The Royal Canadian Mint announced that it will be closing its doors or the next two weeks as a means of stopping the spread of coronavirus. The mint will stop producing gold and silver maple leafs.
The Royal Canadian Mint is a favorite coin producer for precious metals investors. Many prefer the Mint’s 24k gold offerings or maybe the .9999 silver bullion. To investor delight, the Royal Canadian Mint unveiled its fourth numismatic line for 2017.
Of note, the Mint celebrates Canada’s 150th anniversary in this line, including an ultra-high relief 10 oz fine silver coin featuring the 1867 Confederation Medal and an obverse of Their Majesties Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II. The new line of coins celebrating Canada’s 150th anniversary even features fireworks that light up!
Another 2017 $10 Fine Silver Coin – Celebrating Canada’s 150th: Wild Swift Fox and Pups, features the photography of Saskatchewan’s John E. Marriott.
The 2017 $5 Fine Silver Coin was designed by Tony Bianco and features a traditional Canada Day fireworks display surrounding a colored Canadian flag.
The fireworks will light up thanks to the inclusion of glow-in-the-dark technology.
Thieves in Berlin stole the world’s second-largest gold coin from a Berlin museum using a rope, a foldout ladder and a wheelbarrow. The heist took place right by Angela Merkel’s inner-city apartment, to boot.
Related: The IMF Says Donald Trump is Good for the American Economy
The Big Maple Leaf coin is one of five such gold commemorative coins made by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007. They weigh 100kg, and their diameter is 53cm and a thickness of 3cm. Its value is estimated at nearly €3.8m (£3.3m).
The coin was on loan to the Bode Museum from a private collection of a German property investor. The coin was at one time the heaviest on the planet. The “Australian Kangaroo One Tonne” gold coin in 2011. The Big Maple Leaf has been on display at the museum since 2010, encased in a bullet proof cabinet at the museum on Berlin’s museum island, located along the Spree river in the Mitte district. On the walls outside the museum in neo-baroque design advertised its current show Muse macht Moneten (or “Be creative and get rich”).
Between 3:20am and 3:45am, two thieves entered the museum via the third-floor window at the back of the 113-year-old building. The placed a ladder on elevated tracks on S1 railway between the last train on Sunday and Monday morning.
The window led the thieves into the security guards’ changing room. They smashed their way into the bulletproof cabinet with a tool like a sledgehammer and used the same route to get out with the coin. The thieves used a wheelbarrow to push the coin 100 meters along the tracks and across a bridge over the river to Monbijou Park, where they dropped the coin while abseiling down to the ground.
They then entered their getaway car. A burnt-out Mercedes found in a parking garage might be related to the theft, but police had yet to confirm this.
A member of Bode Museum’s security staff noticed at 4am. Police are unsure how such a high-end heist could be pulled off so easily.
“Some elements of this story raise questions, and we are currently asking those questions,” police spokesperson Winfried Wenzel said.
Angela Merkel’s apartment is only a “stone’s throw” from the window through which the thieves entered. CCTV cameras and the security system may have been disabled. Police were using footage from nearby stations and municipal buildings.
Many believe the coin has already been melted down, an act police call “hardly insurmountable in technical and logistical terms”.
The gold, at melt value, is currently worth $4,300,000.
Images: Royal Canadian Mint, Express
The Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) has made a splash in the silver and gold investment community as late with many of their limited mintage bullion coins, such as the Wildlife Series and others, including the Birds Of Prey silver bullion coins and the Call of the Wild gold bullion coins, the latest coins of which were recently released. Read More
[heading]American Gold Eagle Bullion Sales Decline[/heading]
September is the second month in a row in which American Gold Eagle coins sold much fewer compared to one year ago. At the beginning of August, one month sales of the Gold Eagle reached a six year nadir.
Despite weakness in gold coin sales, the American Silver Eagle bullion coin has continued to sell and remains on pace for record annual sales. Read More
[heading]Visa/MasterCard Will Prevail In US Over Bitcoin Despite “Swipe Fees”…For Now[/heading]
I spend a lot of time thinking about in which frontier markets Bitcoin is going to explode and really change the game of value. What grand equation can I concoct in favor of Bitcoin’s success somewhere? Not that I am trying to make things up as I go, I am just trying to be hip. But, I thought about something Wendy McElroy from The Dollar Vigilante wrote recently:
“Simplify, simplify.” — Henry David Thoreau
[heading]The Illusion Of Tangible Assets[/heading]
Gold and silver investors have taken issue with Bitcoin, claiming that it is not a tangible asset, like gold and silver.
Their hypothesis is usually stooped in the notion that anything is truly “physical” as we perceive it in the first place. What if, counter-intuitively, the entire universe was composed of 0’s and 1’s itself? What if the universe was digital? Wouldn’t that mean that gold, silver, platinum and palladium are all, in fact, digital as well? Read More
[heading]Why I Donated Bitcoin To The Acapulco Recovery Fund[/heading]
By: Justin
When The Dollar Vigilante Jeff Berwick setup a fund to help Acapulco recover from a recent flood-disaster in which eastern regions of the historic city were badly damaged, if not nearly destroyed, I felt implored to send a little bit of my digital cash reserves to aid in the effort. I wasn’t the only one.
