COIN COLLECTING Values: The Importance of Research

A great collection of old Indian coins! Jai hind! - Photo: Wikimedia

Is coin collecting an activity that you would like to start enjoying?  Or, have you just recently started collecting coins?  If you have, do you have hopes of creating a profitable coin collection that can later, one day be sold for profits or passed down to your future family generations?  If you do, you should take the time to examine coin collecting in general.  With that being said, be sure to place a large focus on coin collecting values, as coin values should have a significant impact on the worth of your coin collection.

Although it is nice to hear that coin collecting values and researching those values is important to coin collecting, especially for profits, many are curious as to why that is.  Of course, coin collections are invaluable until they are sold. With that in mind, not all coin collections sell and for amounts that collectors had hoped for.  For example, a full collection of Statehood Quarters is likely to sell for much less than a collection of rare coins from the early 1900s.  Unfortunately, many collectors do not realize this without first doing the proper research concerning coins, their values, as well as their conditions.

To research coins and their values, it is first important to start with the basics.  Coin collecting basics are extremely important to beginners and their success.  The most important coin collecting basics, that concern value, includes never overpaying for a coin, even a rare coin, and never paying full value for a coin that is damaged or distorted.  Following these basic tips can do wonders for a coin collection and its value.

Additional research that you may want to do includes examining the exact values and conditions of coins.  This is important right before you choose to make coin purchases, especially from someone other than a professional coin dealer.  Many dealers are considered experts in the filed and will provide you with detailed information, including an exact value or a coin rating from the Sheldon System.  In fact, this system and other popular coin rating systems are ones that you may want to examine.

One of the best ways to research coin values or the Sheldon System is by using the internet.  Online, you will find a number of great coin collecting resources at your fingertips.  A standard internet search may lead you to rare coin dealers or other professional coin dealers, who may be operating with or without a specialty.  Although many recommend buying coins of value in person, purchases can still be made online.  If you take this approach, however, be sure to request pictures and detailed descriptions.

Printed resources are another one of the many ways that you can go about researching and examining coins and their values.  A number of printed resources can be ordered online or found in local libraries or bookstores.  When examining a book that highlights coin collecting values, it is important to take date into consideration.  Look for updated resources, as they are likely to provide you with the most valuable and accurate information.

As a reminder, research is important to coin collectors who are collecting for the sole purpose of profits.  With that in mind, researching coin values can also benefit you if you plan to pass down your coin collection to family members.  Carefully keeping track of coin values can lead to profits for them in the future.

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NEW YORK City of Diversity

New AYork - Photo: Pixabay

If you've never been to New York City, you may be surprised to know that there is so much more to this great city than skyscrapers, lots of people, and really fantastic parades. While it is, in fact, the wonderful people of this city that make it the exciting place to visit that it has become, there is so much more to this city than what you'll see on the television shows and in the news. 

New York City is a city full of exciting people from all kinds of backgrounds with all kinds of hopes and dreams of the future and experiences of the past. You will find artwork here like few other places in the world, you will see more nature here than in most big cities around the world, and you will enjoy seeing more cultures and nationalities represented in the space of an hour in this city than most people who live elsewhere experience in their entire lives. New York City is the true melting pot of the world and the rest of America is simply trying to catch up.

You will find music and art that is representative of the many cultures that call this grand city home. You will experience the sights, sounds, and scents of worlds that are exotic and foreign simply by walking down neighbourhood streets where people are cooking dinner at night. You will hear more languages in one day than you probably ever dreamed imagine and while you may stand around with sensory overload thinking anyone would be crazy to live like this, most of them are looking at you thinking you'd be crazy to live anywhere else. 

This is perhaps the greatest thing about visiting New York City. You get to experience for a moment the excitement that comes from living in this fascinating city. You get to understand what it is like for those living there. And you get to understand first hand what it is like to be alone in a city of millions and yet by being there, being one of them, belonging somehow to this giant community of strangers from different cultures, different pasts, and different futures. 

