1/24/26: Odds, Ends, and Musings

These are very interesting times we are living in.  I could go on about what's been happening in Minneapolis recently, but I am not.  Anything I could say about it has already been duplicated many times over on social media platforms and comments sections of news sites that choose to have them.  And as it is, this really isn't something I feel like discussing, thus this post will be odds, ends, and random musings.  So here we go.

As of the past couple of months I have developed an appreciation for hot sauces like never before.  This started some six months ago when I started putting some on some of the food that I eat, and bolstered more by that trip to New Mexico last November.  I have since broken open those bottles that I've brought back.  I've since discovered that most of the brands I got over there can be gotten over here, with one exception, and that being the La Anita red sauce that I got in a four ounce bottle.  That was one of my favorites of that bunch, with El Yucatero being almost rocket fuel and is used somewhat sparingly.

Of the major brands, my favorite are the Cholula sauces, with their red sauce and their chili garlic sauce being the favorites there.  Zing, but not rocket fuel.  I still have those chili pods that I brought back from Silver City and yes, I really need to get off my sitting end and make some from scratch.  I have found that adding sauce has helped some with my digestive tract.  The issues I had been having have since passed with using sauces.  I am convinced that there are health benefits to these sauces.  I don't usually add them though when we're out to eat at any Mexican place, since the local favorite dishes don't need any additional ingredients.

Also over the past couple of months, I've been very busy in ham radio.  The thinking is that the solar peak has passed, and the we're in the downward slope of the solar cycle.  I am trying to make the most of these conditions while we have them.  I'm up to 159 countries worked already.  I've also made some good friends via the local ham radio club scene, as that I'm active in two clubs and I've learned a lot.

Over in the precious metals market, I'm amazed at what gold and silver has done, especially silver.  I have kicked myself many times over for not buying more gold back when it was $310 an ounce or so, but I did stock up on silver coins when silver was $4.50 an ounce.  I wanted to get some dates/mints that I didn't have, and the side benefit was that I regarded it as a long term investment.  I could sell off 10% of what I bought and recover the dollars that I put into it, but it goes without saying that the dollars I recover are worth less than what I spent back in the day.  I can make the argument that I should have bought more silver, but I stopped when I felt like I had had enough, aside from the one ounce bullion coins that some countries have issued.  Now that silver's broken the $100 an ounce barrier, I don't see myself buying any.  I'm wondering if we have a bubble here that's getting ready to burst.  My gut tells me there's still some upside potential, but I'm also old enough to remember silver breaking the $50 an ounce barrier back in 1980 and how far it fell from that level before it picked up again.

As for retirement, I'll admit that I've toyed with the idea of coming out of it and returning to one of my former employers as a consultant, but that won't be happening until April at the earliest if I do.  If the work is interesting I could see doing some.  Thing of it is, I have given myself too much to do, some of it fun, some of it necessary, and things aren't where I want them to be.  My problem is that if I get too close to the goalposts then I move them further back.  Maybe deep down inside there's this fear of not having enough to do.  I have changed jobs on the grounds that there wasn't enough to do.  I am busier now than I was a year ago, and yes, I sometimes joke about going back to the workforce so that I can get some rest.

Yes, there's more to do.  More recipes to try out.  More books to read.  Some foreign languages to study.  Some things to sort out.  Some guns to shoot.  Some fish to catch.  Some places to visit.  And some family history to research.

And speaking of which, there is an unverified trace to William the Conqueror, as well as an unverified trace to Charlemagne.  I have read where ole William is the ancestor to quite a percentage of those of British blood, and I've got at least a pint of British blood flowing thru my veins.  I probably ought to go ahead and pop for one of those DNA tests.  

With that I'm going to call this one a wrap, and maybe in the next entry or two I'll do some musing about Star Trek.  

Cheers, beers, and don't forget to pet a dog or a cat!

The Road Back to Amateur Radio, and a Detour

I've spent some more time going thru boxes in the garage, some of which may have been packed back in Santa Cruz, moved to my townhouse here in Tucson, then on to the house here in Tucson that I'm at now, because I'm seeing some items that I haven't seen in several years.  That's both a good thing and a bad thing.  It's a good thing in that I'm now getting these things organized and a bad thing in that I waited so long to do this.

I have located some more accessories for ham radio and there are still some items I am trying to locate.  My itch to get back on the air is a great deal more than it was last week, and I am chomping at the bit to get back in the saddle.  I'm clearing a space where I can operate, I'm doing some reading to learn what has changed since I was last on the air, and I've already got an antenna project in mind.  But before I take that step, I've got to finish getting things organized and there are a few other things to do too.

I was talking about this to Sheila yesterday.  I told her that I've been asking myself, why did I leave this hobby lapse?  And as soon as I asked that question, I knew the answers.

There were some adverse circumstances that emerged in October 1998, in the form of two very dramatic life changing events.  I had to get some things in order and then I had to relocate to Arizona.  Before relocating, I did attend one last meeting at the club I was active in at Santa Cruz (I may have made one more meeting in March 1999 when I had to return to San Jose to wrap up some loose ends) and I always meant to return to the air once I was settled down here.

What happened instead was the following.

I got involved in a work project that meant working long hours and weekends.

I got involved with a local singles group, feeling the need to develop social skills and to learn what the "rule" changes were in dating.

I got involved with country & western dance classes at the Maverick.

I went to a lot of gun shows and I spent a lot of time in target shooting, hiking, day trips, and exploring southern Arizona.

I started dating Pam regularly.

I changed jobs at work, but wasn't seeing Pam, but I still did a lot of dating.

I took up hunting, and went out for deer at least three seasons, and out again for rabbits.....and several scouting runs in between.

There were two more ladies.

