Phoenixx Exchange

06/13/2021

Maya Angelou and Sally Ride Will Be First Women on U.S. Quarters Coming in 2022

Susan B. Anthony dollar or the Sacagawea dollar (which largely replaced it). If you've payed close attention to American coinage, you may have also spotted Helen Keller on the Alabama State Quarter. However, these are the only three women on American coins—or on any American legal tender produced today. Thankfully, the American Women Quarters Program is set to change that. The program will create 20 new quarter designs featuring pioneering American women of the past. The quarters will be released by the U.S. Mint in stages over the next four years.

The American Women Quarters Program will run from 2022 to 2025, with five new quarters released nationwide each year. Two of the famous faces to be seen in 2022 have already been announced, although their designs are still in a preliminary phase. The legendary women to be honored are Maya Angelou and Sally Ride. A poet and civil rights activist, Dr. Angelou passed away in 2014. She was a prolific writer best known for her work I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) and awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2010. Imagery from this work appears in the preliminary design of her quarter. Over her lifetime, Angelou received over 50 honorary degrees and even spoke at President Clinton's 1993 Inauguration.

Astronaut Sally Ride will be representing women in STEM on a 2022 quarter. Dr. Ride held a PhD in physics from Stanford University. She was a member of the first NASA class of astronauts to select women in 1978. In 1983, she became the first American woman in space (and third woman globally) on a flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger. To this day, she remains the youngest American astronaut to have been to space at 32 years old. She is also the earliest astronaut recognized as LGBTQ+. Ride has also been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. Her quarter will feature references to her time in space.

The women to be featured will include individuals of diverse backgrounds and contributions to American society. All honorees must be deceased. Though only two of the 20 women to be honored have so far been announced by the U.S. Mint, there is a google form to submit your recommendations for the other 18 to be considered by Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, alongside representatives from the Smithsonian Institution’s American Women’s History Initiative, the National Women’s History Museum, and the Congressional Bipartisan Women’s Caucus.

As exciting a development as it is, many women and communities of color are left wondering where they are to be found among depictions on American legal tender. While some women did appear on antique bills before the founding of the modern national mint system, at present, no woman or person of color appears on modern American paper currency. An exciting decision to place Harriet Tubman on the $10 bill was announced in 2015 as part of a movement by the Treasury to include a handful of pioneering American women on paper money. However, this plan was amended to the $20 bill after the success of Hamilton, the musical about the current face of the $10 bill. The plan—which was supposed to go into effect in 2020—was then pushed to 2028 by the Trump administration in a decision believed to be in part due to the former president's well-documented love of Andrew Jackson (who appears on the bill). The move frustrated many, as Tubman was to be the first woman and Black American honored with a depiction on current paper currency—replacing the slaveholding Jackson.

To submit your ideas for the American Women Quarters Program, use this form. To stay up to date on the fight for representation and the honoring of the achievements of women and communities of color, check out the organization WomenOn20s.

20 pioneering American women of diverse backgrounds will be featured on nationwide U.S. Mint quarters through the American Women Quarters Program.

04/24/2021

Silver coins unearthed in New England may be loot from one of the 'greatest crimes in history'

A handful of Arabian silver coins found in New England may be the last surviving relics of history's most notorious act of piracy — and perhaps one of the most famous pirates who ever lived.

Evidence suggests the distinctive coins were spent as common silver in the American colonies in the late 1690s by the fugitive pirate crew of Henry Every, also known as John Avery, who had fled there after plundering the Mughal treasure ship Ganj-i-sawai as it was returning pilgrims from the Muslim Hajj.

Researchers aren't certain that the coins are from the Ganj-i-sawai, but their origin, their dates and their discovery in such a distant region suggest they were seized by the pirates and spent in the Americas.

Their discovery has also cast new light on Every's whereabouts shortly before he vanished with his loot. "We can prove beyond a doubt that he actually was in the mainland American colonies," Rhode Island metal detectorist Jim Bailey told Live Science.

Bailey found one of the first of the Arabian silver coins, called a comassee, in 2014 at the site of a colonial settlement on Aquidneck Island, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Providence.

