Run For The Hills!!!

Resist the impulse to join in the violence. Remain calm, steady and peaceful.

Run for the hills? Not quite yet. We have yet to hear from the majority, which up until now has been notably silent, docile and willing to take it on the chin, but apparently, that’s about to change, with Resistance Demonstrations all over the United Snakes, and all over the planet, decrying the madness of Trump.

In my world, “Trump” is a scary and funny rubber kids’ Halloween mask, and part of the common phrase, “Trump You!”. Frankly, I don’t care, do you???

Like I’ve said billions of times before, that’s just local politics, in which off-worlders never get involved, both by ethical law and by personal experience.

So while the Athenians and the Spartans are battling it out, grunting and sweating in the baking sun and sand of the senate floor, let’s make a buck.

Sounds cynical? No, what sounds, and is, cynical is the bull-puckey coming from the Snake Party writhing around on the floor of the Senate, and the robotic applause for Trump that comes from the stink-hole of the House of Reprehensibles.

I used to think of Congress as “not a bad sort, not actually criminal”, but now I’m not so sure. The thing is, they’re now yanking us poor and minority folks around for their amusement and personal gain, when they steal our social security funds and our retirement funds and our medical benefits all for the sake of their personal enrichment, and then trample on all our American values and freedoms and then deny non-white Christians their vote, and destroy the democracy from the top down, heck-darn, that’s when I say “enough is enough”, whatever that means.

I can’t and won’t be driven into violent action, yet I’m obligated to protect my family and home, am I not?

But I have no voice, no power, no bully-pulpit and no money with which to fight, and I’m unable and unwilling to use a weapon of any kind, with the singular exception of comedy — so what can I really do to protect myself and my family from Trump and his Minions?

What can I do to stop the constant chatter of “Trump, Trump, Trump”??? Continue reading

How to CA$H IN on the FREE Government Coin Lottery!!!

E.J. Gold & Robert Anton Wilson at the Alta Street “Wheel of Fortune”.

Let’s face it — under ordinary circumstances, there’s no way a shlump like you is going to have a million bucks in the bank unless you happen to somehow WIN it at a lottery, but the sad fact is that you can’t afford to play the lottery.

Take heart — there’s a FREE U.S. Government Coin Lottery, and YOU can cash in on it, bigtime!

Imagine a lottery in which, if your ticket didn’t win, you could return it for another chance, and do this ENDLESSLY until you DO hit The Big One!

You don’t have to imagine an endless supply of lottery tickets — just go to the bank, give the teller $25 and take away a “bank box” full of machine-wrapped “Loomis” or “Brinks” rolls of mixed pennies, new & old.

Keep in mind that you never actually “pay” for these pennies — if you bring them all back to the bank, wrapped & rolled neatly and accurately, you’ll get back every cent, the full $25 bucks!

If you happen to find some “lucky” coins worth cash money in there, you’ll take them out and have to add a few pennies into the box to make it come up to the full $25 again, or do what I do with pennies — but not with quarters.

I merely put them into the change machine at our local supermarket and they credit my account with the total number the machine counted out. Easy as pie. Don’t even need to talk to anyone to get that to happen.

So keep in mind WHY you are searching pennies or quarters. It’s to find that million-dollar coin. Everything else is just everyday grind and occasional gravy, but it pays off, too, and I’ll explain how: Continue reading

We Are Shipping!

This quite findable ERROR “Low Leaf” Wisconsin Quarter is valued at $8,000.

Are we shipping? Yes, we are. It’s keeping us all jumping, especially Jewel, who is making her third run to the post office, Fedex & UPS today, although that many trips IS unusual, but that might be changing, in which case, we’ll be yelping for help in the shipping department.

Last night, I managed to finish 13 pairs of sterling silver quarter-sized “Proud Immigrant” earrings, along with a corresponding number — 13 — of sterling silver “Proud Immigrant” Pendants to make the sets complete.

The pendants come ready to hang on a chain. They are made right here in California, and are therefore just a bit more money than something thrown together in China — they retail at $39.95.

You get the entire three-piece set for only $55 wholesale — the coins are a gift.

What’s more, I’ll send you a black velvet “Stormy Monday” Display Bust with one pendant on a solid sterling silver chain, plus a pair of coin earrings, all in solid .925 sterling silver except of course the coins, all for the low, low price of $85.

How do I do it?

Continue reading

Sneak Peek

Not too bad for something that turned up in a pile of junk, eh?

Here’s a sneak peek at just one of the many hundreds of really cool and very richly rewarding coins that popped up in last night’s “Barf Bag” search — the coins were discards from other searches, deemed so miserable that they ended up in a bin and eventually in a bag, which I opened and am currently in the process of searching.