Most people visit New York with certain preconceived ideas and certain goals for their visits. Hopefully, the preconceived ideas will all be challenged and the plans that you have made are flexible. There is so much to do and see that you could go one block each way from your hotel and probably notice something new each and every single time you went by. My point in this is that you need to leave time to experience the wonderful things you won't discover in the guidebooks. There is only so much of this city that any one person could possibly find to write about. I can imagine that there are New Yorkers that could eat in a different restaurant each and every day without eating in the same one twice in five or ten years. I find it hard to believe that a guidebook is going to be able to hold everything you might find interesting in this city and if you spend your entire visit with your head in the book you might miss something truly worthwhile. 

That being said, it is a good idea to make plans according to your budget and the things you wish to see, I'm just urging you to leave room on that schedule for a change. The Statue of Liberty is great, but it takes a while to get there and back. Could it be that you take some photos, buy some postcards and do two or three other activities that you could have enjoyed in the space of time it takes to get there and back? Plans are made to change whenever possible-especially while on vacation. I seriously recommend that you reserve two hours minimum each day to do something that you discovered rather than something you planned. 

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CHINESE IMMIGRANTS and the Iron Road

Chinese Gold Digger- Photo: Wikimedia

On a bright May day in 1869, railroad workers, businessmen, and government officials gathered in Utah for a historic event. Soon the ceremonial driving of a solid gold railroad spike would complete a six-year effort at building a railroad across America. Of course, the pricy $350 spike was quickly replaced for safekeeping. Still, it represented the bridging of 3,500 miles of railroad, and thus also symbolized an enormous amount of human labor. Much of this labor was Chinese.

Americans had contemplated constructing a transcontinental railroad since the 1830s. Without an “iron road”, overland travel from the eastern states to the California Territory entailed four to six months of hardship. A railroad would facilitate westward expansion and help realize America’s “manifest destiny”. 

In 1862, President Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act. This granted a charter to two railroad companies, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific, for the building of a railway and telegraph line. The companies would work from opposite directions: the Union Pacific would start construction in Omaha, and the Central Pacific would start in Sacramento. The separate projects would eventually meet and become linked. 

The companies broke ground in 1863, but their projects didn’t gain full speed after the Civil War ended. In 1866 the Union Pacific increased its labor force with mostly Irish immigrants. The Central Pacific hired more than 25,000 Chinese immigrants to move through the Sierra Nevadas. 

Chinese people had ventured to North America as early as 450 A.D. Still, few Chinese resided in North America until the California Gold Rush was publicized. When news of golden soil reached the Chinese mainland, peasants recognized an opportunity to escape poverty. Some men were so destitute that they had sold their children. Earning a few hundred American dollars would allow their families a life of luxury. So, thousands of men boarded tightly packed ships for passage to “the Golden Mountain” of California. 

The Chinese workers were especially valuable to the Central Pacific Company. With their goal of moving east from Sacramento, they needed an estimated 5,000 workers. There weren’t enough Anglo-Americans available in California, and when men were brought from the eastern states, they tended to take off for adventure! The Central Pacific hired as many Chinese immigrants as they could, and then sent agents to Hong Kong for additional recruits. By the time the rails were joined in Utah, about 90% of the Central Pacific workers were Chinese. 

The Chinese immigrants, despite being crucial laborers, were not treated as well as white laborers. White men were paid $35 each month and also received a tent, food, and supplies. The Chinese were usually paid less and did not have the “benefits” of company-provided food, shelter, or supplies.

The Central Pacific workers risked their lives every day when scraping through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Sometimes they wove man-sized baskets to suspend themselves over cliffs, 2,000 feet above the ground. They used dynamite and nitroglycerine, which sometimes exploded prematurely. For many months, some lived entirely beneath the mountain snow, creating labyrinths from home to work and living by lantern light. Entire camps of men were lost to avalanches. 