More than a dozen similar coins thought to be from the pirate raid on the Ganj-i-sawai have now been discovered by metal detectorists and archaeologists elsewhere in Rhode Island, and in Massachusetts, Connecticut and North Carolina — maybe the last evidence of one of the greatest crimes in history.

Pirate attack
In 1695, Every and his cutthroat crew on board their ship Fancy joined a pirate raid on a convoy in the Red Sea that was returning to India from Mecca.

Every's ship chased and caught the convoy's flagship, the Ganj-i-sawai, which belonged to the Grand Mughal Aurangzeb, the Muslim emperor of what is now India and Pakistan. Reports say the pirates tortured and killed its crew and 600 passengers, before making off with gold and silver, including thousands of coins, said to be worth between 200,000 and 600,000 British pounds — the equivalent of between $40 million and $130 million in today's money.

After an outcry led by the British East India Company, whose profits on the riches of India were threatened by the raid, Britain's King William III ordered what is regarded as the first international manhunt to capture Every and the other pirates.

By this time, however, Every and his crew had escaped to the New World. They lived for several months in the Bahamas, possibly with the collusion of the British governor of the islands; but they fled in late 1696 as the Royal Navy closed in.

Some of Every's crew went to live in the mainland colonies, where they were eventually tried and acquitted, possibly as a result of bribery; but there were no further sightings of Every. Later reports suggested he had sailed to Ireland while still on the run and that he died there, impoverished, a few years later. Since his loot from the Ganj-i-sawai was never accounted for, rumors long persisted that the treasure had been buried somewhere in secret.

Arabian silver
Bailey is an amateur archaeologist who worked on the recovery of the wreck of the Whydah, a pirate ship discovered off Cape Cod in 1984.

Related: The most notorious pirates ever

In 2014, his metal detector picked up the first of the mysterious coins in a meadow on Aquidneck Island that was once the site of a colonial township.

"You never field-clean a coin, because you could damage it," he said. "I had to run to my car and get a big bottle of water… the mud came off, and I saw this Arabic script on the coin and I was amazed, because I knew exactly where it'd come from," he said. "I was aware that the American colonies had been bases of operation for piracy in the late 17th century."

Studies of the Arabic writing on the coin showed it had been minted in Yemen in southern Arabia in 1693, just a few years before the pirate attack on the Ganj-i-sawai. Another 13 have been found, mostly by metal detectorists, but the latest in 2018 by archaeologists in Connecticut; two Ottoman Turkish silver coins thought to be from the same hoard have also been unearthed in the region.

Bailey has carefully studied each of the discoveries, while researching historical sources about the pirates who might have brought the coins to the Americas; and in 2017, some of his work was published in the Colonial Newsletter, a research journal published by the American Numismatic Society.

Several of the coins show the year they were minted, while some are marked with the names of rulers at the time, which can be used to date them. "None of the coins date after 1695, when the Ganj-i-sawai was captured," Bailey said.

Pirate treasure
Every is thought to have sailed directly to Ireland after his time in the Bahamas, but Bailey's research suggests Every first spent several weeks on the American mainland, trading in African slaves he had bought with the loot from the Ganj-i-sawai.

Historical records relate that a ship Every had acquired in the Bahamas, Sea Flower, sold dozens of slaves on the mainland, and Bailey's research suggests that Every was on board, he said.

Bailey thinks Every probably died in Ireland eventually, as described by some chroniclers. But others portrayed him as a swashbuckling "king" who ruled for years over a fictional pirate utopia in Madagascar.

There's no way to know if Every handled the New England coins himself, but Bailey thinks they were almost certainly part of the hoard looted from the Mughal ship (Some coin specialists, however, are not convinced by his theory.)

While most of the loot was probably melted down to hide the origins, "what we're finding basically are the coins that were being used by the pirates when they were on the run: coins for lodgings, coins for meals, coins for drinking," he said.

Astonishingly, the coins may also have been referred to in the manhunt proclamation by King William, which stated that Every and the other fugitives had looted many "Indian and Persian" gold and silver coins from the captured ship.

"How often do you find a coin that's mentioned in the proclamation for the capture of a pirate and the subject of the first worldwide manhunt?" Bailey said. "It's just fantastic."

