Proof High Reliefs are one of the most divisive issues in U.S. numismatics. Generally opinion falls into either the “yes” or “no” categories with little uncertainty or middle ground allowed by either side. PCGS is in the “no” camp as they do not certify proof High Reliefs, and NGC is in the “yes” camp. Among the determinants for proofs, according to NGC, is a “distinctive texture and satiny luster” according to Scott Schechter, but more specifically it was the use of the collar that was used to strike the Edge 3 Ultra High Reliefs in March-April 1907 and again on December 31 of that year. We believe that a scratch in the left obverse field accounts for the less-than-choice grade and makes this coin more affordable than it otherwise would be. In hand, when tilted slightly under a light, it is lighter than seen in our images. Listed at $24,600 in the NGC price guide.
Offered at $23,000 delivered
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Price is based on payment via ACH, Bank Wire Transfer or Personal Check. Major Credit Cards Accepted, add 3.5% Offer subject to availability.
LBMA is the international trade association that represents the wholesale over-the-counter market for gold and silver bullion. LBMA undertakes many activities on behalf of its members and the wider market, setting industry standards including good delivery and refining standards, ownership of the precious metal benchmark prices as well as serving as a point of contact for the regulatory authorities. For more information, please visit www.lbma.org.uk.
1 August, 2019 Clearing Statistics Daily Averages - June 2019
Clearing Statistics Daily Averages - June 2019
Gold
The volume of ounces transferred in June increased by 30.4% month on month (m/m) to 24.2 million ounces, its highest volume for 18 months. The corresponding value increased by 38% to $32.9 billion. There were 3,997 transfers in June, 34.8% higher m/m, with the clearers settling on average 6,065 ounces per transfer, 3.3% lower m/m.
Silver
The volume of ounces transferred in June increased by 37.6% to 291.4 million ounces, with the corresponding value 37.6% higher at $4.37 billion. There were 1,329 transfers in June, up 35.9% from the previous month, with the clearers settling on average 219,262 ounces per transfer, 1.3% higher m/m. The gold / silver price ratio averaged 90.66 in June, the highest ratio for 26 years. Clearing statistics are published one month in arrears
Download PDF version of complete press release below
Campaign for Liberty Chairman Ron Paul issued the following statement regarding the Federal Reserve’s announcement that it will be reducing interest rates for the first time in a decade:
“The Federal Reserve’s reduction of its benchmark interest rate from 2.25% to 2% is a textbook illustration of a popular definition of insanity: taking the same actions over and over again and expecting different results. Since the stock market meltdown of 2008, the Fed has unsuccessfully tried to pump up the economy via historic low interest rates and Quantitative Easing. As anyone except those who believe the government’s manipulated statistics knows, these policies failed to revive the economy. Instead of acknowledging its mistakes, the Fed is resorting to another rate cut in a desperate—and what will prove futile—attempt to forestall another central bank-created recession, albeit one exacerbated by President Trump’s destructive trade war.
The bright side of the Fed’s failure is that it will increase public interest in Austrian Economics and alternatives to the Fed, such as precious metals and crypto currencies, and auditing and ending the Fed. My Campaign for Liberty organization will continue to mobilize pro-liberty Americans to pass Audit the Fed legislation at the federal level and increase the number of states that have restored gold and silver as legal tender.”
A Grading Rarity – Only 14 graded higher by PCGS and NGC Combined!
High grade and flashy, with no distracting marks – a finer specimen would be hard to locate. Sports a gorgeous medium gold color and a superb strike. From an original mintage of 429,000, most were used in commerce in the USA or internationally – hence, the paucity of high grade specimens, such as the one we are featuring today.
It is offered here for:
We do business the old fashioned way, we speak with you.
A lustrous beauty, sporting a fine strike and minimal marks – seldom seen in higher grade, as reflected in the population data. Perfect for a CC type set or the USA gold collector/dealer.
Offered at $18,975 delivered
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America’s largest bank sounds alarm in face of skyrocketing debt, rise of China
Courtesy of Infowars by Jamie White | JULY 24, 2019
IMAGE CREDITS: PONY WANG/GETTY.