Then I met Sheila.

Then I had a year-plus exile in Las Vegas, getting married, and a coming home.  And since then, lots of yardwork, organizing, down time, reading, and discovering that handheld that I forgot that I owned.

Well, I'd like to think I'll be back on the ham bands again, but now there's been one more detour, and this one's a fun one.

I discovered a bagful of wheat cents that I forgot that I owned!  These were purchased at a coin shop in Santa Cruz around 1995 or so.  At the time of purchase, I figured I would sort through them, and maybe sell these online.  Right now I'm going thru them when I'm not catching up on my reading (which is including some ham radio magazines) and I've found some goodies.  I have a hoard of wheat cents in a cigar box upstairs and I'm now adding to them.  Some in the bag have some mint luster in them so I'm placing these in 2 x 2 holders and I've still got more than half the bag to go thru.

Oh, and I've got another hoard that was given to me by Birdman some years back.....a whole coffee can full........though 2/3 of those are Memorial cents, with several from the mid 60s having full red mint luster.

In the meantime, a trip to Phoenix for some personal business is on the docket this week, and hopefully the available time will permit a visit to Ham Radio Outlet.  And on Tuesday, a local club is meeting, and I very much want to crawl out of the cave and get involved again with ham radio.

Searching Thru Boxes of Coins

As of late I have resumed an activity that's part of my coin collecting hobby.  I've purchased rolls of coins at banks before and gone through them when I've gotten home.  The goodies are cherry-picked out and the rest find their way back to circulation.  I've also acquired coins to look thru by paying for my cash purchases in whole dollar increments, though when there's been a lot of roll hunting and purchasing then it's time to win the "War on Change", meaning that I pay in exact change until the amount of change on hand has been drawn down to my liking.  But when you do something different, like what I have resumed, coins are now bought by the box.

Let me explain that some.

A roll of cents contains 50 coins.  I have bought $3 or $5 worth of cent rolls to look thru.  I've also roll-searched nickels and half dollars.  But upon reading the posts in the Coin Community Forum, I learned that there were avid box searchers out there.  I've read about guys buying $2000 worth of half dollars from the bank to look for silver halves.   I know of people searching through boxes of nickels and cents, looking for rarities.  Yes, there are dime box searchers looking for that silver dime or two that has somehow escaped capture.  I don't read very much about box searchers getting quarters, but it does happen.  I'm sure that somewhere out there, there are a few who search through boxes of small dollar coins, looking for NIFC (Not Intended for Circulation) coins, and yes, there are plenty of those to be had with smalll dollars and half dollars as well.

Well as I am writing this I am presently going through a box of cents.  This isn't, in my mind, your ordinary box of cents.  I traded for this with a friend in Massachusetts. I have noticed that in previous visits to the northeast, that your chances of scoring wheat cents is better than here in the southwest, but that's not all.  You get more Canadian cents than you do here, and I save most of them that I find as that they're not being made any more.  But the real reason for going through an East Coast box is that coins minted out of Philadelphia are the dominant mint encountered, and the Philly mint throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s produced some cents with a rare die variety that wasn't produced out west on the Denver cents.  You'll have to google "WAM" and Lincoln cents if you wish to know more about this.

The box I'm working on now is my fourth from the East Coast, and I think I may have finally scored one of these varieties.  I now need to get over to my local favorite coin shop for an evaluation, and if they concur then I might sell the coin.  I can't find anything (yet) on eBay on 1998 WAM cents, and research thus far suggests that the variety for this year is not as rare as it is for other years.

As for other denominations of boxes, I've done them for all except the small dollar coins, and I've kept records on a spreadsheet as to what I have found.

My intention is to report these in future posts.

Another Round of News and Random Observations

I was stuck up here in Las Vegas for the Thanksgiving weekend.  It wasn't my idea, but one half mile into my intended journey to Tucson two days ago, smoke started coming out of the engine compartment of my truck.  I was able to make it safely back to the apartment complex that has been my base of operations here, (I refuse to call it "home"), and the next day I had the truck towed to a trustworthy mechanic.

After 427,000 miles, the motor in my truck is kaput.  I was shown the evidence (I didn't have to ask to see it), and although I don't like this kind of news, things could have been much worse.  I might have been stranded in Wikieup and having to take unpaid leave to get this taken care of.

I discussed this at length with Sheila (she is really a *great* wife!), and we're going to see if we can get a remanufactured motor located and installed.  It's going to run me a few grand, and it's cheaper than a replacement vehicle, which we both know sooner or later we're going to have to get.  We are having the mechanic give it a thorough inspection to make sure the rest of the truck is in good order.  The body is in fine shape though it could use a paint job, and I know that the ball joints aren't going to be going out any time soon.  The present clutch has 30K miles on it and should be good for 50K more.

This will be, however, the last major repair I'm willing to do.  We may re-arrange some finances after next year's tax return........we're thinking of a re-finance, and I may borrow against the house to put in a new stove and fix the hot tub. 

This could have been a lot worse for me than it was.

And........I got my money's worth out of it.

 

* * * * * * *

One thing I am grateful for here in Las Vegas is a friendship with a co-worker who started here six weeks after I did.  We're both in the Test Engineering Department and like me, his wife is in another state, Florida.  He lived in Titusville for 34 years, of all places.  We've gone on a lot of lunchtime walks and we meet Downtown for a beer, which we did yesterday.

That one table that was set up to raise funds for child sex trafficking has been long gone, (they weren't there the following Saturday when I checked), so either they've succeeded in ending this trafficking or they've skipped town. 