Originally published on Live Science.

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04/22/2021

The United States one dollar note contains a wealth of information about when and where that note was printed. Collectors can use this information to help understand the U.S. system of currency and to make collecting decisions. The Federal

https://www.phoenixxexchange.com/Decoding-A-One-Dollar-Bill_b_30.html

03/22/2021

PROFILE OF THE 1895 PROOF MORGAN SILVER DOLLAR

The 1895 Morgan silver dollar is known as the "King of the Morgan Dollars" because it is the rarest and one of the most valuable coins in the entire Morgan Dollar series. The highest price ever paid for a Proof 1895 Morgan silver dollar was $269,500 in June 2020 at David Lawrence RC Internet Auction #1123 for a coin that is graded PCGS Proof 67+ DCAM.
Mysterious Disappearance
According to U.S. Mint records, there were 12,000 circulation strike Morgan silver dollars struck for 1895, and 880 Proof specimens struck. However, research has accounted for 750 to 800 of the 1895 Morgans, all of them, Proofs. What baffles the experts is, where did 12,000 plus coins go?

Numismatic scholars do not agree with each other on how or why the 12,000 circulation strike specimens of the 1895 Morgan silver dollar have vanished. Most scholars believe that the Mint never produced the coins in the first place and that this notation in the Mint accounting ledgers is an error. Some believe that the coins were minted, but as the Treasury Department melted hundreds of millions of coins throughout the years, some believe that the 12,000 unaccounted-for 1895 coins were melted. Another theory proposes that the coins were lost at sea in a shipwreck. Which theory is correct, we will never know. But we do know that this is the rarest of all Morgan dollars.

Nicknames

The Morgan Dollar is so-called because George T. Morgan designed it. When it first came out, it was an unpopular coin frequently derided as the "Buzzard Dollar" because of the shape of the eagle's head and its scrawny appearance. The coin was also derisively called a "cartwheel" for its large size and weight. The proper numismatic term for the coin type is the "Liberty Head" silver dollar.

The Treasury had about 2.9 million Morgans left in 1964, mostly scarce Carson City specimens, which the GSA put up for public sale via mail-bid auctions starting in 1972. By 1980, as the supplies dwindled, the public finally became interested in collecting the beautiful Morgan Dollar. The real feeding frenzy came when an amazing hoard of more than 400,000 Morgans was found in the basement of Nevada miser LaVere Redfield after his death in 1975.

The Redfield hoard got a lot of publicity, and as the U.S. population had become a lot more familiar with the value of silver coins in the years following the change from silver coinage to clad coinage. The publication of the "Comprehensive Catalog and Encyclopedia of Peace and Morgan Silver Dollars" by Leroy Van Allen and George Mallis, also known as the VAM book, also spurred significant collector interest in Morgan silver dollars.

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Profile of the 1895 Proof Morgan Silver Dollar
Written by Susan Headley
Updated 11/26/20
1895 Morgan Silver Dollar
Heritage Auction Galleries
The 1895 Morgan silver dollar is known as the "King of the Morgan Dollars" because it is the rarest and one of the most valuable coins in the entire Morgan Dollar series. The highest price ever paid for a Proof 1895 Morgan silver dollar was $269,500 in June 2020 at David Lawrence RC Internet Auction #1123 for a coin that is graded PCGS Proof 67+ DCAM.

Mysterious Disappearance
According to U.S. Mint records, there were 12,000 circulation strike Morgan silver dollars struck for 1895, and 880 Proof specimens struck. However, research has accounted for 750 to 800 of the 1895 Morgans, all of them, Proofs. What baffles the experts is, where did 12,000 plus coins go?

Numismatic scholars do not agree with each other on how or why the 12,000 circulation strike specimens of the 1895 Morgan silver dollar have vanished. Most scholars believe that the Mint never produced the coins in the first place and that this notation in the Mint accounting ledgers is an error. Some believe that the coins were minted, but as the Treasury Department melted hundreds of millions of coins throughout the years, some believe that the 12,000 unaccounted-for 1895 coins were melted. Another theory proposes that the coins were lost at sea in a shipwreck. Which theory is correct, we will never know. But we do know that this is the rarest of all Morgan dollars.

