Category: Main

Five Surprising Factors That Affect Precious Metal Prices

This is part of a series of blog posts I wrote for a coin collecting site circa ~2015 that seems to have disappeared off the Internet. Note any prices mentioned in this series are from 2015.

Sure, we all know that the political and economic climate affects the prices of silver, gold, and platinum. But we too often forget that precious metals are also a commodity in the first place. There’s a lot of markets outside of coin collecting that impacts the prices of coins. Sometimes two or more patterns even overlap to produce a chaotic result.

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Current Silver Mint Products Wrap-Up

This is part of a series of blog posts I wrote for a coin collecting site circa ~2015 that seems to have disappeared off the Internet. Note any prices mentioned in this series are from 2015.

Silver as an investment is starting to get some buzz again. The prices on many products at the US Mint lately have started to look very attractive. Sites like MoneyMorning.com are hinting that the market for precious metals is looking good now.

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5 Impossible to Find Copper Cents Coveted By Collectors

This is part of a series of blog posts I wrote for a coin collecting site circa ~2015 that seems to have disappeared off the Internet.

The humble penny seems like it shouldn’t be the subject of a quest. There’s dishes of them at every cash register, for heaven’s sake. And yet among the swimming multitudes of the little brown disks, there are those rare gems. The fact that these specimens are amongst the most mundane coin currently minted just makes the hunt all the more tantalizing.

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What The Confederate Flag Controversy Means To Coin Collectors

This is part of a series of blog posts I wrote for a coin collecting site circa ~2015 that seems to have disappeared off the Internet.

DISCLAIMER: The intention of this post will be to discuss the state of certain collectible coins which happen to bear controversial symbols. This is to be done while disregarding any political ideas for or against them. Hobbies such as coin collecting frequently run into this situation. Readers are advised to keep the debate on-topic in their comments.

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That Time My Pan Review Got Quoted On A Movie Poster

It’s scary how fame works. You can strive for it all your life and die forgotten. Or you can live in the Information Age, when you get suddenly famous at a moment when your guard was at its lowest. Here’s to all the people out there who are frantically grappling with a problem and looking to others for help, but all they see are people pointing phones at them.

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A Biography of Warren Buffett

Originally published 2007, part of a series I did for a biography website. Can’t even remember who now, but it’s long gone.

Warren Buffett is consistently ranked by Forbes magazine in the top-ten richest people on Earth, with a net worth last clocked at $84 billion USD. So, how did he manage that?

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A Biography of Casino Tycoon Sheldon Adelson

Originally published 2007, part of a series I did for a biography website. Can’t even remember who now, but it’s long gone.

Sheldon Adelson is currently the fifteenth-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $33 billion USD. This comes as no surprise when you consider that he is in the United States, and his business is casinos. He is the CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corporation and its subsidiaries. Casinos and resorts currently owned by Sand Corp. include the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino, the Palazzo Resort Hotel Casino, and the Sands Expo and Convention Center, all three in Las Vegas, USA, the Sands Macao and the The Venetian Macao Resort Hotel, both in Macau, China, and the Sands BethWorks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

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A Biography of Saudi Royal Tycoon Prince Al-Waleed

Originally published 2007, part of a series I did for a biography website. Can’t even remember who now, but it’s long gone.

His full name is “Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud”, and one could imagine that with a name like that, you’d have to be rich. He is among the richest people in the world with a current net worth of $15 billion USD, and is the second richest man in royalty next to the Sultan of Brunei. Time magazine has called him “the Arabian Warren Buffett.”

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A Biography of Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska

Originally published 2007, part of a series I did for a biography website. Can’t even remember who now, but it’s long gone.

Oleg Deripaska was once the tenth richest billionaire in the world, with a personal net worth around $28 billion USD. He has since been knocked back to $3.3 billion in the wake of the 2007-08 Great Recession. He has also been the richest person in all of Russia and the Chairman of the Board – not the CEO – of United Company RusAl (Russian Aluminum), the world’s largest aluminum company.

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A Biography of India’s Business Magnates Mukesh and Anil Ambani

Originally published 2007, part of a series I did for a biography website. Can’t even remember who now, but it’s long gone.

Mukesh Ambani is the world’s eighteenth richest person, with an estimated net worth of $44 billion USD.
His father, Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani, was himself one of India’s greatest business tycoons and the founder of Reliance Industries, India’s largest private sector conglomerate. Born in relative poverty, Dhirajlal worked his way up and built the business empire, which his sons Mukesh and Anil have since taken over to spur on to even greater success.

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