The 90% Solution

Welcome to the fourth installment of this series examining various types of Silver commercially available for those who have a desire to accumulate a bit of the “Ice Metal”.  As always I, the House Martin, am responsible for all content in this entry.  The owner, and until recently, rarely, operator of this blog invited me to post my ramblings on silver here.  Feel free to enter any questions or comments and I will do my best to answer them.  Photos will follow as soon as possible. 

Sometimes referred to as “Junk”, properly called the “coin of the realm”, many countries once upon a time minted their coinage out of a mixture of 90% Silver, 10% copper.  Today I will examine a couple of these silver options. 

To the coin accumulator the importance of these coins is very simple.  In the event of any catastrophic event which undermines the confidence/value of paper money silver is an obvious and natural replacement to mediate exchanges.  American Silver currency comes in forms that are readily identifiable by all Americans, and of a dependable quality known to most Americans and thus could serve as a medium of exchange in the event of a significant ‘dislocation’ to the economy.  The key thing is having some on hand in the event of the need arising. 

First, I will not be looking at any silver below the 90% level.  While I do own a bit of this true ‘junk’ it is neither my focus, nor all that interesting to collect in my opinion.  Furthermore, I will in no way attempt to chronicle all of the options in the 90% range as too many countries have dabbled in 90% coins for various periods of their history.  The purpose of this treatise is simply to look at those 90% silver coins produced in significant numbers and in some association with the U.S. Mint.  This confines us to basically three countries coinage, and I will be focusing on two of these countries in particular.  The United States Mint coined in 90% silver until 1964.  In addition the Nation of Panama also used the same source of coin blanks thus minting in 90% silver for generally the same time range.  The third country I will only mention is the Philippines which initially minted in 90% silver, but fairly quickly down graded (even before the outbreak of WWI). 

American 90% silver coins came in four varieties: the dollar, the half dollar, the quarter dollar, and the dime or tenth dollar.  The American nickel was only minted in partial silver for a very brief period in WWII (1942 to 1945) and even then was only 35% silver.  I will not go into detail on the American Dollar, Half dollar, Quarter, or Dime as I presume that all of you know what these coins are and have but to generally look at the dates to see if they are from the “Sound Money era”.  Speaking of which, if you come into contact with these silver coins they make a VERY different sound when struck against other coins, thus sparking the term “Sound Money” as you can literally here the difference between the coins.  I include a few pictures of some of the earlier coins in case you are not familiar with them.  In order they are a selection of Half Dollars, and old quarter, and an old dime.  They are all presented Obverse than reverse. 

The other coinage I will speak about is that of Panama.  Panamanian coins are reasonably common in the United States due to our long standing military presence in Panama.  Additionally, vessels traveling through the Panama Canal also have led to Panamanian coins being imported to the U.S.  In either event looking at most coin operations and ebay will quickly show that there are a reasonable number of the coins of Panama available, and often they can be obtained for less than the comparative American coins. 

The coinage of Panama was struck on the same coin blanks as American money.  This means that it is of the same size and quality as our own.  As a further bonus the Panamanians even went so far as to state directly on their coins the weights and purity of their coins.  The only two things to remember are as follows.  Which coins are we talking about?  And when did they stop minting them in 90% silver? 

Generically, the money of Panama is called the Balboa.  Coins that equal a portion of a Balboa are referred to by their proportion of a full Balboa.  So the ‘decima Balboa’ is 1/10^th of a Balboa, or the equal of an American Dime. 

The ‘Quarto Balboa’ is 1/4^t of a Balboa, or the equal of an American Quarter. 

 

The ‘Medio Balboa’ is ½ of a Balboa, or the equal of an American Half dollar. 

And finally a full Balboa is usually referred to as ‘Un Balboa’ and is equal in size to an American Dollar (not pictured). 

In Theory, Panama stopped minting in 90% Silver after 1964 just as the United States did.  However, the Panamanians seem to have had some left over 90% coin blanks and you can find numismatically tested and graded coins that were minted as late as 1968 and are still 90% silver.  However, the accumulator is not looking for oddities as such will always cost a premium and I would recommend sticking with 1964 and prior if you purchase Balboas. 