 

* * * * * * *

I was Downtown last Saturday, not knowing or intending that I'd be Downtown again the following Saturday, which was yesterday.  While conversing with the cashier cage personnel at that Plaza Hotel-Casino eight days ago, I noticed several trays of Eisenhower dollars ("Ikes") and I thought OK, someone must have cashed in their hoard.

Ron and I went in there yesterday, to check out John Gotti's Jaguar which is on display not too far from the cashier cage.  We drifted over to the slot machines that were nearby, and Ron played a few hands of video poker.  He cashed out and got a collection of shiny new nickels.  Most Vegas slots are TITO, ticket in ticket out, though coin slots can be found if you know where to go (La Bayou Casino has several of them).

Before walking away, I noticed a dollar video poker machine that had a coin slot (as well as a dollar bill reader).  I also noticed a stack of coin buckets to carry your winnings (or more accurately, what you have left).  I got to thinking about those Ike dollars that I saw last week, so I said to Ron, "I need to check out something". 

I fed a dollar bill into the machine, cashed out, and a shiny new Ike dollar fell into the coin tray.  Well, it was certainly shiny, but not new, since it was dated 1972, but I got a kick out of getting that.  I've got 100 or so of these things in my safe back in Tucson, but it's fun to have one here to look at.  Ron also got himself one in the same way.

Five years ago, I would order Ikes at a Wells Fargo branch, and sell most of them to a friend of mine in Tucson who's the manager of a Quik Trip.  He was always asking me for two dollar bills and Ikes, so that he could hand them out to his customers.....most of whom would get a kick out of getting some novelty money back in change.  More were sold to a long time friend of mine who runs a business at the Tanque Verde Swap Meet. 

Unfortunately, Wells Fargo down there hasn't been able to get them for me for some time, and I haven't tried to get any at the banks here.  I have thought about it, because these coins did circulate in Nevada during their day. 

I'm tempted to get $20 or $40 worth of Ikes on my next visit to the Plaza and to spend them. 

Using "unusual" money is fun.

* * * * * * *

A few rare words about my job.

I have now been with this employer for a year.  It's been something of a ride.  I was hired into Systems Engineering, transferred into Test Engineering, working closely with some very brilliant people in a group I'll call "Life Sciences", and the company is willing to let me spend a few weeks coming up to speed on a software package called Solid Works. 

I am an electrical engineer by degree, a test engineer by practice, and I now get to learn Solid Works, which is really in the realm of mechanical engineering.  The first tutorial was something of a bear, and the succeeding tutorials are either better written, or I'm getting the hang of things. 

This is something that my previous employer would not have allowed me to do.  I was forced to do software systems engineering, which really wasn't my forte, though that work was "righteous" (I'm stealing a term from a former supervisor here).  That employer and the one before it didn't really allow me to practice electrical engineering which is what I studied, but I'm not complaining.  I did get to work on satellites and circuit card assemblies, and I've long considered that to be satisfying work.

I struggle sometimes with the why I had to come to Nevada while my wife is in Arizona question.  I struggled with that this weekend. 

The only answer that I can come up with, is that the Good Lord wants me here for reasons that have not been passed along to me, and they may never be passed along to me.

I have to say this.........the work that I'm doing is the greatest that I've ever done in my life.

And.......I'm living in a most unusual state.........legalized gambling.........24/7 availability of liquor......and an opportunity to people watch Downtown.

I frequently tell myself that I need to make the most of this opportunity, and to write about what I see when I venture into the casinos or walk along Fremont Street.

The Man Who Counterfeited Nickels

Francis Leroy Henning is a name that is not found in history books.  His portrait will not be found in any art museum or on any postage stamp.  As far as I've been able to determine he has not walked the Earth's surface for the last several years, and yet in his own strange way, Francis Leroy Henning managed to do something that no one before him had ever done before and no one will ever do since.  Francis Leroy Henning is The Man Who Counterfeited Nickels.

He was not the only man who counterfeited coins, but he was the only man we are aware of who counterfeited your average run-of-the-mill five cent piece commonly found in circulation, who mass produced over 400,000 of them from the basement of his home in Erial N.J., near Philadelphia.  His nickels are still being found in circulation today, and are much sought after by coin collectors.

I first heard of The Man Who Counterfeited Nickels when I was twelve years of age, in a book about the U.S. Secret Service that I had checked out of the school library.  His criminal enterprise was one of the strangest stories of this type of criminal activity that I had ever heard of, and still ranks as such today.  Although a nickel had considerable more purchasing power in 1954 when he counterfeited as it does today, the Secret Service, per my recollection, was having trouble understanding why he was counterfeiting common coinage.

The story in that book has it that Mr. Henning had been mass producing these fake nickels out of an alloy that is similar as to what the real nickels use today.  He was somehow getting large numbers of these into circulation and that his efforts were undetected until a paperboy in Philadelphia got one of these in his change when he was collecting payment for the newspapers on his route.  He was jingling the coins in his pocket, and noticed that one of them wasn't sounding right.  He got his change out to look at it, and immediately spotted the fake nickel:  a nickel dated 1944, but missing the mintmark on the reverse.

I'll have to digress a little bit and explain about mintmarks.

In those days, coins minted in Philadelphia did not have mintmarks on them until 1942, and that was only on the nickel.  The alloy was switched to a wartime alloy and in order to distinguish these nickels from the regular copper/nickel alloy, the mintmarks on the reverse of nickels were enlarged and placed conspicuously above the Monticello.  The Philadelphia mint, for the first time, used the "P" mintmark.  This practice continued for all nickels dated 1943, 1944, and 1945.  In 1946 the regular alloy was resumed and the mintmarks went back to where they were for the pre-war years, and Philadelphia dropped the "P" entirely ("P" marked coins returned in 1979 for Susan B Anthony dollars, and have been used on all coins, save for cents, beginning in 1980). 

