Reno, NV

Friday, August 08, 2008

The prestigious Numismatic Literary Guild bestowed its coveted BEST WEB SITE ARTICLE of the year (2008) award on Reno coin dealer Rusty Goe for his article, "Is It Worthy? Who Really Knows the Value of a Rare Coin?" The article, which traces the evolving price increases over the past hundred years of numismatic rarities like the far-famed 1913 Liberty nickel, is at Is it Worthy Article

In reference to the 1913 Liberty nickel, Goe recounts in his article that "Along the way, two 1913 V nickels were forever removed from the market; when the Norweb family donated their prized specimen to the Smithsonian Institution in 1978, and Aubrey and Adeline Bebee presented their piece, purchased for $46,000 in 1967, to the American Numismatic Association in 1989. The whereabouts of a third example, known as the Walton specimen, remained unknown for decades. Then, in 2003, in response to a massive media blitz focused on 1913 V nickels, the heirs brought this specimen out of hiding, triggering a fireworks explosion of publicity when it was displayed, with the other four specimens, at an ANA convention in Baltimore. As far as anyone knew, this was the first time the five famous nickels had been together in one place since 1942"

"Although hounded by auction companies, the heirs of this heretofore-missing specimen announced that it was not for sale. Even if it was, who could tell the heirs unequivocally what their coin was worth?" Goe states that "throughout the long history of evaluating rare coins this has always been a challenge"

Goe said that the NLG's award for best web site article of the year caught him by surprise. "Thousands of articles related to coin collecting appear on the Internet each year," reflected Goe, "to have mine selected as the best of them all is indeed an honor and totally unexpected"

The NLG presented Goe with two other awards at its annual BASH ceremony, held this year in Baltimore, MD. His newly released biography on James Crawford, a superintendent at the Carson City Mint in Nevada in the 1870s and '80s, received NLG's Extraordinary Merit award, and Curry's Chronicle, the journal he edits for the Carson City Coin Collectors of America, received the BEST ISSUE, SMALL PUBLICATIONS award in the NUMISMATIC CLUB MAGAZINES category.

Rusty Goe

Southgate Coins

Reno, NV

(775) 322-4455