WHAT COINS SHOULD ACCOMPANY FROZEN PEOPLE TO THE FUTURE?

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V15 2012 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 15, Number 39, September 16, 2012, Article 29

In the Sure-You-Can-Take-It-With-You department comes this article that Patrick Heller published in the September 11, 2012 Numismatic News asking the I-Never-Heard-THAT-Before question, "what coins would you take with you if you if being frozen after death in hopes of a centuries-hence resuscitation?" Here are some excerpts. -Editor

If you could go into a frozen sleep and wake up like Rip Van Winkle, only hundreds of years in the future, what assets would you want with you?

A popular theme in science fiction movies is having the main characters frozen then scientifically brought back to life in the future. Stars such as Mel Gibson (“Forever Young”), Tom Cruise (“Vanilla Sky”), Sigourney Weaver (the “Alien” films) and Sylvester Stallone (“Demolition Man”) and many others use this technology for key parts of the movies.

The technology for placing the recently deceased into what could be called “an ambulance to the medical technology of the future” is called cryonics.

Besides being a coin dealer, I developed an interest in the possibility of cryonics in the 1970s after reading Robert A. Heinlein’s book, “The Door Into Summer.” I have served as an unpaid officer and director for Cryonics Institute, one of the non-profit organizations now providing cryonics services since it was established in 1976. I am one of at least three coin dealers who have signed contracts to have their bodies immersed in liquid nitrogen upon death (but I won’t tell you who the others are, as this information may or may not be private to them, whereas I even wrote on the subject for The Wall Street Journal back in the 1980s).

One of the questions that those interested in cryonics ask is what would be a suitable investment today that would hold its value or appreciate over the possible centuries that it might take for medicine to develop the capability to revitalize and rejuvenate people.

Last week, a Cryonics Institute member asked me if I would consider any numismatic items that were not related to bullion value to be suitable for an ultra-long holding period, say in the range of 100 to 500 years. I don’t have a surefire answer to this inquiry and I am hoping that some readers could offer their thoughts on the subject.

To read the complete article, see: Coins to Be Frozen With? (www.numismaster.com/ta/numis/Article.jsp?ad=article&ArticleId=25741)

Wayne Homren, Editor