(Part 3) Top products from r/Silverbugs

This book is specific to the Peace Dollar series, but I thought it was a great read. Covers the debasement of US coins as well and of course the mythical 1964-D Peace Dollar.

When I started over a year ago, I bought the Red Book and the Blue Book and the ASE guide.

• A Guide Book of United States Coins 2015: The Official Red Book Hardcover (Official Red Book: A Guide Book of United States Coins)
  
• Handbook of United States Coins 2015: The Official Blue Book Hardcover
  
• American Silver Eagles: A Guide to the U.S. Bullion Coin Program, 2nd Edition
  
  But it sounds like you want the Red Book. It's a general price guide to US coins.

Good luck.

There are 96 varieties. I have 36/96. About 30 of them are under 2 million ever made, so some real rarities in there.

If you have any doubt in your commitment, Dansco makes this 1 per year album:
http://www.danscoalbumstore.com/morgan-dollars-date-18781921-year-album-7171-p-2045.html?osCsid=6b40790a6263e7906127254156cf2473

If you are ready to move forward, I highly recommend this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Morgan-Dollar-Americas-Affair-Legendary/dp/0794839533/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410875993&sr=1-1&keywords=morgan+dollar

> so I only have to pay federal income and capitol gains.

The slaves from various plantations used to argue about who's master was nicer, more wealthy and provided better living conditions.

Yes, that actually happened, which can be read about here:

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

I feel you. Though, I feel a reasonable counterpoint might be "how sturdy did you expect 1/1000 of an ounce of an extremely malleable metal to be?" FWIW, I can definitely commiserate. When I get a full set I'll update you on what I think.

Edit: I am also planning on getting several 1/1000 notes to use as bookmarks in the copies of The Creature From Jekyll Island That I give out to people I'm trying to save.

Edit, the second: Worth mentioning, however, as that last statement might give you the wrong impression, I am actually an advocate for the silver standard, not the gold standard, but could be convinced to embrace bimetallism at the right ratio, namely 16:1.

> Executive Order 11110

Ah yeah, that could be it. I've heard about that, but only in JFK conspiracy-land. I think I read about it in a book called Crossfire, which is an interesting read. I don't recall the specifics of the Executive Order but I think the gist was Kennedy was trying to replace "Federal Reserve Notes" with silver certificates.

Good call.

A lot of that has been fueled by the continued use of her likeness in pop culture, as this long list demonstrates; I counted that 120 of these are from either the year 2000 or later:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe_in_popular_culture

So, to answer your question: First of all, her English-language Wikipedia article was visited over 250,000 times in the past 30 days, and keep in mind that Wikipedia articles are the product on an ongoing consensus of contributors, editors, and reviewers among the readership, and note that her article is currently even not "locked," i.e., there is an "Edit" tab at the top, instead of just as "View History" tab, which hundreds of edit-protected articles have --

https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&start=2016-08-21&end=2016-09-09&pages=Marilyn_Monroe

--and it looks like 90% of the information in the article is sourced from 3 particular biographies: see the names Spoto, Banner, and Churchwell here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe#References

And here are the books, which are all from within the past 20 years and must be based on a vast multitude of sources, as anyone who seeks to write a comprehensive biography would have to be utterly obsessed with the subject, especially if it's the commonly deemed sexiest woman of all time:

170 namings on that Wikipedia page:

Spoto, Donald (2001). Marilyn Monroe: The Biography. Cooper Square Press.

https://www.amazon.com/Marilyn-Monroe-Biography-Donald-Spoto/dp/0815411839

136 namings:

Banner, Lois (2012). Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox. Bloomsbury.

https://www.amazon.com/Marilyn-Passion-Paradox-Lois-Banner/dp/1608197670

97 namings:

Churchwell, Sarah (2004). The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe. Granta Books.

https://www.amazon.com/Many-Lives-Marilyn-Monroe/dp/0312425651

Rule #1:

NEVER talk about Silver Club.

