My US Coins

Contributed By Doug West, Ph.D.
www.investmentmetalsandcoins.com

No one can predict the price of gold in the future. Many have tried and very few have come close to being correct. However, this fact doesn't stop us from trying to looking into the future. The author is no exception. In this article I analyze 28 years worth historical gold prices to get an estimate of the price range of gold for the second half of 2010.

The historical gold prices are from the www.kitco.com data achieves. The prices are for the London Spot closing. The years studied are from 1982 to 2009. Each year the following information was gathered: June average price, high and low price for the second of the year and the months the high and low occurred, respectively. Using this data I calculated the average and standard deviation of the percent change from the June average to the high and low for each year.

Contributed By Doug West, Ph.D.
www.investmentmetalsandcoins.com

Collecting Sales Tax Tokens has been a part of numismatics for years and can be a lot of fun. This brief article gives the collector an introduction to the origins, identification, and current prices of common tax tokens.

Background of the Tax Token

Currently there are no known tax tokens in circulation. They were mainly products of the depression of the 1930's along with wooden nickels, depression scrip, and other kinds of emergency money. They were meant to assist in the collection of consumer's sales taxes when the amount due was only a fraction of a cent. During the Great Depression people did not like the idea of paying a whole penny tax on a small purchase, say, 25 cents. The tokens served as a useful device to make the new tax laws more palatable to the buying public.

Contributed By Doug West, Ph.D.
www.investmentmetalsandcoins.com

In the world of collecting coins there are a wide variety of terms and abbreviations used to represent the grade or condition of a coin. Some are very helpful and others nearly meaningless. In this guide I will present some of the more commonly used useful terms and explain them.

Contributed By Doug West, Ph.D.
www.investmentmetalsandcoins.com

The prices of US Proof sets can be analyzed to determine which set’s prices are high or low when compared to the group as a whole. The buying and selling of Proof sets is like most other markets, that is, they are always moving toward a price equilibrium. The problem is the term “price equilibrium” is a moving target. There is new information, buyers, and sellers constantly being introduced into the proof set market. As a result of these changes in the market place, some of the sets will appear to be too high relative to the group as a whole and some sets will appear to be too low. In this article, I analyze the group of proof sets from 1956 to 2007 and identify a few sets that may be over priced and a few sets that may be under priced based on mintage numbers.