LOOSE CHANGE: SEPTEMBER 8, 2019

The Shroud of Turin and Byzantine coins

Traces of possible Byzantine coins have been found on the Holy Shroud of Turin pushing back a 1988 carbon dating of the relic to the fourteenth century, according to Padua university and US researchers in a new study published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage.

The date-changing discovery was presented at the Conference on the Holy Shroud in Canada.

The study led by Giulio Fanti and Claudio Furlan detected electron, a rare and ancient alloy of gold and silver with traces of copper.

At the same time, the study examined the percentage of these elements in Byzantine coins of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and found a "full correlation", the researchers said.

To read the complete article, see:
Traces of possible Byzantine coins found on Holy Shroud (http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/sections/culture/2019/09/03/traces-of-possible-byzantine-coins-found-on-holy-shroud_970f4d48-21c0-47a6-9287-bb9b8c28c4a8.html)

Kurt Cobain Royalty Check

Dated March 6, 1991—six months before the singer, songwriter, and guitarist became a global icon with the release of Nirvana’s Nevermind—the uncashed check was worth $26.57 (or about $50 today, when adjusted for inflation). Nirvana had released only one album at the time—Bleach, recorded for $600 in 1989—and its modest sales figures had offered no hint of the megastardom on Cobain’s horizon.

Though no one knows exactly how it got there, the check fittingly ended up at Easy Street. The record store has been a mainstay of Seattle’s music scene since 1988, before the city became synonymous with the so-called grunge movement headlined by local acts Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains.

In an email, Easy Street owner Matt Vaughan says that the store purchased the record collection in 1993 or 1994, and that it came with some Nirvana tour itineraries that were promptly placed in the “storage basement for years until recently we saw em again (kinda spaced that we still had em) and went through em more closely.”

To read the complete article, see:
Found in a Record Store: Kurt Cobain’s Royalty Check (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/found-in-a-record-store-kurt-cobains-royalty-check)

What to Do with Inherited Coins

When the public brings in coins for an appraisal these days, they often have done at least some research. But working with these folks also reminds me how little the general population knows about the world of rare coin grading.

The temptation for someone who knows little or nothing about grading is to scan to the right on the price charts to determine a coin’s value. They find it hard to believe that their lustrous Morgan Silver Dollar is not an MS 66 or better and worth thousands. I would probably be the same way if I inherited an attractive piece of jewelry and was dealing with a diamond dealer. Like appraising diamonds, the nuances of coin grading are hard to explain to a beginner.

To read the complete article, see:
Jeff Garrett: What to Do with Inherited Coins (https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/7718/)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web