Anyway, to get back to the story, the paperboy knew that he had a fake nickel, not only by the way that it sounded, but also because it was missing a mintmark that should have appeared on any nickel dated 1944.  The paperboy showed the nickel to his father, who in turn contacted the Secret Service, and the Secret Service began investigating.  Significant quantities of fake nickels, some with dates other than 1944 were being reported, at which point newspaper reports of large quantities of fake nickels circulating in the Philadelphia area were appearing.  Francis Henning read about himself, realizing that he was attracting much more attention than he wanted, and he decided that it was time to get rid of the evidence.

Up until then, he had been depositing his nickels into banks, using the story that he owned a vending machine route.  His nickels were of decent enough quality to not draw attention, but weren't cost effective.  One story is that he figured out how much this was costing him, and that he learned that they were costing him six cents each to make.  Another story is that he abandoned counterfeiting nickels since he figured he would make five dollar bills instead, and yet another story is that he had been caught faking the fives, and switched to nickels when he got out of prison. 

The one story that is consistent here is that he dumped 200,000 of his nickels into the Schuylkill River, and another 200,000 in Copper Creek.  This suggests that he had to get rid of the evidence before fleeing the area.

Somehow, the Secret Service caught up to him, and when looking at various links this evening, one source said that he had fled to Cleveland before being arrested.  Arrested he was, and Francis Leroy Henning found himself in the slammer, in federal lockup for one of the more strangest counterfeiting schemes in human history.

As previously stated, Henning nickels are still found in circulation.  There were so many of them placed out there that some coin books, when you look up the value of the 1944 nickel, will have an asterisk next to that date, and the footnote will read that "1944 nickels without mintmarks are counterfeit".  Henning used other dates, such as 1939 and 1953, and authenticating fake nickels (as silly as that sounds) is a subject that frequently comes up on the coin collecting discussion boards.

It is a strange irony that these nickels, fake as they are, are still sought after to this day, and auction prices for these have been known to run as high as $80. 

I have to admit, that I wouldn't mind owning a few of these nickels myself.

Yes......a coin collector, wanting to own a few fake nickels. 

Go figure.

The First Day of Spring, 2014

I haven't posted in quite a while as to what's going on here on the personal front.  So what I'm going to do here is catch up on some things.  It's been an exhausting day today as part of an exhausting week, but tomorrow is my off Friday and this evening I don't have anything on the calendar.

* * * * * * *

Yes, I am still seeing Sheila.  We're seeing quite a bit of each other.  Things are going very well in that regard.

I'm hoping that later on this year we can see more of US 66, the Arizona portion between Kingman and Flagstaff, and during the spring.  It's challenging for both of us to get any extended time off.  I switched assignments at work effective January 2nd and we're on a very tight schedule.

* * * * * * *

Two weekends ago Bachman & Turner played in Glendale, at the Jobing.com Arena, the present home of the Phoenix Coyotes.  Sheila and I got to meet up with Fred Turner a few hours before the show.  I knew before last Christmas that we might be seeing them.  Fred told me in an email about there being rumors of an Arizona show, and when it became official I bought some tickets.

We ran into Fred and his wife Donna in that mall area north of the arena.  I had related to Sheila the story about how I had run into Fred on Fremont Street in Las Vegas several hours before their scheduled show, and within ten minutes it was happening all over again! 

I have been wanting Sheila to meet Fred for some time, and it happened!  Sheila was impressed with how down to earth Fred is, and me, even though I've now met him more times than I can remember, I still get giddy with excitement whenever it happens.

As for the show, they were preceded on stage by Trooper and Loverboy; both out of Canada.  It was "Canada Fest" and from audience response to questions by the lead singer of Trooper, 40% of the audience was Canadian.  He also gave a friendly shout out to us Americans.

Bachman & Turner ended up closing the festival.  It was a shorter set than I would have liked, but they were more improvisational than I had ever seen.  Randy Bachman extended most of his solos with extra measures......even his "drumstick" solo was a little longer and not quite to script, for lack of a better expression.

There weren't any songs from their 2010 CD, but they did play "Shakin' All Over"......I don't think they've done that one live since 1986.  They did not indicate that any new material was coming out, but I can tell you what I know here.

A 40th anniversary of their Not Fragile album is being released later this month.  It will be a two CD set and will have some live/rehearsal material.  It is also public knowledge that Fred would very much love to do a new album, but logistically it's difficult since he's in Winnipeg (and Tampa during the winter) while the rest are in B.C..  Randy's also got a lot of side projects going on with a radio show on CBC as well his "Every Song Tells a Story"concert series that he does without Fred. 

As for the new album, there's some chatter that Randy would love to do a new one, concentrating on blues, and Fred could contribute beyond measure to something like that.....not only as a vocalist (he's got the right vocals for it) but also in songwriting.

I can only hope, as a nearly 40 year fan, that they are taking good care of themselves, and that the Good Lord will bless them with many more years.  It's hard to believe that both of them are now 70 and are still rocking.  It's likely that 40 years ago neither one of them thought they'd be playing together in 2014.

 

* * * * * * *

I got my first 2014 coin in my change this morning, a Lincoln cent.  Tucson usually doesn't get the new coins as quickly as other locations.  Mine came in change from a purchase at the Quik Trip on Broadway and Camino Seco.  Just a few days ago they were handing out shiny 2013 cents.

The guy behind the counter told me that they've been getting brand new rolls from their armored car carrier (Brinks?) so it sounds as if the 2013 supply is near its end.

 

* * * * * *

This may be an early bedtime tonight for me, so I'll sign now. 

Weekends are great.  Especially the long ones.