JPMorgan’s Private Bank released a statement to investors warning that not only could the dollar lose its world reserve currency status, but could also “lose its status as the world’s dominant currency.”
In its July investment strategy report, America’s largest bank warned that the dollar’s “exorbitant privilege” as the world’s reserve currency could be “coming to an end.”
“The U.S. dollar (USD) has been the world’s dominant reserve currency for almost a century. As such, many investors today, even outside the United States, have built and become comfortable with sizable USD overweights in their portfolios,” wrote JP Morgan’s Commodities and Rates Strategist Craig Cohen.
“However, we believe the dollar could lose its status as the world’s dominant currency (which could see it depreciate over the medium term) due to structural reasons as well as cyclical impediments.”
The report goes on to say that the downfall of the dollar as the world reserve currency is inevitable given historical trends, and suggests allocating assets to other markets, particularly Asia.
“There is nothing to suggest that the dollar dominance should remain in perpetuity. In fact, the dominant international currency has changed many times throughout history going back thousands of years as the world’s economic center has shifted.”
In fact, JP Morgan’s Chairman of Market and Investment Strategy Michael Cemblast created a graph in 2012 breaking down the world reserve currencies since the 15th century in an effort to highlight the inevitability of the dollar’s decline as the global currency.
Notably, it seems to indicate the U.S. Dollar losing its status sometime in the early 21st century.
The report comes as President Trump and Congress agreed on a bipartisan two-year $2.7 trillion spending package that does nothing to address the bloated spending or national debt, and totally suspends the borrowing limit.
Economist Peter Schiff noted that the budget deal flies in the face of conservative principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility.
Trump finally managed to be the greatest at something. He has managed to negotiate the greatest budget deal disaster in history. No president has signed onto a worse budget deal than this. He sold it to Republicans as a victory. It’s a loss for Republicans and the Republic!
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) July 23, 2019
Additionally, central banks around the world, including China and Russia, hit a gold ownership-high in April, with gold purchases spiking by 75% in the last year alone to hedge against a volatile dollar.
As long as the dollar is backed by nothing but the Federal Reserve System of credit, countries around the world will continue to hedge against the dollar while the $21 trillion U.S. national debt keeps ticking up.
This is the “Large Letters Head of 38” type, which is a distinct two-year type, which shows a more ornate portrait of Liberty on the obverse. The first issue of this two-year type – the 1838 -is far too rare in AU condition for most type collecting pursuits, as only 80 to 100 examples of that date are known. However, the 1839 (1839/8) Type of 1838 is a more comfortable acquisition in this high of a grade. About Uncirculated coins are still scarce, though, and collectors will have limited opportunities to acquire high-end examples. This one is more lustrous and flashier in hand. Listed at $12,100 in the CDN CPG and $10,500 in the NGC price guide.
Offered at $8,890 delivered
We do business the old fashioned way, we speak with you.
The financial stresses and uncertainties of the Civil War caused widespread hoarding of all precious metal coinage during the war years. The U.S. government suspended specie payments in 1861, so gold coins did not circulate at par and there was limited demand for the three dollar gold piece in the national economy. Accordingly, only 5,000 three dollar gold pieces were struck in 1863, all delivered in one batch on November 21. Relatively few examples were saved and as might be expected, the 1863 three dollar gold piece is an elusive issue in all grades today. The PCGS population stands at 16 with 26 higher.
We have two coins available…
Offered at $11,875 delivered
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Now, this Medal was NOT space flown, but they were specially struck in gold and only given to people who WORKED on the Apollo 11 project. People that were all a part of one of the most historic moment’s in World history.
The obverse of the Medal depicts an Astronaut, presumably Neil Armstrong, boldly facing forward carrying the American flag. The date JULY 20, 1969 is seen in front, with the lunar landscape, lander and the Earth all in the background.
The reverse has the name of the three Astronauts who made that historic journey (Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Edwin Aldrin), Neil’s famous quote as he stepped out into the Sea of Tranquility, APOLLO 11 and a depiction of the slingshot approach the spacecraft took to the Moon.
