher because these coins have (Continued on page 4)

4 (Continued from page 3) not been manufactured since The various sizes of silver bars and ingots ( %), on the other hand, are in current production. It is still possible to obtain silver bars and ingots, other than the Engelhard brand, though delivery might take 3-6 weeks on the smaller bars and ingots. As I write this, you can still obtain 100-ounce ingots within two weeks. The US Mint is far behind and meeting demand for US Silver Eagle Dollars (12.7%) even though a record of more than 15 million coins were sold in the first three months of The next release by the Mint is schedule in a couple of weeks, with most wholesalers quoting May as the earliest they might be able to ship new orders. The backlog is virtually as bad for the Canada Silver Maple Leaf (11.8%). In ordinary times, I am a huge fan of owning US 90% Silver Coin because of its divisibility, high liquidity, and generally low premium. However, right now, 100 ounce ingots cost almost $2.00 per ounce less than 90% Coins. If you already have a quantity of 90% Coin is your possession, then I suggest adding the 100 Ounce ingots for the price difference. If you don t yet have any 90% Coin but want to purchase some physical silver, you might want to pick up a modest quantity of 90% Coin to go with a larger purchase of the 100 Ounce ingots. With the price of silver down more than 20% since last October, demand is frenzied. Even though the price of gold is now more than 56 times higher than silver, our dollar volume of silver sales far exceeds that of gold. While I do like the future prospects for gold and recommend that people own some of both metals in physical form in their direct custody, I favor the prospects for silver over gold. Silver is a much smaller market. In rising markets, it easily outperforms gold. The risk is that when prices fall, silver also drops a greater percentage than gold. Demand for Mint State Better Date Morgan and Peace Silver Dollars is the strongest I have seen in almost 25 years. Over the past few years, generally the dates and grades that have earned an Undervaluation Index of 20 or higher in my analyses of these series have outperformed those with lower ratings. With supplies getting tight, this month we offer The Month Gold Range % Net Change Silver Range % Net Change Gold/Silver Ratio 56.4 Net change +1.7 Platinum Range % Net Change Platinum/Gold Ratio 0.98 Date Gold Silver Platinum Mar 06 1, , Mar 07 1, , Mar 08 1, , Mar 11 1, , Mar 12 1, , Mar 13 1, , Mar 14 1, , Mar 15 1, , Mar 18 1, , Mar 19 1, , Mar 20 1, , Mar 21 1, , Mar 22 1, , Mar 25 1, , Mar 26 1, , Mar 27 1, , Mar 28 1, , Mar 29 1, , Apr 01 1, , Apr 02 1, , Apr 03 1, , Apr 04 1, , Apr 05 1, , Apr 08 1, , Apr 09 1, , Apr 10 1, , London Silver Market Premium To New York Silver Market = 3 Gold, silver and platinum quotes are work -ing spots at 1:45 EST/EDT each day, quoted in U.S. dollars per troy ounce. a nice selection of High Grade Better Date Morgan Dollars. See our flyer for details. Action continues to heat up with High Grade Walking Liberty Half Dollars. The large hoards dumped on the market late last year have largely gone to new owners. While looking for more Gem Mint State- 65 Walkers at the Baltimore show in mid- March, I was fortunately to acquire a small group of Superb Gem Mint State D Walking Liberty Half Dollars at an attractive price. See our offer. Gold And Gold Coins Gold closed in US markets today at $ , a small drop of $16.25 (1.0%) from five weeks ago. Once the bailout package from the government and banks of Cyprus was revealed, the price of gold rose significantly almost 2% in two trading days. That size of a move over the course of any two consecutive days over the past several years has been a rare event. The price of gold remained relatively steady through to April 1. Then prices were slammed following the announcement of Japan s plans for massive inflation of the money supply, which happened to coincide with the approach of the disastrous US jobs report on April 5. The recovery of prices after the poor jobs report could not be left unchecked. So today, just before the London PM fix, gold s price was clobbered especially hard, despite the lack of any financial news that would lead to such a move. In my judgment, this decline is again temporary. One attendee at a recent major investor financial conference was sitting in the audience when the speaker asked how many people thought that the price of gold was at bubble levels, meaning it was overpriced. He told me that he though everyone in the audience except him raised their hand. With such strong negative sentiment towards gold, the future looks wonderful. Overall, Common-Date Pre-1934 US Gold Coin prices fell in absolute price and also in premium to metal value in the past month. However, there were notable exceptions almost all Gem Mint State-65 and higher coins and $2.50, $5.00, and $10.00 Liberties in Choice Mint State-63. The premiums on circulated $10s and $20s is getting low enough to almost consider them to be bullion coins. Nice quality Better-Date Pre-1934 US Gold Coins seem to be only available one at a time any more. See the enclosed offer of Scarce High-Grade $5.00 Liberties as perfect examples of the coins that collectors jump to snap up but rarely can find. Of course, when you see how rare they are, you know why they are not easy to locate. Liberty s Outlook is published monthly by Liberty Coin Service, 400 Frandor Ave., Lansing, MI Telephone: National 800/ Fax: 517/ Website: path@libertycoinservice.com Patrick A. Heller, Editor. Subscriptions are available at $ per year (12 issues). Send subscription orders and changes of address to the above address. All information is derived from sources believed to be reliable, but accuracy cannot be guaranteed. No guarantee of profitability of any investment or recommendation contained herein is made or implied. Liberty Coin Service has been a dealer in rare coins and precious metals since The publisher, its principals and associates may, from time to time, have a position in items recommended here. Copyright 2013, all rights reserved.