The Invention of Counterfeiting

(This is part III of a series I'm doing on money)

It is safe to say that shortly after the Lydians began making the world's first coins, that some enterprising fraudsters got into counterfeiting.  These were very likely practicing criminals who were adept at fraud and innovative in discovering new ways to commit it, and once money in the form of coins began to circulate it undoubtedly had to occur to them that a means of fleecing the honest folks had appeared and they were determined to take advantage of it.  For their product, they would have had to use some amounts of gold and silver, which were used to plate the base metals making up the bulk weight of the counterfeit coins. 

To get the gold and silver that they needed, they would shave the edges of the real coins.  This had two effects on their criminal enterprise.  One, they were able to get the raw material that they needed, but two, if the person that they were passing off the shaved coin to was not aware that the coin was not a full coin, that coin became accepted as such and thus any merchant who accepted the coin at its stated face value was defrauded. 

Coin clipping became prevalent in the early years of coinage and persisted for centuries.  Not only was it practiced by criminals, but kings themselves practiced it in order to increase their own wealth.  This would have course, introduced inflation, as that once the public became aware of this debasement then prices would rise.  That one gold coin that might have purchased twelve sheep would then purchase eleven as that a clipped coin wasn't really worth what the king said it was worth.  And even if the king wasn't debasing currency, counterfeiting would and could introduce inflation depending on its prevalence.

Coins of course, were not the only money that was counterfeited.  Once paper money began to circulate, it also became a target of counterfeiting.  Counterfeiting banknotes was an easier endeavor than striking a fake coin in the sense that the raw materials for this type of forgery were more readily available.  I think that's one reason why counterfeiting for many centuries was an act punishable by death, and that death penalty was meted out when counterfeiters were caught.  Banknotes printed by Founding Father Benjamin Franklin had the warning "To counterfeit is death".  That kind of penalty for counterfeiting might seem harsh by today's standards, but let's look at it from the viewpoint of medieval authority for a moment.

Say that you're a king.  Your government is issuing money to be used as a means of commerce.  You want strict control over the treasury and you want your people to have confidence in the money that they're using as that confidence in your currency is a form of confidence in your rule.  After all, your portrait is on that coin.  That money that is issued by your state has your guarantee that it is going to be worth a set value, and not only do you want your money being used by your people, you also want that money to have the reputation such that it can be accepted by those foreign merchants you're dealing with.  If your money is more widely accepted than that of your rival kingdom, then you have a wider influence.  You wouldn't want anyone messing around with debasing your money (unless you're the one doing the debasing, which I will cover in a future posting).  You want anyone who does it to be caught, and to be put to death. 

Likewise if you're a king, you might want to employ counterfeiting your enemy's currency if you're at war with that enemy.  During the Revolutionary War, Great Britain was counterfeiting colonial currency in an effort to destabilize the Continental Currency that was issued by the Continental Congress.  The Union government counterfeited Confederate banknotes in order to destabilize the South.  Adolf Hitler's regime was working on a plan to counterfeit the currency of the Allies in 1944.  And in more modern times, North Korea is reported to be counterfeiting American hundred dollar bills ("superdollars") in large quantities.  One pound coins issued by the United Kingdom are also being counterfeited, and from the images of those that I've seen they're really good fakes.

Counterfeiting is going to be with us as long as there's a human race.  It's no longer confined to money, as that there are vast amounts of fake consumer goods being counterfeited.  I can walk across the border into Nogales and locate fake Rolex watches rather easily.  My employer has to worry about being stuck with counterfeit computer chips. 

Counterfeiting is not the only means of debasing currency.  I will discuss this more in a future posting, but I think I'm also going to post a story about a guy in New Jersey who counterfeited nickels.  Stay tuned.



Very Busy These Days

I'm taking a short break from the "money" series here to provide an update as to what I have been up to.  I hope to resume that series with the next entry.  I need to do a little more research on the next two topics that I have in mind for this.   I was originally going to combine them but have since decided that both merit an individual entry.

I have been seeing some overtime at work.  This has been my first full weekend off in about a month or so.  I was involved in supporting an upgrade to an electronics package that we provide to several customers, some of them overseas, and also helping to resolve some issues with another package of electronics that was upgraded a few years back.  On that one I was turned loose to start an investigation on that unit and fortunately, I've come to enjoy that task.

* * * * * * *

I had really wanted to get away for a road trip to southern California but the cards weren't dealing me a good hand as far as that one goes.  I had a campground near San Bernardino picked out but they're full up.  Another one in San Diego County was being considered but weather forecasts for the area I wanted to visit were not amenable.....high wind gusts, not conducive to BBQing.  Now that I'm not going there the weather has improved.

So, no road trip for this summer, but I'm not bitter about it in any way.   I'll get away when the time is right.

* * * * * * *

No deer hunting trip this year either as that Todd will not be available.  Last time I talked to him he is back in the workforce and doesn't have vacation time accrued for such a venture, and as it is, family obligations come ahead of that.  When the monsoon season is passed we might get out for some fishing.  I haven't gone fishing yet here in Arizona and the thought of going out to score some trout sounds very good!

* * * * * * *

I have a renewed interest in buying silver coins.  Some ten years ago I was buying pre-1965 U.S. silver coins back when you could get them for 3.5 times face.  Spot silver prices now have these at twenty times face and then some as that these coins are now commanding a premium.  I'd like to add to my collection of silver dollars, but as it is I've been buying the silver Eagles instead.  They're beautiful coins, and although those are commanding premiums over spot I'm buying these to hold on until retirement. 

* * * * * * *

What can I say about the Supreme Court upholding Obamacare?  I find the reasoning behind Justice Robert's ruling bizarre, for lack of a better term.  Now Congress has the "right" to force you into buying anything at their whim, Constitution be damned. 