I’ve found a few 1924-d, some 1909 VDB and two 1909-s that have seen better days, but they’re readable enough to sell, although in this case, I’m not offering this grouping for sale — it’s intended as an example of what someone can accomplish in a single night, armed only with coin-knowledge and a taste for punishment.

Finding the goodies among the trash is sort of like dumpster-diving, and in a way, it bears some resemblance to it.

One thing that happens in a search like this, you never know what’s going to turn up.

It doesn’t matter whether the source of your search coins is a personal collection, institutional collection, just a bunch of coins that piled up in a jar somehow, or you bought them as a grouping of folders, or as a bag or box or rolls.

The end effect is the same — there’s some searching to be done. Continue reading

Teaching Someone How To See

Gallery window from the interior of the Mall.

There’s a world of treasure, real treasure, the kind you can take to the bank, and yet, it’s as-if invisible to most people, who look right past the treasures of life, in a bleak vision of the present.

It’s not that hard to transform the vision from “bleak” to “clear”, but it takes a bit of bait and the dangling of a hook to catch the fish, as it were.

What’s needed is a goal, and a goal doesn’t come about without a payoff.

The payoff?

Simple — Money.

Of course, that’s only the apparent payoff. The real payoff is an immediate improvement in vision, clarity and presence-of-attention, which is the kind of powerful presence that can be invoked through the use of special attentions, such as the ones employed in a coin search. Continue reading

Coin Search Step-By-Step

Here’s a rundown of what specific actions I take with a new bag or box or roll of wheaties to be searched. It’s basic, and of course doesn’t contain “The Moves”, which are derived from Magic in the Mirror — MiM — in order to handle the coins efficiently and effectively. I’ll assume that the coins are already separated out into decades. If not, they’ll have to be separated out before beginning a search, because you can only compare coins with other coins of the same decade, when grading, or you’ll get entirely baffled by the sudden changes in quality, so the general rule is ALWAYS SEARCH BY DECADE.

So, you’ve got a bag of TEENS, TWENTIES, THIRTIES, FORTIES or FIFTIES coins. Let’s begin a search on them. Put the bag nearby on the floor or on a very strong table.

  • FIRST ACTION — Open the bag.
  • SECOND ACTION — Reach into the bag and scoop out a handful of coins.
  • THIRD ACTION — Place the handful of coins on your right on the velvet search pad.
  • FOURTH ACTION — Put on your Opti-Visors. I use #7, fairly strong ones, these days.
  • FIFTH ACTION — Arrange the pile of coins on your right into piles of about 10 coins each.
  • SIXTH ACTION — Take the first pile of ten coins and FAN or SPREAD them out in front of you where the light hits them perfectly, so you can see every detail.
  • SEVENTH ACTION — FLIP or TURN OVER the coins so they all face downward, wheats up.
  • EIGHTH ACTION — FLIP your Opti-Visor down so you can see the coin’s surface through them clearly and easily, and CHECK THE COINS for any sign of “quality”, meaning that there are some lines still in the wheat ears. You want to take out anything that isn’t TOTALLY FLAT — absolutely every sign of value or quality.
  • NINTH ACTION — Place any GRADABLE coin FACE DOWN, WHEATS UP, on the velvlet pad, to your LEFT, in a separate pile.
  • TENTH ACTION — FLIP the remaining coins in the spread FACE UP, to reveal the date and mint mark, if there is a mint-mark. Remember that coins produced at the Philadelphia Mint never carry a “p” mint mark, although in other denominations there are exceptions to this rule, notably the wartime nickel.
  • ELEVENTH ACTION — PLACE the coins in the correct piles, starting with the lowest date on the left. All mint-mark coins should be stacked FACE UP in the far center, slightly to the right, building stacks of about 15 coins.
  • TWELFTH ACTION — Scoop up the stacks of coins into tubes and label each tube as you fill and cap it.

Now all that remains is to store the tubes in boxes until they are needed. I’ll now do a step-by-step rundown on how to handle the coins from search to sale: Continue reading

Gorby’s Best Grading Skill-Builder

If you ask me, what’s my best grading skill-builder, I’d have no hesitation in saying that it’s my 1940-1958 “s” mint-mark pennies, that range all the way from G4 to AU-57 and sometimes MS-60 BN, which is common enough to make mention of it.

The BEST GRADING SKILL BUILDER comes in packs of 100 coins at $25 per package, just a hair below my actual cost of acquisition of those coins.

Sure, I lose in the short run, but I assure you that I DO make it up in volume, and it’s not about net profit, it’s all about cash-flow, as any accountant will tell you.

If you’re planning on using these coins to help others gain these skills, you don’t sort or pre-sort these coins, except to build your own skills — they should be poured out onto the table for the trainee just as they came to you in the plastic ziplock baggie. Continue reading