LOOSE CHANGE: OCTOBER 4, 2020

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V23 2020 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 23, Number 40, October 4, 2020, Article 32

Here are some additional items in the media this week that may be of interest. -Editor

Last week we featured a CoinWeek article by Mike Markowitz about damnatio memoriae on ancient Roman coins. Curator Elana Stolyarik of the American Numismatic Society wrote about these in a September 29, 2020 blog article. Here's an excerpt. See the complete piece online - there are many great coin images. -Editor

During his short reign (37–41 CE), Caligula declared himself a god and tried to exclude the Senate from the political process to establish an absolute monarchy in Rome. This situation finally led to his murder on January 24, 41 CE. He was so hated that he received the dubious distinction of being the first Roman ruler whose memory was condemned. This damnatio memoriae, "condemnation of memory,"included the destruction of his statues and public inscriptions. His coins did not escape this condemnation; they were pulled from circulation and melted down whenever possible. Some of them were countermarked, like several bronze coins from the ANS collection. These bear the countermark TICA celebrating the new emperor Tiberius Claudius Augustus and also effacing the features of Caligula's portrait.

Another Roman ruler, mostly remembered for his extravagance and tyrannical behavior, was the emperor Nero (54–68 CE). After his suicide on 9 June 68 CE, the Senate formally declared him an official enemy of the Roman state and his memory was condemned. His commemorative monuments, such as the triumphal arch in Rome honoring victories in Armenia seen on an ANS sestertius, were destroyed.

Neronian bronze coins, like the Caligula coins before, were countermarked. The stamp SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus) not only canceled and revalidated Nero's coins, but also symbolically reclaimed them for the Senate and Roman People.

In his Publisher's Message this week, coin pricing publication Greysheet publisher (and E-Sylum sponsor) John Feigenbaum noted significant increases in demand and pricing. Here's an excerpt - see his complete message online. -Editor

For the first time in 5 years since I've taken over the helm as publisher here at the Greysheet, we are witnessing a true groundswell of positive pricing movement. Market-makers are telling me that they are having legitimate difficulty sourcing enough material for their orders. When we discuss price levels, and adjustments to be made, they tell me something to the effect of "it's the wild west all over again. People are quoting numbers for coins that are higher than we sold them for a week ago. Sometimes we buy them, sometimes we pass."

Thus is the state of the fluid market right now. Especially for circulated coins or raw mint state/proof 20th century pieces, it's a seller's market and buyers are taking risk when deciding whether to step up and reinforce their depleted inventories. The most interesting part of this momentum is the foundation in the so-called cheaper coins, not the prized certified rarities that appear in live auction—though I suspect this part of the market will follow in short order.

For now, dealers are informing us of emergency-low levels of inventory in circ-MS63 Morgan dollars, for example, which have laid dormant for years. Demand for this series is at a level not seen in years!

The sports card collecting market is booming as well. Here's an excerpt from an extensive report from ESPN. See the complete article online. -Editor

Over the past half-decade, even now amid a pandemic that's decimated the American economy, contemporary sports cards have attracted gargantuan sums from high-rolling investors. And somehow, during a year that included the sharpest GDP quarterly contraction in American history, card sales have demolished all-time records, dumbfounding investors and collectors alike. Free market capitalism is, if nothing else, adept at creating bubble economies. Amid the wreckage of this so-called junk wax era, as America's 10,000 brick-and-mortar card stores dwindled into the hundreds, List -- now Dr. List, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, short-listed for a 2015 Nobel Prize -- brought academic rigor to his passion.

"I looked for the best ways to negotiate, the best auction types to sell your cards, how trustworthy dealers were when promising specific grades, loss aversion," List says today, describing work that ultimately yielded some of the earliest field experiments in economics on sports cards.

If anyone in America truly understands baseball cards -- and can explain the seemingly inexplicable boom in their market since the onset of the global pandemic -- it's List.

Before COVID-19 hit, he spent time at spring training in Phoenix and visited his go-to mom and pop shop, AZ Sports Cards, an establishment so warm and welcoming that it's called the sports card version of "Cheers."

"The shop is doing OK," List says. "But the [owner says] the real money is online."

The rise of eBay, Amazon and newer marketplaces like StockX gave birth to huge secondary markets and fierce global competition for sports' most coveted stars, which in turn sent prices skyrocketing.

Arthur Shippee passed along this article from The Jerusalem Post about a medal created for the recent Abraham Accord. Thanks. -Editor

Temple Coins has minted a commemorative medallion in honor of the signing of the Abraham Accord between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, the coin maker announced in a statement.

The coin, designed by numismatic artist Aharon Shavo, shows the Israeli and UAE flags prominently displayed on the front, flying over the silhouette of Jerusalem's Old City conjoined with the Abu Dhabi skylines.

Engraved below the skyline are the words "Abraham Accord," written in Arabic, Hebrew and English.

The biblical founder of Judaism is referred to as Abraham in the Christian faith, as Avraham in Hebrew and as Ibrahim in Arabic.