I had been chewing on the notion as of late that, in a peer-to-peer economy, such as what Bitcoin represents, the users themselves represented the “social safety net.” Read More
[heading]Small Business Owners Speak Up: What Will It Take For Them To Accept Bitcoin[/heading]
BitPay recently announced their 10,000th merchant. Some reports posit the Bitcoin payment processor is growing faster than Bitcoin itself.
According to the press release, “The merchants in BitPay’s directory are diverse internationally, with approximately 50% located in North America, 25% in Europe, and 25% in the rest of the world.”
What we got were varied answers. There was one somewhat common theme: vendors who simply hadn’t heard of processors like BitPay or CoinBase, which allow small businesses to convert their bitcoins to cash within a few business days. Many small business owners worried about their company’s cash-flow, first and foremost. Others worried about reputation, and the reputation Bitcoin brings. Read More
[heading]American Silver Eagles Second Highest Sales Yearly[/heading]
This past Monday, 675,000 Silver Eagles were purchased, marking one more milestone as their total this year sold has hit 34,925,000. Annual sales rankings for the bullion coins sees 2013 in second place all-time. Here are the top five annual sales years, and further information by CoinNews: Read More
“Ben Bernanke? Oh yeah, that bearded Jewish Guy. What’s He Do?” or The Stage That Is Economic Policy
[heading]”Ben Bernanke? Oh yeah, that bearded Jewish Guy. What’s He Do?” or The Stage That Is Economic Policy[/heading]
By: Justin
Ben Bernanke spoke today. If you don’t know who Ben Bernanke is, he is the Fed Chairman. What’s that? That’s what Alan Greenspan was before him. Yeah, we’ll get a new one soon.
When Benny & his jets (colloquial reference to his money-printing habits) speaks, the market listens.
What does it mean when the market listens?
It means that everyone gathers around television cameras and pundit typewriters and yells or types really loud and eventually certain screams and typing become louder (EVEN ALL CAPS). And then the robots take over. Read More
No, this isn’t some story about how Bitcoin was used to launder marijuana.
This is a story about something different. A story of US-based small business owners yearning to make something of themselves, yearning to do what their immigrant forbearers did and dream big and then realize those dreams.
For small business owners in Colorado and Washington, as bitcoiners look on with jealousy, these dreams might be an inch closer to coming true. Read More
The last two weeks have seen Bitcoin climb back to $130 after collapsing from $266 to $80 in April. Since then, due to diverse hands entering the market, a sense of stability fell upon the Bitcoin market.
Then, in the wake of Syria war chanting, Bitcoin steadily moved beyond $100 and did not pause for perspective until $130. At time of this writing, Bitcoin stands at $122.
But, why? Read More
[heading]IMF Reassess Global Economic Fate[/heading]
The IMF has changed their prior view that emerging markets were to rescue the world from global depression.
A confidential note on world economic prospects was seen by the Financial Times. In this note, the IMF imparts that it believes emerging economics are no longer the dynamic engine of global growth. The fund instead wrote, “momentum is projected to come mainly from advanced economies, where output is expected to accelerate”. Read More
[heading]NASA In Search Of Internet’s Next Generation[/heading]
The question “Is Bitcoin here to stay?” is a common refrain. One that an enthusiast hears often.
It is here to stay, believe many. After all, isn’t a bet for decentralized virtual currencies like Bitcoin merely a bet for the Internet?”
Currently, NASA has developed plans to test a potential new system of human communications, with implications for terrestrial and extra terrestrial data transfer.
NASA plans on launching a new communications technology this Friday which will allow for a record-smashing 600 megabits-per-second downloads. The resulting probe will orbit the moon and send communications back to Earth via lasers. Read More
[heading]What Was The Silver Republican Party?[/heading]
In the 1890s, the Silver Republican Party rose out of a split from the Republican Party. The main issue the two disagreed on was “Free Silver” and bimetallism.
During that period, goldbugs and silverfish had been pitted against each other. Some, namely city interests, called for a gold standard to stem inflation. This harmed farmers who held much of their savings in silver until that time. These interests longed for a bimetallic standard. Read More
[heading]Silver Quietly Sneaks Back Up, Probably Never To Be This Low In Our Lifetimes Forevermore[/heading]
It has been a long, winding road for silver, but it appears the most recent run up from the bottom of around $18 to nows’ nearly $25 has tickled the excitement of silverbugs.