Nicknames
The Morgan Dollar is so-called because George T. Morgan designed it. When it first came out, it was an unpopular coin frequently derided as the "Buzzard Dollar" because of the shape of the eagle's head and its scrawny appearance. The coin was also derisively called a "cartwheel" for its large size and weight. The proper numismatic term for the coin type is the "Liberty Head" silver dollar.

Bland-Allison
Although the Morgan Dollar wasn't very popular when it first came out, we know today that it is one of the most popular coin types in the entire U.S. coinage series. This is simply because the United States Mint made almost a billion Morgan silver dollars between 1878 and 1921. In February of 1878, a law called the Bland-Allison Act was passed by Congress requiring the Treasury to buy between two and four million troy ounces of silver per month. The Treasury had to do something with all this silver, so it had the Mint produce the Liberty Head, or Morgan, silver dollars.

The Treasury was forced to buy this incredible amount of silver, all of which was flowing out of the Comstock Lode in Nevada, because of a group of silver mine owners who had formed a lobbying group. Led by Congressman Richard "Silver Dick" Bland, the silver lobby was able to influence the legislation that made the U.S. Treasury its biggest customer.

Growing Interest
Millions of Morgan silver dollars sat in government vaults for many decades, languishing in obscurity. There were still plenty of Morgans to go around since they only circulated in a few small areas.

Sometime around 1960, certain coin dealers became aware that the Treasury Department was swapping Morgan Dollars that were more than 80 years old, on a dollar for dollar basis, in exchange for silver certificates. Many of the dealers were just after the silver bullion at lower-than-market cost, but others realized the potential collector value of these 60 to 80-year-old mint state silver dollars. Tens of millions of Morgans were bought at face value until 1964 when the Treasury shut down the silver certificate exchange program.

The Treasury had about 2.9 million Morgans left in 1964, mostly scarce Carson City specimens, which the GSA put up for public sale via mail-bid auctions starting in 1972. By 1980, as the supplies dwindled, the public finally became interested in collecting the beautiful Morgan Dollar. The real feeding frenzy came when an amazing hoard of more than 400,000 Morgans was found in the basement of Nevada miser LaVere Redfield after his death in 1975.

The Redfield hoard got a lot of publicity, and as the U.S. population had become a lot more familiar with the value of silver coins in the years following the change from silver coinage to clad coinage. The publication of the "Comprehensive Catalog and Encyclopedia of Peace and Morgan Silver Dollars" by Leroy Van Allen and George Mallis, also known as the VAM book, also spurred significant collector interest in Morgan silver dollars.

The Treasury had about 2.9 million Morgans left in 1964, mostly scarce Carson City specimens, which the GSA put up for public sale via mail-bid auctions starting in 1972. By 1980, as the supplies dwindled, the public finally became interested in collecting the beautiful Morgan Dollar. The real feeding frenzy came when an amazing hoard of more than 400,000 Morgans was found in the basement of Nevada miser LaVere Redfield after his death in 1975.

The Redfield hoard got a lot of publicity, and as the U.S. population had become a lot more familiar with the value of silver coins in the years following the change from silver coinage to clad coinage. The publication of the "Comprehensive Catalog and Encyclopedia of Peace and Morgan Silver Dollars" by Leroy Van Allen and George Mallis, also known as the VAM book, also spurred significant collector interest in Morgan silver dollars.

Die Varieties and Rare Coins
The VAM book boosted the values of Morgan dollars into the big time. This book lists all of the known die varieties of the Morgan dollar series and spurred collectors to examine their coins more closely for detail. Coins that were previously valued based on a given year's known mintage of a certain number of specimens now had sub-categories of specimens for that year based on die varieties. These sub-categories were naturally more scarce than just any coin from that year, so collectors who might previously have been satisfied with one specimen from each year and mint now had to have several from each year to complete the "set."

Out of all the different dates and mintmark combinations, the 1895 no mint mark is the rarest of them all. Given that there are no business strike specimens known to exist, a Proof specimen will have to be obtained to complete your collection of Morgan silver dollars. Some of the Proof specimens have been circulated, usually by accident because the Mint didn't always package them so nicely as they do today, but no business strike example of the 1895 Morgan Silver Dollar has ever been found.