It is struck from over a half an ounce of gold (18.17g). This could be the Finest we’ve seen of the issue and a nice piece to commemorate this milestone moment exactly 50 years ago today…
Offered at $6,900 delivered
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US big cap stocks have rallied to new highs in recent months, but just as in the rally from the low of the February 2018 mini-panic to the September/October 2018 peak, sizable divergences between different indexes have emerged in the process. New highs in the big cap indexes (DJIA, SPX, NDX) are once again not confirmed by small caps (RUT), the broad market (NYA) and a number of sub-sectors (such as the DJTA which is included in the chart below; according to Dow Theory, the DJTA must confirm moves in the DJIA to validate its trend).
From the top: weekly charts of DJIA, SPX, NDX, RUT, NYA and DJTA. The recent new highs in the three large cap indexes have not been confirmed by small caps and the broad market. Note also the sizable RSI/price divergence in the DJIA (which is mirrored by SPX and NDX) – this is a sign of faltering momentum that is often seen ahead of trend changes.
We last discussed a “lengthy non-confirmation” in mid-September 2018 (see “US Equities – Approaching an Inflection Point”). Everything we said about the phenomenon at the time applies to the current case as well. In fact, it could well be argued that the current spate of non-confirmations is even more ominous as they are stretching over a time period of approximately 18 months by now (the broad market represented by the NYSE Index has yet to overcome its January 2018 peak).
US big caps are diverging from European and Japanese stocks as well, which have failed to reach new highs in the recent rally. It is also noteworthy that stocks and junk bonds have studiously ignored weakening macro-economic data in recent months – the rationale is apparently that an impending easing of monetary policy by Fed and ECB is more important than the economy’s poor performance and the prospect of lackluster earnings. The idea seems to be that a resumption of monetary pumping will immediately arrest and reverse recent economic trends, which is quite a leap of faith.
Government bonds and gold have rallied strongly as well this year, and while these markets also reflect rate cut expectations, they normally don’t move in the same direction as stocks for very long. It is a good bet that something will eventually give. Considering the recent yield curve inversion, investors buying stocks and corporate bonds are probably too sanguine about what lies ahead.
The Roaring 20s vs. Today
In April we briefly discussed parallels between the current time period and the late 1920s (see “A Trip Down Memory Lane”). What prompted us to look into this was the fact that the sharp correction in the (normally) seasonally strong October-December period last year was actually a spitting image of the late 1928 correction. As it turned out, this was far from the only similarity between the two eras.
Incidentally, market participants ignored a weakening real economy in the final stretch of the 1920s bull market as well: economic data deteriorated noticeably in the course of 1929, but that did nothing to curb the stock market’s advance – at least initially.
Two women studying the ticker tape in a stock broker’s office in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1929.
Below is a long term chart comparison as a supplement to the charts we showed in April. Interestingly, there is quite a strong resemblance between the stock market patterns of the 1914-1930 and 1997-2019 periods. The cyclical bull and bear markets of the two eras differ slightly in terms of extent and duration, but the basic patterns look remarkably similar.
It should be noted to this that chart pattern similarities are not unusual per se – all liquid markets exhibit self-similar fractal patterning – both across different time frames and over different historical periods. At some point, these patterns will always diverge – particularly self-similarity between historical periods is usually quite limited.
It is fairly easy to find close correlations over time periods of one year or less, and more often than not they have no predictive value. Nevertheless, we find these long term pattern similarities quite interesting:
Booms and busts in the stock market from 1997 to 2019 and from 1914 to 1930. It is of course possible that the “acceleration phase” of the current bull market still has further to go, but the increase in market volatility, weak money supply growth, historically high valuations and the divergences discussed further above all suggest that a trend change is probably not too far off.
Conclusion
The divergences between the different indexes at the very least represent a heads-up that another correction is likely to begin fairly soon. In view of the increase in market volatility since the January 2018 peak, the next downturn will probably be quite a doozy again.