On Facebook, author Tarrin Lupo (Pirates Of Savannah) even boldly proclaimed that “The price of Silver is quietly sneaking back up, probably it’s the last time it will be this low in our lifetime.” Read More
[heading]Silverbugs Guilty Until Proven Innocent[/heading]
Looking for drugs, drug detection officers in Newcastle found something quite different on a 34-year old man they searched: a stash of silver bullion. No mind-altering substance in tow, it did not matter, for the man had his silver taken and must appear in court. Read More
[heading]What Was “Free Silver?” A Look Back At The Free Silver Movement[/heading]
The late nineteenth century was a curious time for the US. One of robber-barons and captains of industry, the late nineteenth century was also a time of “free silver”, a central American policy in favor of inflation by silver, which might be a foreign concept to todays silver bugs. What did the opponents of free silver support? The gold standard. Hmm…
The supporters of the the inflationary monetary policy of free silver were known as “Silverites,” and they were in favor of bimetallism. That is, the use of silver and gold as currency. Their ratio is familiar to those in the precious metals circles: 16 to 1. Read More
[heading]Update On Bitcoin Foundation Trip To Washington DC[/heading]
The pleasant thing about Bitcoin, perhaps the most important, is its’ ability to bring people together across diverse backgrounds. The last two days in Washington DC proved just that, as The Bitcoin Foundation was invited to a meeting with some of the US’s top agencies, as GoldSilverBitcoin reported here.
The sober perspective on the meeting is that it is something that happens all the time. The Bitcoin Foundation was not issued a subpoena. The tone of the meeting was one of men with different worldviews, at least in many cases, coming together to discuss something some knew much about, and the others did not. According to the following account, it was a peaceful endeavoring. Read More
[heading]Bitcoin Foundation Meets With Regulators Across US Government Offices[/heading]
With increasing amounts of pressure being put on the decentralized virtual currency Bitcoin, representatives of the Bitcoin Foundation – a California based nonprofit – have organized an event bringing them together with officials across governmental bodies, from the Federal Reserve to the IRS.
“Look guys, Mr. Federal Reserve, Mr. IRS, let’s be honest….how many users will ACTUALLY be using VPN?”
[heading]Bitcoin Vs. Fiat’s Best: The Norwegian Kroner[/heading]
A “safe” fiat currency? There can be no such thing…
Or can there?
First of all, a nation’s currency is issued by its central bank, and a central bank, just like an ordinary bank, has assets and liabilities.
Assets that a central bank might have are things such as government bonds and gold. A central bank’s liabilities include the nation’s money supply, known as central banks ‘notes,’ even though most of these exist digitally these days. Read More
[heading]1 Big Reason September Could Be Silver’s Month[/heading]
Silver has corrected since its’ 2011 high of nearly $50 an ounce. At that point, “49ers” ran in droves to the devil’s metal, only to lose considerable amounts of wealth, vanished in the Sunday selloff on MayDay of that year.
Now, more than two years later, many silverbugs learned a lesson that many people in the banking crisis learned: cash is King. In other words, those who control the cash are in control. Read More
[heading]Big Banks Prepare To Exit Physical Commodities[/heading]
JPMorgan made headlines last month with an astonishing announcement that it would be getting out of physical commodities. This was shocking for everyone who had followed the contentions that the bank was in fact manipulating the commodities, like silver.
Then, revelations about how banks were manipulating the storage warehouses and aluminum markets of some commodities. All of the sudden, banks were coming under mainstream pressure for physical commodity manipulation. No explicit mentions in the mainstream regarding silver. After all, the SEC had already let JP Morgan off the hook. Read More
[heading]5 Reasons Why Bitcoin Is Not Anonymous[/heading]
Last Monday the DHS was sent a letter from the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs asking for “any information, plans or strategies on how it currently plans to treat virtual currencies, including Bitcoin.
Posted on the Committee’s website, the letter explains the attractiveness of the currency for investors and entrepreneurs with its potential for profit and quick payment solutions. But it also warns that its “near anonymous and decentralized nature has also attracted criminals who value few things more than being allowed to operate in the shadows.” Read More
[heading]Germany Recognizes Bitcoin As “Private Money”[/heading]
Is Bitcoin legitimate? Is Bitcoin illegitimate? This is something for individuals to decide, not countries. But, what does it mean that country’s are adapting to decentralized currencies, and what effectiveness will they show in the long term? Only time will tell.
Bitcoin’s legitimacy continues to be asserted as yet another government has gone so far as to give the decentralized virtual currency “private money” status.
Germany has recognized Bitcoin for legal and tax purposes, meaning it is the first country to take an official stance on the status of using the online currency as money. Read More
[heading]Bitcoin To Replace Pennies & Nickels?[/heading]
In this month’s edition of Futurist magazine, an article asked experts what they did not expect to be around in thirty years. One individual in particular, Virginia Holbert, responded:
“pennies and other coins are becoming less useful, as parking meters, tolls, and public transits use smartcards and RFID technologies to streamline payment. Presumably by 2030 we will also see widespread acceptance of virtual currencies such as Bitcoin.”