Morgan silver dollars have become very popular as an investment vehicle for coin collectors because they cost a reasonable amount of money to buy, have performed very well in the past as an investment, and are beautiful to behold. But like any investment, you must do your homework first if you expect to come out ahead over dealer profits, inflation, rare coin appreciation in general, and knowing which specimens to buy in particular, to ensure that you don't take a loss instead.

Morgan Dollars in General
As a rule, you need to keep in mind that common date Morgan silver dollars that grade below AU-50 are only worth their silver bullion value. Of course, there are a few exceptions, especially for Morgan Dollars minted at Carson City, but most Morgan dollars on the market today never circulated as regular coinage. The main reason for this is that the U.S. Mint produced hundreds of millions of Morgans during the 1800s than what was needed to meet the demands of commerce, so they sat in vaults for over 100 years.

Most Morgan Dollars Never Circulated
The United States Mint made more than half a billion Morgan Dollars between 1878 and 1904. Although nearly 3/4 of these were melted down before being issued, the majority of the Morgans in the marketplace today didn't even leave the U.S. Treasury vaults until 1960. Before you invest in them, you should learn more about the history of the Morgan Dollar, which makes a fascinating story.

Buy the Book Before You Buy the Coin
One thing that less-than-honest dealers might attempt to do is try to lead you to believe that just because the Morgan Dollar is 60 to 80 years old, the fact that it's in Mint State makes it very valuable. The truth is that MS-63 specimens for about half the mint/date combinations sell for $35 to $70 each. Telemarketers are getting $350 to $700 for the same coins! Which is the better investment? Obviously, getting the Red Book and learning the actual market values of Morgans is critical.

Invest in Only the Highest Grade Morgan Dollars

Because most of the Morgan dollar coins exist in higher grades than most other series, you should invest in only the highest grade specimens. If you can afford to buy Proof Morgan silver dollars, you should do so because those have performed very well as investments. The next best investments are the very high grade, MS-65, or better coins. They are pricey compared to MS-60 to MS-63, but their incredible rarity in the age of encapsulated coins make them a good investment.

09/04/2019

Saddle up cowboys there's nothing ney in your pockets just take time to look.

Going through a stack of $100 dollar bills looking for oldies and star notes and whatever else we may spot! Star Note!

08/05/2019

The wheat penny, whose mintage history spans nearly 50 years, is today one of the most commonly collected coins and is very popular with beginning collectors.

1909, the centennial anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, marked the first year of mintage for the wheat penny, also known as the Lincoln cent. Preceded by the Indian Head penny, the Lincoln cent was conceived byPresident Theodore Rooseveltas a way of commemorating the 16th president, one of his personal idols.

Not only was this the first time that Lincoln appeared on currency; it was the first time a real historical figure appeared on a U.S. coin (outside of the commemorative Columbian half dollar, which featured Christopher Columbus).
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08/04/2019

MILITARY APPRECIATION
Saluting Our Service Men and Women

For the courageous men and women who protect our great Nation, the Phoenixx Exchange is proud to recognize their unwavering commitment.

07/20/2019

When we hear of Bitcoin’s use case, we often get to hear many narratives.

But to me, one of the fundamental use cases is to be able to allow value transfer from one person to another or one business to another in a totally transparent and censorship-resistant way.

Satoshi Nakamoto made this possible with his creative genius powers almost a decade ago.

Today, years later, Bitcoin continues to serve that purpose; which simply means it works marvelously.

That’s why The Phoenixx Exchange has started accepting Bitcoins.

07/08/2019

Cowboys got some real good prices in the Phenixx Exchange. https://phoenixxexchange.biz/the-complete-eisenhower-u-s-dollar-coin-collection/

06/07/2019

War in the Pacific National Historical Park 2019 Uncirculated Five Ounce Silver Coin on sale NOW

Description The War in the Pacific National Historical Park 2019 Uncirculated Five Ounce Silver Coin is composed of 99.9 percent silver. The America the Beautiful Five Ounce Silver Uncirculated Coin™ – War in the Pacific National Historical Park (Guam) is the third release of 2019 in the America...