As a final note, all of these coins were minted to the Avopoidal, or 26 gram, ounce instead of the more talked about “troy” ounce which is a smidge over 31 grams.  The result is that an American Dollar, or a Panamanian Balboa will weight basically 4/5 of a troy ounce.  If you wish to accumulate these by the Troy ounce you need to remember you need 5 quarters to equal one Troy ounce, not the four you might expect. 

Next time, the last installment of this series.  Fun and Games of Ebay, or “You can’t always get what you want”, but you can probably at least see it on Ebay. 

Compromise, Senate style

     Now that the House has finally passed a Debt Ceiling increase the Senate, in a display of clear-headed thoughtfulness, voted it down without a reading. The sallow-faced worm Reid then demanded that the House Republicans stop being obstructionist and make a compromise with with the Senate.

     His only offer was his plan, the one that cuts far-future costs by not paying for things that we aren't doing now, and probably won't do in the future. These magical "cuts in spending" have been shot to pieces by the CBO and Reid's bill actually increases spending and widens the deficit. To Reid this is compromise. A careful and reasoned finding of middle ground in an effort to save the country from the "Armageddon" of default.

     This reminds me of the Bay of Pigs crisis, both sides are playing at brinkmanship, each daring the other to "knock the chip off my shoulder". These pampered idiots are pretending to be bad-ass gunfighters in some Wild West shootout movie, each resting his hand on his revolver while squinting down the sun-blasted street at his opponent. Too bad it will be the credit-rating of the US and the interest rate on T-Bills that will die instead of these morons, and thus we the tax-paupers will suffer further.

     Oh, for the days when these two would have had to square off with dueling pistols. It might not lead to better government, but at least we wouldn't be lead by pasty-faced wussies and it would be a damned sight more entertaining.

     In the mean time the Resident (still without a shred of a plan) stands on the sidelines cheering them on. He is no doubt thrilled that the spotlight is focused on the one thing in D.C. that is less popular than he is. This is probably the biggest display of absentee place-holdership in all of history. "The smartest man in the room" (which is true only when he is dining with his immediate family, the dog stays outside right?) has no ideas, no framework for discussion, NO PLAN AT ALL.

   I am afraid that this will not end well.

Something to think about

While the buffoons in D.C. argue dramatically (but pointlessly) over what .00002% of the deficit to cut out of the mountain of pork that is the U.S. budget (before they enhugeify it once more) somebody has but together this neat graphic so that you can get an understanding of the size of the hole that has been dug for us, the taxpaupers.

I find it frankly terrifying.

Boehner drops the ball.....

     The Republibums seem to be every bit as incompetent as the Demonrats. Boehner brought his Debt Ceiling bill to the floor only to find out that the Reps that had said "No Way!" actually meant it. He seemed baffled at such action by a politician, but then, they are new after all and haven't fully joined the Borg yet. Or, even weirder, they are actually representing their constituents. Such things happen from time to time, it is frowned on in D.C. circles (much like having sex with interns and taking bribes) but can be tolerated in small doses. When these types are present in larger groups the established elites suddenly find themselves confronted with a crack in the paradigm, the ground shifts beneath their feet and they get all woozy and feeling faint.

Amusing

A little video from Andrew Klavan over at Pajamas Media; amusingly told but true in its bones.

The facts of life for liberals.

History is rhyming again..........

This can't be good, an AWOL soldier has just been arrested near Ft. Hood, he was prepping explosives and had made statements about attacking person at the fort. here is the article from MSN.

The Collapse of the Middle

     One of the most striking things about today’s society is that the central space is gone. The polarizing forces in almost every issue have managed to pull and tug at the body politic to the point where all that remains is edge, the center having been torn to shreds. Extremism is the modus operandi of the day. Everyday.

Paper, paper everywhere and not a money in sight.....

OK, that was a terrible paraphrase but it was the best I could manage. Here is a lttle reminder of what has happened in the past when the government tries to solve its problems with a printing press. Anybody thinking that the dollar is some sacred document, free from the rules of reality needs to think again. All of these governemnts thought they could "pull it off".

Epic Fails all.