The establishment Republicans of course, had their hand in this.  The Republican National Committee went out of their way to ensure that my district elected a Democrat, even though there are more Republicans in my district than there are Democrats.  The state of Arizona is pretty much the same way.  I can't help but wonder how many Congressional districts were flipped by the RNC because the Establishment simply didn't like the candidates that the voters chose in the primaries.

The RNC is hellbent on making sure that the next Senator elected will be a RINO.  (Google that term if you want to know what the abbreviation stands for.)  I'm so disgusted at them that I find it tempting to vote Libertarian this time around.  No, I am not a member of the Libertarian Party, but I agree with some (but not all) of their positions. 

Regardless, I'll be voting my conscience, even if the person I vote for has no chance of winning. 

* * * * * * *

One thing that the RNC didn't count on was the possibility that Mitt Romney might actually win the election.  Oh, they won't have a problem with his going to the White House, but they really wanted Obama to win, and I'll tell you why.

If the Republicans were to win the White House and the Congress, then they'll be expected to do something.  They don't like that.  They're much more comfortable being the minority party, sniping at the Democrats when politically expedient because that's so much more easier than being in a position of having to make tough decisions.

I do believe that the Mittster honestly wants to win, as that he's running a better campaign than the Senator who won the nomination four years ago.  If Mr. Romney does for some reason end up sitting in the big chair, he'll make some changes here and there but I don't believe he'll rein in the exploding deficits and out of control national debt. 

What we'll get is a national debt that will be only a few trillion dollars less than it otherwise would have been.

* * * * * * *

And that my friends, will be it for this evening.

Don't forget to pet a dog or a cat.

The Invention of Money

When The Man With the Money made his appearance, we not only did not know his name, we also did not know where the money came from.  We didn't at that time care where the money was coming from, as that it was being handed out to us free of charge.  I think even in the realm of the conscious we don't care where the money we get comes from, as long as it comes out of someone else's pocket and finds its way into ours.

Have you ever stopped to consider where money comes from?  Well, some of you will tell me that it comes from the mint, and/or the Bureau of Engraving and Printing if you're resident stateside.  Others are aware that it is issued by banks, and others will say that you get it by working.  There are all sorts of answers to the question "Where does money come from?" and I think that you will also get several answers if you ask the question "Just exactly what is money, anyway?".  I think in order to get a grasp on how to answer these two questions, we need to examine just how it was that money came to be invented.

It is commonly accepted that as of this writing, we have had 5000 years of civilization.....maybe 6000.  Well, let's split the difference and say that civilization itself was invented 5500 years ago, OK?  I think it's safe to say that 5500 years ago the human species were speaking languages, organized into families and tribes, and that the prime function of your average human being was day to day survival.  Survival would have come from learning how to harvest food, learning how to hunt for it, and also in the domestication of livestock in order to get food and clothing.  Somewhere along the way some trades emerged, as that people were figuring out how to make bricks and cut wood.  They were figuring out how to dig ore out of the ground and to convert it into metal.  Various occupations were beginning to emerge.

The thing of it is about specializing in an occupation, is that if you're a builder, what you build isn't something that you can eat.  So what you do is you build a house for somebody, and that somebody gives you some food, or maybe some livestock with which to turn into food.  What you have now is trade.  In this simple example, trade is done by the barter system.  There isn't any money involved since no one commodity has yet emerged as a common commodity to trade or to use as a reference in fixing a value onto something or some other commodity.

About 3000 BC or thereabouts, the Egyptians were aware of gold.  It was first used as a form of adornment but it also emerged as a measure of wealth.  It wasn't the only measure of wealth.  In the Book of Genesis, Chapter 13, Old Testament patriarch Abram, as he was then know, is described as being very wealthy in livestock, silver, and gold.  What this is telling us is that wealth, at that time, was viewed in terms of two precious metals and livestock.  Any one of these commodities could be traded for any of the other two commodities, as well as for any other commodity.  Thus, we already have a system of economics in place, and although it was still based on barter, gold and silver start to emerge as a convenient medium of exchange. I guess that you could call this "money" in a somewhat loose sense, but if you're defining money as "coins" of a uniform standard or of a common currency (cigarettes and whiskey have been known to function as money) we're not quite there yet as far as money being invented.

Around 600 BC, that began to change.  The historian Heredotus credits the Lydians of Asia Minor as being the world's first producer of coins.  They were made out of electrum, a gold-silver alloy that flowed to them out of a nearby alluvial plain.  They found that these were convenient units of exchange, and they also found that those they traded with to obtain their goods also liked these units of exchange.  Coins quickly spread to being used by the Greeks, and later on, the Romans, as well as other kingdoms.

With the invention of coins, some other things were invented too.

That will be the subject of my next entry.

It's been a busy month.....

I've got some catching up to do.  In some ways it seems like there really isn't a whole lot to report but in other ways there are.  I have started down that path that my own burning bush called me to do, and although I started with a sense of trepidation and wondering if I was really doing the right thing or was even up to it in the first place, I find myself glad to have started this.  I have a sense of peace and well-being about it that I can't describe.

I won't get any more specific about this.  It's an interesting situation and I'll leave it at that.

* * * * * * *

Things on the work front are also turning out to be interesting.  It took a few weeks to settle in to this new assignment and to feel comfortable at it, but I find that I am enjoying it a great deal more than I thought I would.  I'm not used to a project being run in the way that this one is.  No, that is not a reflection of management, it's instead the nature of the project itself that has it set up this way.

I can honestly say that I've been blessed with a great selection of co-workers.

It's one thing to have a job.

It's another thing to have a job where you enjoy having the right people on the team.

