Dos Pesos

When we got married in 1973, a friend gave us two dos pesos gold coins from Mexico. The coins were 1/2 inch in diameter compared to the US cent's 3/4 inch diameter. So, they are a very small coin. They had been sitting around doing nothing ever since. We are cleaning out and getting lean, so Marcia suggested we see what they were worth.  We took them to a coin dealer in Greenville, and he gave us $120 for the pair. Gold is $1767 an ounce right now. In 1973 it was $100 an ounce. In 1973 these coins were worth about $3 each. If we could only set the Way-Back Machine and go back and buy up a bunch of these little coins.

OOPS! Bad strike!

This is a quarter we ran across a while back. It is copper on the heads side and cupronickel on the tails side. Cupronickel is 75% copper, 25% nickel, and a trace amount of manganese. That is the silvery part of our clad coins: dimes, quarters, and half dollars. Anyhow, this coin should not have made it into circulation.  It was a mis-strike. I had it checked out by a coin dealer, and he said that it was probably worth about 25 cents. Evidently, mistakes in the government aren't all that rare.

Gold Buffalo Coin Hoax

I saw this ad today on TV and did my own math. Gold was $1502.33 an ounce today. The 14 mg of gold in this coin is worth $0.74 today. Would you pay $9.95 plus shipping and handling for a $0.74 coin? What a rip off!