LAWMAKERS ATTACK NATIONAL COLLECTOR'S MINT LATEST 9/11 "COINS"

Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Jerrold Nadler have it right: The Federal Trade Commission must do all in its power to stop the exploitative hucksters at the National Collector's Mint from shamelessly trafficking in the memory of 9/11.

As spotlighted on this page three weeks ago, the company is hawking a wholly bogus, almost worthless geegaw through blatantly deceptive TV ads. The spots are designed to convince viewers - falsely - that they have the opportunity to buy a government-sanctioned coin produced to mark the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

And not only that, but a coin sheathed in silver mysteriously and unverifiably recovered from a vault below Ground Zero.

The price is $29.95 for a trinket whose true value has been estimated as low as 2 cents and as high as 60 cents.

In 2004, the outfit peddled a Freedom Tower Silver Dollar as "legally authorized government issue" from the Northern Mariana Islands. Charging fraud, then-state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer won $2 million in refunds and cancellations, and $369,000 in penalties.

In 2006, the mint resurfaced with a Fifth Anniversary World Trade Center Commemorative Coin that was equally reprehensible. And now it's back with a fresh scam in year 10.

The FTC must come down as hard and swiftly as the law allows. The object must be to halt further sales. They are a desecration and, compounding the insult, they will surely divert money from the U.S. Mint's plan to sell official 10th anniversary medals in a fund-raising campaign for the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation.

These creeps must be stopped.

To read the complete article, see: FTC should come down hard on sleazy National Collector's Mint and its bogus 9/11 medals (www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/01/27/
2011-01-27_stamp_out_the_coin.html)

Wayne Homren, Editor

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