* * * * * * *

I am still slowly going thru that box of nickels that I bought back in early June.  I'm not even at the halfway point.  So far, two of the sought-after 2009D nickels have turned up.  I hope to get lucky and score several more.  

* * * * * * *

Speaking of coins, I have an amusing anecdote to pass along.

I purchased some $80 worth of half dollars at one of the Wells Fargo branches here.  No, I didn't score any silver (I hardly ever do), but no big deal.  I like spending them, and I also sell several of them to a manager at one of the Quik Trips here in Tucson (he also buys $2 bills off of me).

Anyway, I forgot to sell him my half dollars my last time there, but again, no big deal.  They're legal tender, and can be used as such as long as a vending machine isn't involved.  I was on my way to the swap meet to visit a longtime friend of mine who owns a business there, and I decided to stop off at a Chevron nearby to get a cold soda.

I decided to ditch two of these half dollars in the transaction, along with other change.  The young lady behind the counter stared at the half dollars for a second, and then asked me, "are these the fifty cent quarters?"

I said yes, and left it at that.

I figured that would take a lot less time than in correcting her as what the coins really were, and how many of them it would take to make a dollar.

* * * * * * *

At the swap meet, my friend Mercury showed me a counterfeit ten dollar bill that had been passed in his store the night before.  A lady had come in before closing, the lights were turned off, and she used this in her purchase.  It wasn't after she was long gone that Mercury and his wife Michelle had learned that they had been stuck with a counterfeit.

The bill almost fooled me; it was that well done.  It was colorized like the real latest issue ten dollar bills are.  However, there was nothing in the watermark area, and the microprinting was a bit fuzzy.  Also, the back was  a bit fuzzy if you looked close up at it.

It's probably no surprise to the Secret Service that the counterfeiters are keeping up with technology.  I have seen fake bills before, and this one was one of the best.

* * * * * * *

That's all I have for this evening.  Have a safe Labor Day weekend!

Don't forget to pet a dog or a cat!

Some More Odds and Ends

From the Department of Corrections:  in a previous posting, I made the suggestion that Arizona does not lock up people who are mentally unstable.  I was in error on that one.  I happened to catch the O'Reilly Factor on Fox News about a sesquiweek ago, and learned that Arizona does have an involuntary psychiatric confinement statute on the books.

My conclusion was based on an anecdote from two years ago, when I was dating Kathleen.  Her then son-in-law was on the receiving end of a marital breakup (for good reason I might add) when he called up Kathleen's daughter.  He begged to be taken back, and started threatening suicide.  He told Kathleen's daughter that he was going to slash his wrists.  Kathleen's daughter then hung up and called 911.

The Pinal County Sheriff's deputies quickly arrived, but son-in-law Mike told the deputies that he didn't really mean it, that he was saying that to try to get taken back.  He was not hauled off by them for a 72 hour hold like he might have been in some other jurisdictions.

As for Jared Loughner, he was told that he needed a mental evaluation, and it's obvious that there were plenty of warning signs and contact with law enforcement.  For some reason that threshold, wherever that was, was not crossed.

Although I agree that the legal definition of the threshold of when you're hauled off to the psych facilities should be revisited, I'm not sure that simply being told "you need help" is sufficient justification for that kind of action.

I guess what it all comes down to is, just where do you draw the line?  There's no obvious demarcation here, as that there's this gray zone around where that line is.  Try to define the exact time of when "daylight" ends and "nighttime" begins.  Sunset/sunrise?  That's a start, but does the sun have to be completely below the horizon, or does it have to be fifty per cent below the horizon?  What if it's just touching the horizon?

Where do you draw that line?

* * * * * * *

Todd came down Friday night, and we were out hunting rabbits in Pinal County yesterday.  We were off state highway 79, north of Oracle Junction by a few miles at first, and then gave the area near the county line a try too.  We didn't see any rabbits but we saw evidence of them being there, as well as signs of javelina and deer.  Our late start didn't help matters any.

It wasn't a wasted trip.  I brought along a Beretta Bobcat .22 pistol that I acquired some time ago, and undertook some target practice.  Todd got in some target practice as well with his rifle.

* * * * * * *

Workwise, I'm in a temporary job as a "property manager" on a project that's winding down.  My job itself is already winding down, as that I'll be doing that part time very soon.

I anticipate being assigned to helping to develop contract proposals, until an offer emerges from that group that wants to develop some new technology.  If that one comes thru, I'll be glomming onto that one something fierce.  An opportunity like that doesn't come around every day.

* * * * * * *

A few weeks ago I got the wild hare to purchase a box of pennies from the bank.  

That's right, a box.

A box of pennies containing 2500 of them, all of them neatly machine-wrapped in paper rolls.  Fifty of them too.

That idea had been festering in my mind for some time.  As you know, I'm a coin collector, and I like searching thru my change to see what kind of neat little goodies are in my pocket.  Some days I get treated to a "wheat" cent, and on a rare day I might score a silver quarter (that's happened twice in the last few years).

I'm not all the way thru the box yet, but a few wheats have shown up.  The oldest so far are two 1944 pennies; one minted in Philadelphia and the other in Denver.  There are a total of eight wheat cents out of the 2000 that have been searched so far, and only one Canadian cent, dated 1964, has shown up.

I've searched rolls before, especially on those occasions when I've been back east.  For some reason the eastern rolls are more generous in giving up wheaties.  I scored a 1929 cent when I was there last, and when a friend of mine from Pennsylvania was out here last year he brought me some rolls, and there was another 1929 as well as a couple from the 30s.

For those that aren't wheats, well already some of them have been rolled up and taken back to the bank.  Well, a different branch of the same bank.  It's bad form to get a box, go thru them, and then take them back to the bank where you bought them from, so what you do is what I did:  talk to the branch where you want to take some coins back to see if they'll take them.