Great Quote

Sometimes you run into one of those statements that cut right to the heart of the matter, that clears away all of the fog and lets the pure light of reason shine on the subject in question, this is such a statement. I saw it on a post on Zerohedge that dealt with the latest Euro "fix" for the general insolvency of 2/3 of the nations in the Eurozone, Popo is the poster;

"At what point do these imbeciles realize that there is no permutation of reshuffled cards that does not result in someone eating the loss?

Rather than having endless meetings to discuss new permutations,  perhaps a better approach would be to decide (in general) who should eat shit sandwiches in the event that they need to get eaten?

Taxpayers? ... or the banks that made the shit sandwiches?   That's the only question.   Focusing on new complex "solutions" is an obvious ruse to avoid answering the fundamental question: 

Who eats it?"

Fooking brilliant!

A modern Cassandra, Sir James Goldsmith

     How this guy didn't go completely nuts when confronted by the persistent, unwavering idiocy of the the people he was dealing with is beyond me. He clearly saw the coming crash and nobody would listen to him. Proof that being right can be small comfort. This interview is from 1994 and he saw it clearly and predicted it perfectly, the stooge from the Clinton Administration is painfully clueless.

     There are six videos. watch them all.

Surviving TEOTWAWKI Part 3c A Man's Home is his Castle? Try Again

 Having considered the options of staying put or bugging out and made up our mind we now need to look at the next biggest issue; physical security of the home. Take a walk around your home, look at it critically. Think about how easy it would be to gain entry, particularly if you didn't care about breaking windows or kicking in a door. Rather daunting isn't it?

Gold as money

An interesting video covering gold and fiat as money, the shinking value of fiat over time is nicely done. It it the British accent that makes him sound better than the bozos in D.C. or is it that what he is saying makes sense?

Perhaps both.

Another video by Mr. Frisby, rather longer and more serious, well worth a viewing.

What a Debate should look and sound like

     After watching the Debt-ceiling nonsense in Washington I stumbled across this.

     Watch this debate, it matters little which side you follow (if you follow one at all), but this is a good example of what a debate should look like, two men going head-to-head about a matter that they hold passionate positions on in an articulate and polite manner. You don't have to watch the whole thing (I think you should, and with an open mind) to get the tone and tenor of the manner. Mayhaps the British accent helps.

     So very different from the Vaudeville act in D.C.

The Bears take on SLV

The Silver Bears are back and putting it to SLV ETF JPM will probably assainate the person responsible for this.

Back from the dead with more Xtranormal cartoons

Yeah, yeah I have been gone too long. I had to throw the Evil Empire off by playing dead, but now, zombie-like I rise again. Here is a lovely tid-bit from one of the posters at TFMetals more Xtranormal madness

On Her Majesties Monetary Service

Once again the House Martin returns with this Blog owner’s permission (since he has not done a thing with this space in two months, I mean really, 33 posts to the other board and none here in two months) to discus another silver option in the collecting world.  Any and all problems should be directed toward the House Martin as I am solely responsible for this entry.  Due to some technical difficulties, pictures will follow ASAP.  But with Silver starting to spike again on the odd chance that anyone is actually paying attention to this series I figured it is better to get the idea out there and worry about the pictures later. 

In the first two installments of this series I examined the worlds of Alternative 99% pure silver sources and Sterling silver produced by private mints for collector purposes.  This median installment will examine the world of Sterling Silver minted by governments for monetary circulation purposes.  With Silver cresting $40 again recently I feel some urgency to get this series completed. 