5 Liberty Coin Service Computer Quotes 2PM EDT Spot Prices Item Qty Fine Wt Price Cost/Oz Premium *U.S. 1 Oz Gold Eagle , % Gold: $1, *U.S. 1/2 Oz Gold Eagle % Silver: $27.64 *U.S. 1/4 Oz Gold Eagle % Platinum: $1, *U.S. 1/10 Oz Gold Eagle % Palladium: $ *U.S. 1 Oz Gold Buffalo , % *Australia 1 Oz Kangaroo , % *Austria 100 Corona , % *Austria 1 Oz Philharmonic , % *Canada 1 Oz Maple Leaf , % *China 1 Oz Panda , % *Mexico 50 Peso , % *S. Africa Krugerrand , % *U.S. Medallion , % *1 Oz Ingot , % *Austria 1 Ducat % *Austria 4 Ducat % *British Sovereign % *British Sovereign, BU % *France 20 Franc % *Germany 20 Mark % *Swiss 20 Franc % $20 Liberty BU , % $20 St Gaudens BU , % $20 Liberty Extremely Fine , % $10 Liberty Extremely Fine % $5 Liberty Extremely Fine % *U.S. 90% Silver Coin 1, , % *U.S. 40% Silver Coin 1, , % *U.S. Circulated Dollars 1, , % *U.S. Silver Eagle ,000 1,000 31, % *Canada Silver Maple Leaf 1,000 1,000 30, % *100 Oz Silver Ingot , % *10 Oz Silver Ingot % *1 Oz Silver Ingot 1, % *1 Oz Platinum Ingot , % *U.S. 1 Oz Platinum Eagle , % *U.S. 1/2 Oz Plat Eagle Not available *U.S. 1/4 Oz Plat Eagle Not available *U.S. 1/10 Oz Plat Eagle Not available *Other 1 Oz Plat Coins Not available *Canada Palladium ML % Liberty Coin Service Call Toll-Free: (800) National 400 Frandor Avenue (517) Local Lansing, MI (517) Fax web: path@libertycoinservice.com Trading Desk Hours (Eastern): Mon-Fri 10AM-6PM, Sat 10AM-2PM Notes from Liberty by Allan Beegle LCS Chief Numismatist LCS s March sales couldn t match the near record volume of February but were still more than 30% higher than year earlier levels. For the first quarter, LCS sales were more than 50% higher than last year s first quarter. It s easy to see why demand was so strong lower gold and silver prices continued to spur a buying frenzy among those seeking to acquire insurance against the risk of further losses with many of their paper assets. Last month s offering of Gem Mint State-65 Walking Liberty Half Dollars proved much more popular than even I expected. We did manage to find a handful of additional specimens when our stock sold out. We held our price even though the new coins cost more than our bargain purchases. Most everything else offered last month sold out as well. Four weeks ago, LCS General Manager Pat Heller flew to the large coin show in Baltimore. Just a few weeks earlier, he had notable success finding lots of bargains at the Long Beach show in California. In Baltimore, dealer after dealer told him that they had been selling so many collector coins that they were also looking to buy rather than sell. Many prices were noticeably higher and inventories were even skimpier than usual. Pat did bring back several purchases from Baltimore, but a high percentage of them have already sold to waiting customers. But, don t despair. When Pat s family was on vacation last week, he visited a couple coin dealer friends and picked up two Commemorative Half Dollar bargains offered first in this column. As Pat had been warned in California, demand has grown tremendously for Better Date High Grade Morgan Silver Dollars. With some prices rising despite the recent temporary decline in spot silver, we decided to offer the selec- -over-

6 Liberty Coin Service Computer Quotes 2PM EDT Spot Prices Coins, Rolls and Sets U.S. 10 pc Gold Medallion Set, , BU $12,655 U.S. Morgan Dollar, 1921, Brilliant Uncirculated Roll/20 $840 U.S. Morgan Dollar, Pre-1921, Brilliant Uncirculated Roll/20 $940 U.S. Peace Dollar, Brilliant Uncirclated Roll/20 $820 Numismatic Coins (PCGS/NGC/ICG Graded) MS-63 MS-64 MS-65 U.S. $20.00 St Gaudens 1,900 1,965 2,300 U.S. $20.00 Liberty 2,100 2,420 3,875 U.S. $10.00 Liberty 1,430 1,760 3,440 U.S. $5.00 Liberty 690 1,080 2,535 U.S. 4 pc Indian Gold Type Set 5,075 7,205 20,045 U.S. 4 pc Liberty Gold Type Set 4,870 6,050 11,270 U.S. 8 pc Gold Type Set 9,885 13,105 30,865 U.S. Morgan Dollar (Pre-1921) U.S. Peace Dollar Prices quoted are for quantities indicated, and are actual selling prices at today's closes. Smaller lots are available at slightly higher prices. No Michigan Sales Tax on rare coins or precious metals bullion. Numismatic purchases have a 15 day return period. Orders for bullion-priced items (marked with *) are not returnable and, after confirmation, cannot be cancelled. tion we have accumulated over the past year or so. Literally, most of these coins were located one-, two-, or a few-at-a-time. Although we have a wide variety of choices, you