Beautiful coin. Not actually for sale. Sorry. Beautiful coin. Not actually for sale. Sorry. Beautiful coin. Not actually for sale. Sorry. Beautiful coin. Not actually […]
General Information Minting Locations: The 1887 Morgan Silver Dollar was produced in three mints: Philadelphia (no mintmark), New Orleans (O), and San Francisco (S). The […]
Collectors know Nürnberg’s 1700-dated Paschal Lamb gold as one of the classic trophy series in German numismatics. Yet one coin breaks the pattern. A unique gold klippe piefort of 2-ducat weight first entered the public auction record at Künker’s June 2007 Auction 125, Lot 976. Then, nearly two decades later, it returned at Heritage’s NYINC sale on January 12, 2026, where it realized $12,200.
Heritage catalogs the piece as a Nürnberg Free City gold klippe “Piefort” 2 Ducats, 1700-dated, struck in the 1755-1764 window under mint master Johann Martin Förster. The firm gives the coin a weight of 6.91 grams and a diameter of 20 millimeters. Just as important, Heritage calls the variant unlisted in the major references and cites it as Kellner-Unl and Erlanger-…
By Jesse Kraft for American Numismatic Society (ANS) …..Updated and reformatted by CoinWeek
Goloid Dollars, the “Crime of ’73,” and America’s Silver Crisis
Few moments in American monetary history caused more disruption than the years after California’s gold discoveries. The flood of new gold upset the long-standing ratio between gold and silver. As a result, silver coins traded at $1.04 for every gold dollar. That gap looked small. However, it created a real crisis. Silver coins vanished from circulation because people hoarded them.
Congress stepped in with the Coinage Act of 1853. Lawmakers lowered the weights of the half dime, the dime, the quarter, and the half dollar. That change reduced their intrinsic value and pushed them back into circulation. However, Congress left the silver dollar at full weight. Officials did not want to disrupt its use abroad. At the time, the silver dollar still competed heavily with the Mexican peso in international trade.…
Ancient Greeks loved wrestling [1]. Cities celebrated champion wrestlers as hometown heroes. They raised statues in their honor. Even today, modern Greco-Roman wrestling still echoes that old tradition, although ancient wrestlers competed naked. Several cities struck coins that show the sport in action, especially in Pamphylia and Pisidia on the southern coast of Anatolia.
A Tiny Silver Coin Starts the Story
Fig 2 Archaic
In 1990, Major Anthony F. Milavic (USMC, retired) acquired an enigmatic little silver coin [2]. It shows two wrestlers about to grapple. Over the next several decades, Milavic built a world-class collection of ancient coins with athletic themes. The style and fabric of this piece, especially its simple square punch-mark reverse, place it in the Archaic era, which numismatists date to before about 480 BCE.
The coin weighs 0.94 gram. That weight suggests a trihemiobol on the “Thraco-Macedonian” standa…