You've probably already told some friends, and siblings/parent will also blab. Odds are high your house is gonna get ransacked the next time the family is out of town. If you can change the combo to the gun safe, do it right now. If anyone needs their gun out of there, you can open it for them without them seeing the combination, until you can get a high-rated anti-burglary safe that you can bolt down. If you can't change the combo on the gun safe, then, like anewmolt says, don't store it all in one spot. Don't hide it anywhere obvious, like your sock drawer or in your bedroom closet or in a bookcase.

And tell NO ONE where you hid it. The only way two people can keep a secret is if one is dead and the other got to him before he could tweet or post on Facebook.

Take a detailed inventory, as skakid suggests. Even old silver bars can sometimes be worth more than melt value if they're Engelhard, for example.

Now for some fun stuff.

Take all the old coins, and "eyeball" their grade yourself here: http://www.pcgs.com/photograde

Just find your coin, and scroll through the photos while using a magnifying glass on your coin, until you find the grade that's worse than yours. Also, for US coins, you can buy the Blue Book, which gives you detailed criteria. $15, $10 for Kindle.

You can search prices at PCGS or here: http://www.ngccoin.com/price-guide/us/ to give you a ballpark figure.

He also has the #1 Best seller on Amazon in the category of "Ship Pictorials"

http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Lost-Treasure-Tommy-Thompson/dp/0871137321/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458060256

In my library for sure. A bit too heavy for me this evening. Sticking with what I have been reading all week. The Proud Highway

Here's a 3/4" mold for your planchets.

My dad used to melt lead for bullet-making. He'd get large ingots, melt them and pour smaller rounds using old cast iron muffin cups. This is that process taken a bit further.

You can polish the cast iron using honing tools intended for engine cylinders. As you work with finer and finer polishing grit, you can move from honing tools to small buffing pads. A little extra attention to preparing your molds will go a long way in saving you time over the years. Storing the molds in a sealed plastic bag with water absorber like you find in medicine bottles, will keep the cast iron from rusting between use.

You can melt/pour your silver shot, or you can pour the shot cold and heat the cast iron to melt the shot in the mold. If you pour the shot cold, it will give you greater control over consistent planchet weight.

The author has an upcoming book: One Nation Under Gold: How One Precious Metal Has Dominated the American Imagination for Four Centuries

It's not silver but this set is really cool. Harry Potter Gringotts Bank Coin Collection https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000795NSI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_zWWLzbFJ62941

Yes, what did happen to ice cream cones for a quarter and candy for a penny?

I like the Escali P115C kitchen scale. It has a 5kg capacity and a resolution of 1 gram.

Get a Red Book. It will show you which coins have potential beyond melt value. But don't rely on the prices in that book -- they're typically high retail.

Small neodymium magnet and pocket scale are the EDC for the just-walking-buy customer. Haven't quite worked out a compact caliper for accurately measuring, this looks good but I don't know how rugged it is.

This is the book about the hunt--I couldn't put it down!

http://www.amazon.com/Ship-Gold-Deep-Blue-Sea/dp/0871134640/ref=pd_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=0AW0VW23FPEME7SEXEJW

But it can be consumed... https://www.amazon.com/Edible-Gold-25-3-3-square-sheets/dp/B0006GSQYK

• /r/PMsFeedback is your friend to determining if you can trust a buyer / seller.
  
• Sell to experienced users first. Expect to ship first and receive payment upon delivery.
  
• Buy from experienced sellers first. You'll pay first, and then they'll ship.
  
• Use caution when dealing with other new users, both buyers and sellers. They may ask you to ship first, and they never pay; or you pay first, and they never ship.
  
• Use caution if something is a killer deal from a new user. If you see a killer deal from an established seller, you should feel confident you won't get ripped off.
  
• Not everybody is a bad apple, but some people are.
  
• If you buy or sell something worth over $1,000, ship it via Registered Mail without exception. It costs ~$25 uninsured for a Priority Mail Small Flat Rate shipping box. It'll take forever to arrive, but there's a chain of custody that tracks who carried the package from place to place. You'll need to buy reinforced paper tape to seal it. The Post Office will stamp the hell out of every border of the box to detect tampering.
  
• I use a PO Box primarily because some mail has been stolen from my mailbox. Lesser motivation is to minimize the number of people who know my physical address, but that's only a concern when I buy / sell to people with no feedback.