There are three unique advantages to collecting Sterling Silver used as national coinage.  The first advantage is that in this arena you are generally talking about some truly staggering amounts of individual coins that have been made, both in terms of years produced and number of coins minted each year.  Large amounts of coins produced means that individual values for a given coin are lower.  Second, because these issuances contained large volumes of coins and they were actually used as a medium of exchange, each of the coins received more or less wear and tear.  This fact generates a range of ‘quality’ in available specimens.  These quality variations result in large gyrations in the actual price of a given coin.  A perfect, or “mint” coin will have a much higher value to a coin collector than a heavily circulated coin of the same denomination and year.  Yet both coins will have basically the same weight of actual silver so the silver ‘accumulator’ (hoarder is such a negative term) will not care which one they get as the weight is all they see.  The third advantage comes in the form of a level of security that only one other silver offers.  With these coins you know exactly what you are getting in terms of weight and purity because they are internationally recognized currency units.  Furthermore, national governments spent considerable efforts detecting and ferreting out counterfeits, thus most of what remains is very secure.  I have tested some of my collection to insure quality level and never found a coin to not meet the quality expected.  As a final note on this dependability of quality some of you are probably thinking that the “Phleas” from the first installment of this series are the other dependable source and you would be wrong.  While most are very good and the dependability is very good, these coins are not the focus of a government’s anti counterfeiting activity so there is actually no oversight on these coins and counterfeits do circulate.  Basically, you are trusting that whomever you buy from was honest, did their do-diligence, and are in turn buying from an honest source. 

The Absolute ‘grand daddy’ of all Sterling Silver national coinage is Great Britain.  The British did coin the term after all.  Sterling has been used for coin purposes by the Brits for centuries.  If you want them, you can find sterling minted in the reign of Henry VIII or Elizabeth I, or whatever very dead august personage you like.  For ‘accumulator’ purposes it is probably best to stick with the mintings of Victoria and later.  This basically means Victoria, her son Edward VII, and Grandson George V.  This marks the high water of Britain’s World Spanning empire, and thus the maximum spread of the “coin of the realm”.  The internet is literally awash in these coins.  They came in many denominations, but all are based on the shilling and include the following: 3 pence(1/4 shilling), 6 pence (1/2 shilling), shilling, florin (2 shillings), half crown (2 ½ shillings), and the crown (5 shillings).  There are other Sterling silver British coins (2 pence, 4 pence) but these were special mintings called ‘Maundy Money’ and have generally a very high collector following which drives their price beyond the interest of the standard ‘accumulator’. 

The crown weighs in at just over 26 grams and is thus a ‘wee bit heavy’ compared to the ‘dollar’.  The half crown at a bit over 13 grams is again a bit oversized to a half dollar. 

Here are two Half crowns.  The one on the left is Australian, the one on the right is Victorian British. 

The Florin weighs in at just over 10.5 grams so three would be a bit more than a troy ounce. 

Here are two good condition florins.  The one on the left is Edwardian British, the right is Australian. 



Here are two not so good condition Florins.  Once again Edwardian on the left and Australian on right. 

The Shilling, while small is still easy to remember as it weighs 5 ¼ grams, so six are a troy ounce. 

Above is the obverse of two shillings. Below is the reverse of the same coins.  In both cases the coin on the left is Edward VII and the right is Australian George V.   

The six pence weighs in at 2.6 grams and is basically the same as a dime. 

Here are two sixpence, both are Victorian British. 

The three pence weight 1.3 grams as one would expect based on this system. 

Above and below is a George VI Australian Threepence. 

Great Britain reduced the silver content of their coins to 50% in 1920.  So for the Sterling ‘accumulator’ 1919 marks the end of the Sterling from Britain.  In addition to Britain, most of her major former colonies used Sterling in their mints.  Canada, if more to your liking,  also minted in Sterling until 1919.  Even better news comes from Australia, which  used almost the exact same system (no half crown) and continued to mint in Sterling until the end of World War II (1945, but if you are reading this and do not know when WWII ended you deserve to buy silver at overvalued price from after the quality down grade) when they down graded to 50% like the mother country.  Neighboring New Zealand also used the same terms, but minted in 50% silver at best, so while I like their coins appearance, I do not like their quality.  Interestingly, Newfoundland, an independent colony at the time, continued minting in Sterling after 1919.  Confusingly, the coins of Newfoundland stopped being Sterling in various years depending on the denomination, but all were downgraded by the end of WWII.  My mother (a Canadian by birth) always said “Newfies will be Newfies, and there is no way to explain Newfies!”  I have always thought this is the sort of thing she meant. 