need to know that many of the listed coins are one-of-a-kind. Pat has also come up with some amazing Scarce High Grade $5.00 Liberties that, if you can find them, are reasonably priced for their relative rarity. Each of these coins is either the finest or tied for the finest specimens of these dates that we have handled in our 42 years in business. While searching for more Gem MS-65 Walkers, Pat also snapped up a small quantity of Superb Gem Mint State D Walking Liberty Half Dollars! Today, these are priced much closer to the most common dates than was true in mid Last, Pat scooped up a modest lot of Tibet Silver Ga-Den Tangkas. These coins were issued by an independent Tibet about a century ago. There s a tremendous amount of symbolism on both sides of the coin, most having to do with Buddhism. We ve never before had more than a piece or two in stock! Whenever we have been able to offer a variety of Better Date Morgans in the past, almost every available coin sold. The quantities of the other coins in the special offerings are so few that they too could also easily sell out. As I regularly remind you, for best selection, call early to check availability and confirm your order. Reach our Trading Desk toll-free at Here are some other exciting bargains: Superb Gem Mint State Texas Half Dollar PDS Commemorative Set: The US Mint celebrated the Centennial of Texas s independence from Mexico with a series of Commemorative Half Dollars from 1934 to In 1936, about 9,000 specimens each were struck at the Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco Mints. These Commemoratives are among the busiest designs ever issued by the US Mint. The obverse has a proud Eagle in front of the Lone Star. The reverse has a kneeling winged Victory protecting the Alamo with vignettes of Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin to the left and right. Interesting historical note: These Commemoratives depict the famous Alamo. When people in Texas were working to select the design of the 2004 Texas Statehood Quarter, the Alamo was the most popular design concept by far. However, the politically correct members on the commission that selected the coin s design had enough votes to prevent the appearance of this symbol, saying it might offend some people. So, if you want a US coin that depicts the Alamo, Gold: $1, Silver: $27.64 Platinum: $1, Palladium: $ here s your chance. This NGC-certified three coin set has sold for as much as $6,000 in the past. Today the set lists in Coin Values at $1,400. Your cost just $1,195. Gem Mint State /34-S Boone Half Dollar Rarity: The 1935/34-S Boone Half Dollar has a minuscule mintage of 2,004! That is not a misprint. Of the more than 150 Commemorative Half Dollars struck from 1892 through today, this is the second lowest mintage of the all. Only the 1935/34-D Boone, at 2,003, has a smaller mintage. This commemorative of the bicentennial of the famous frontiersman s birth has always been a highly desirable rarity. In the past, coins in this grade have sold for more than $1,000. Today, this PCGS-certified beauty catalogs for $600. You can buy this one from us for only $499. Choice Mint State D Barber Quarter: Attractive Mint State Barber Quarters have been fast sellers for several years. The problem has been finding them, then getting them for a reasonable price. This NGC-certified coin is from the most common year for high grade Barber Quarters. But it is uncommonly beautiful. In the opinion of several of our senior staff, this coin is nicer than many specimens that might be found in MS-64 holders. Liberty is flashy white on the obverse, which contrasts with the brown toning at the stars around the edge. The reverse has a relatively even light toning. Coin Values lists this coin at $450 with this specimen being well worth a $450 selling price Red Books: The newest annual edition of the A Guide Book Of United States Coins is out. Commonly called the Red Book because of the color of the cover, it is the all-time best selling coin reference. If we go to coin shows and only have room for one catalog, this is what we take. In more than 400 fact-filled pages, it covers the full gamut of US coins from the earliest colonial issues right up to last year. The spiral bound hard cover version is our favorite. The cover makes the book durable, but it will lay flat on a table when open. List price is $ Free bonus: With any numismatic purchase of $1,000 or more through May 11, we will give you a free copy to keep!