Mine does if the coins are rolled, and they were even kind enough to give me empty paper roll wrappers to put them in.

I'm like a kid in a candy shop as I'm going thru these pennies.  I think I might attempt a box of nickels next.

Meanwhile, I'm still working on those half dollars that I bought some four months ago.  I bought $80 worth of them in a quest for silver halves.  No silver turned up, so I've been spending half dollars in my everyday transactions, and I'm about halfway done.

Some cashiers I think are saving them for their grandkids while others are sending them back to the bank in the hopes that they'll be melted down into cannonballs or something.

I've also been asking for two dollar bills at the bank, and using them in my purchasing as well.  Some cashiers are delighted to get them while others are probably wishing I'd go somewhere else with them.

* * * * * * *

That's going to do it for right now.

Don't forget to pet a dog or a cat.

The Half Dollar

One of the more unknown coins in U.S. coinage is the half dollar. This is a coin that a half century or so ago saw regular circulation alongside of dimes and quarters. In those days they were made out of silver, a 90% silver alloy to be exact. They had various designs, with the most beautiful of all time being that of the Walking Liberty, which was minted from 1916 thru 1947.

In 1948, completing the move towards placing historical figures on our coins, Benjamin Franklin's portrait started appearing on the front with the Liberty Bell appearing on back. These continued to circulate for several years, until coming to an abrupt end in the 1963-64 timeframe.

A confluence of events led to the demise of the half dollar as a circulating coin. One, the assassination of President Kennedy took place, and a decision was made to have his portrait appear on this coin beginning with the 1964 design.

Two, there were rumors that coins would no longer be made out of silver. At that time the price of silver had this semi-official fix of $1.29 per troy ounce. Some say that the silver supply started shrinking, thus placing an upward pressure on the price of silver. With escalation of military activity in southeast Asia and a social policy to win the war on poverty, more dollars needed to be printed/issued. The inflation that is guaranteed to follow with these kinds of policies would bring about a situation where the metal in the coin would be worth more than the face value of the coin itself.

Three, the Kennedy half dollars were much sought after by the public. Everyone it seemed, wanted a keepsake of the late President. From my reading, it seems as if people were lining up at the banks to buy these things and to start hoarding them.

From my conversations with a co-worker who worked as a cashier in that time frame, he told me that the half dollars disappeared overnight. You couldn't get the Franklin halves either, and coin shortages for dimes and quarters were being reported. Mintage figures for dimes and quarters show a significant ramping up in 1963, and when 1965 started the date was frozen and coins dated 1964 continued to be struck.

Congress then passed a Coinage Act removing silver from the dimes and quarters beginning with the 1965 date. "Clad" coinage then began, but silver coins were struck alongside the clad coins. I've read where 1964 dimes were minted until early 1966, which explains the high mintage figures for 1964. With the passage of this coinage act, the half dollars were minted with a "silver clad" alloy, their silver content being reduced to 40%. In 1970 Congress passed another act which removed silver from half dollars completely, and authorized the minting of the Eisenhower Dollar. At that time I was in the seventh grade, and on those occasions where I got a half dollar in my change I kept it. I was then aware that clad halves were coming out, so I didn't bother saving any of those.

Here we are a few decades later. The half dollar is still a circulating coin, in the sense that the Federal Reserve will order some for their inventories to meet the demand for them. The thing of it is, is that the last year the half was struck for circulation was 2001. I have read where the Fed believes that they won't need to order any more half dollars for use until 2050, as that existing inventories are sufficient to meet what little demand that there is for this coin.

So why am I writing about half dollars this evening?

Well, I've been a coin collector since I was a kid. I occasionally will ask for rolls of half dollars at the bank, in the hopes that I will score some silver halves or some silver clad halves. I have gotten some silver clads before but I can't remember how long it has been since I came across a 1964 half in a roll. Probably never; I did get a few when I was a paperboy, but never have I gotten a 1964 half in my change.

As for the last time I got a half dollar in my change, I'm going to say it was in 2002 and it was from the coin shop on Speedway in midtown Tucson. Coin shops will hand out half dollars in change in an effort to spur further interest in coin collecting. Aside from the coin shop, the time before that was at a movie theater in 1993. My then wife and I had gone out to see a movie at a theater in Capitola and the fifty cents change that came my way was in the form of a half dollar.

These days if you want to get some half dollars, you have to ask for them at the bank. As I've stated, I do this occasionally, and this morning there was one of these occasions. I bought two rolls of halves, face value $20 for the two rolls. In addition, I picked up another $11 worth that were loose from another teller.

I didn't score any silver this time, or any silver clads. But I did score some keepers. There were six of them: a 2002P, two 2002D, two 2007P and one 2007D. There have been half dollars minted every year since 2001, but they haven't been minted for circulation. What the Mint does with these is that they include them in mint sets, and they also sell these in bags and rolls to collectors who are willing to pay the premium to get them. Mintage of the 2007 halves were 2.4 million for both Philadelphia and Denver; thus I scored some low mintage halves that are worth more than face to a collector such as myself.

I will be keeping one each of the 2002P/D and 2007P/D halves. This leaves me with a surplus of two halves. I haven't done the eBay thing in a long time, but I do participate in a forum for coin collectors, and I plan on putting these up for auction.

As for the remaining halves that aren't keepers, well I've got a bunch of them. Some $28 worth.

I plan on ditching these at convenience stores and in the company cafeteria. The cashier working the express lane at Safeway is also going to see some of these. My own efforts won't lead to an island of circulation of half dollars on the east side of Tucson, but I'm sure that some of the cashiers will get a kick out of some coins that they can buy out of the till to give to their kids.........or to keep for themselves.