Fortunately for those who like Sterling Silver, this was not the end of Sterling for national coinage.  After many monetary fiascos, Mexico decided in 1992 to issue a “New Peso”.  To demonstrate their fiscal resolution to the world (and perhaps generate a bit more confidence in their own public) they decided to mint some of the coins with some Sterling Silver.  Beginning in 1992 and carrying on through 1995, three “Bi-metallic” coins appeared the: ten, twenty and fifty peso.  All three have a Sterling Silver center core surrounded by a Brass outer ring.  The Sterling Silver portion of the 10 peso coin contains 1/6 ounce troy of Sterling.  The 20 Peso coin contains ¼ ounce troy Sterling.  The 50 peso coin has 2/3 ounce troy Sterling.  It is of interest that these are all in troy ounces instead of the more customary, and smaller, avapoidal ounce used in American national coinage.  The new 10 and 20 peso bi-metallic designs (without the Sterling cores) were continued after 1995 so an ‘accumulator’ must be careful to avoid the later non Silver coins when purchasing this portion of the Mexican Sterling Silver collection.  Fortunately, it is very easy to distinguish the Silver coins from the non silver at a glance.  All Sterling Silver coins will have the letter “N” next to the denomination at the top of each coin.  This was to signify the “New” Pesos. 

Here we have the Obverses of the Three Amigos.  The Fifty peso has the "Children heroes of Chapultepec" the teenage boys the Marines fought at the more commonly known "Halls of Montezuma". 

Here is the front and back of the Ten Peso. 

Here is the front and back of the Twenty Peso. 

Here is the front and back of the Fifty Peso. 

To celebrate the 200^th anniversary of Mexican independence, Mexico expanded this range by adding 100 peso coins in the same weight as the older 50 peso coins beginning in 2003.  This range was issued from 2003 until 2007 and contained a coin for each state in the “United States of Mexico” plus a few anniversary odd balls like “the casa de moneda” (house of money), and the writing of “The man of La Mancha” to name a few.  There is no “N: notation on these coins, but then there are no Mexican Bi-Metallic 100 peso coins that do not contain the Sterling Silver so keeping them straight is not difficult.  However, other Central and South American countries saw the interest in these coins and made their own 100 peso Bi-Metallic coins.  The good news is that none of the knock offs contain any Silver so as long as you stick to Mexico, in the proper range, you have no concerns. 

Here is a sampling of the 100 Peso coins.  On the Left is the Aguacaliente State coin (it means "Hot Water", somehow appropriate).  In the center is the reverse of all the 100 Peso coins.  On the right is the 400th Anniversary of "The Man of La Mancha". 

The penultimate missive of this set will concern itself with the higher quality members of the rest of the national coinage market -- the 90% crowd.  Until then, “ttfn” and remember to ‘boyscout’ for “TEOTWAWKI”. 

The House Martin

To Mint, ... or not to Mint

That is the question. 

The House Martin strikes again. 

Pure silver was the topic of the first installment of this series and if that is your interest please refer to it below.  As we now move past pure silver it is time to warn you that the term Pure silver is different than 99.999% silver.  The definition “Pure Silver” is applied to anything that has more than 92.5% silver content.  I own a commemorative coin that contains 94% Silver and its Certificate of Authenticity states that it is Pure Silver.  If you want 99.999% silver make sure your item is marked as 99.999%.  If you buy something that says “pure silver” only, it is probably not 99.999% (but it will be higher than 92.5%). 

Any object made up of 92.5% Silver is designated “Sterling Silver”.  The creation of Sterling Silver is lost in antiquity.  Copper is the usual 7.5% remaining component, but there are some other choices.  There are many stories on how that 92.5% standard emerged, my two favorites are as follows.  The first story involves that 92.5% was as pure as ancient technology could achieve/measure, so that became the standard for silver purity.  The second story says that 92.5% is the lowest percentage that could not be visually discerned from true pure silver, so it was the minimum that could be gotten away with by minters and became the standard.  Naturally, these two stories contradict each other as if the ancients could not achieve higher than 92.5% how could they know what these higher percentages looked like and keeping silver polished to its brightest finish is nigh on to impossible in ancient times.  Be these as they may, Sterling quickly caught on for two basic purposes: coinage, and commemoratives.  The next installment of this series will detail coinage, here we will focus on commemoratives created by private mints.