New York precious metals retreated Tuesday as stocks rallied and the U.S. dollar surged amid hopes the passage of a financial rescue plan is still possible from Capital Hill. Nymex silver, gold and platinum futures lost, 5.8 percent, 1.5 percent, and 5.6 percent, respectively.
November crude-oil recovered from Monday’s more than $10 loss to settle to $100.64 per barrel, gaining $4.27, or 4.4 percent. Its lowest point for the day was $97.80.
December silver staggered down 75 cents to close to $12.28 an ounce.
October platinum plunged $59.90 to end at $1,015.10 an ounce.
December gold lost $13.60 to settle at $880.80 an ounce.
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Rep. John Larson and five other House members proposed on Friday gold and silver coins emblematic of the life and legacy of Mark Twain.
Mark Twain was the pen name for Samuel Clemens, whose many works are still mostly in print after nearly a century past his death in 1910. Clemens is one of the best known Americans in the world with over 6,500 editions of his books translated into 75 languages.
The commemorative uncirculated and proof coins for collectors would be issued in 2010, which is the year marking both the 175th anniversary of Mark Twain’s birth and the 125th anniversary of the publication of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
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Four numismatic articles are referenced on CoinNews every Tuesday and Thursday. These articles are not authored by us, but we recommend collectors read them for their unusual or interesting content. Have you written or know of an article that should be highlighted on CoinNews? Please let us know! Here are today’s articles:
Architect urged mint to employ good cents
By Bruce Rushton, The State Journal-Register
As a fledgling architect, "Wally" Henderson designed the restoration of the Old State Capitol in the 1960s, when skeptics said it couldn’t be done. Now, 40 years later, Henderson has triumphed again. Thanks to him, the building he saved will appear on millions of commemorative pennies due to be issued next year.
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Get Government Out of Coin Manufacture
By George Selgin, Numismatic News
Coin dealers and collectors are still reeling from the U.S. Mint’s announcement that it had run out of American Eagle gold coins. But what ought to surprise every American isn’t that a government agency came up short. It’s that the U.S. government should be making little metal discs at all.
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The U.S. Mint has produced a whopping 33,774,200,000 state quarters since the inception of the 50 State Quarters® Program in 1999. The total does not include the several hundred million Arizona state quarters that started to hit circulation in June. And by the program’s completion with the final Hawaiian commemorative later this year, the Mint will have issued well over 34 billion state quarters.
That’s quite impressive, despite a slowing U.S. circulating coin pace. And in reality, the Mint’s quarter production output is many millions higher.
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Like a perpetual broken record repeating nearly monthly, Zimbabwe’s Central Bank introduced new Zimbabwean $10,000- and $20,000-dollar banknotes just two months after slashing ten zeros from their currency to fight inflation. That, after previous months of issuing notes ranging up to $100 billion.
While Americans may be feeling an increased change in the value of its dollar due to inflation (see inflation calculator for examples), it’s nothing compared to the Zimbabwe hyperinflation last reported at 11.2 million percent in June. Some reports indicate economists now estimate it may be has high as 50 million percent.
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