Once the men reached the desert, they faced another set of hazards. There they could lay rails more quickly, but the temperature reached 120 degrees! Alkali dust made most bleed from the lungs. 

By January of 1869, the work was nearly complete. The federal government calculated where the two railroads should meet, ultimately deciding upon Promontory Summit. Eight Chinese men placed the final section of rail on May 10, 1869. Just five days later, passenger train service began. The overland trip from Omaha to Sacramento would now require only four days of travel!

Californians expected the railroad to bring prosperity. The most immediate effect, however, was that California’s fledgling manufacturing industry was threatened by cheaper items from the Eastern US. Californians were further irritated by the influx of job-seeking immigrants who arrived via train. The ensuing economic depression was blamed upon the Chinese immigrants who had constructed the iron road. California passed numerous anti-Chinese laws. Fortunately for the Chinese American community, however, the railroad employees had earned the immigrants a reputation for being good workers. They were recruited to work elsewhere across the United States. 

Every year in May since 1965, the celebration of completing the nation’s first transcontinental railroad is re-enacted at the Golden Spike National Historic Site in Brigham City, Utah. 

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Looking at Globular Clusters

Globular Clusters in NGC 4490 - Photo: Flickr

Globular clusters are defined as a dense grouping of thousands to millions of stars.  They are comprised of young stars at millions of years old to older stars at billions of years old.  The stars in these clusters are usually very tightly bound together.

They are considered deep sky objects.  They are easily found in the night sky in the hours before midnight in the months of April through September.  They appear in your telescope as concentrated patches of gray mist.  The amazing part is the average distance between any of the given stars is between ¾ to 1 ½ light years.  

The most spectacular of all is the NGC 5139.  You can see it with your naked eye because it is three times the moon's diameter.  There are millions of stars that take up your viewfinder.  It is truly a wondrous sight to behold.  If you live in or around North Carolina close to the latitude of +36 degrees, you will be able to spot it easily in the night sky.

Clusters such as these are very common.  In the Milky Way, there are 150 known clusters.  The Andromeda galaxy could have upwards of 500.  The giant elliptical galaxies, such as M87, have as many as 10,000.  The neat thing is the globular clusters contain some of the first stars that were created when time began.  Their origins are still unclear.  

The major part of these clusters is found near the galactic core.  And another large majority lie on the celestial sky side.  Clusters contain a high density of older stars but they are not great locations for planetary systems.  The orbits of the planets become unstable in the dense clusters. These clusters can be dated by viewing the temperature the coolest white dwarf stars are in the group.  Common results say some of these stars are 12.7 billion years old or older.

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What to Do With Your Stamp Collection

May Stamp Collection - Photo: Wikimedia

Are you an avid stamp collector who would like to move on?  Whether you have increased in age and are looking to make final arrangements for your most prized possessions or if stamp collecting simply isn’t a hobby that you enjoy anymore, you may be looking for guidance.  Many stamp collectors are surprised to hear how many different options they have when looking for part ways with their stamp collections.

One option that stamp collectors have when looking to pass on their stamp collection, is to literally pass it on.  This is most often done with family members.  If your age and what will happen to your prized possessions after your passing is a concern of yours, you may want to select a family member to pass your stamp collection onto.  Whether you do this now or state in your will your wishes, there are a number of benefits to keeping stamp collections in the family, especially those that are twenty years or older.

In keeping with passing your stamp collection on, you may want to examine close friends or family friends.  This approach is a nice option if you do not feel that a relative would be able to properly care for your stamp collection, expand it, or take pride in it.  If you take great pride in your stamp collection and would like to see it reach new heights, it is wise to select a new owner who would do just that.  This individual would be one who has a love of the past or one who personally enjoys stamp collecting as a hobby.

Another option, when looking to pass your stamp collection on to another, is to sell it.  Depending on the stamps in your collection, this approach may prove to be a profitable one.  Should you decide to sell your stamp collection, it is a wise idea to do the proper amount of research.  Examine collection values, ideal stamp collecting conditions, and so forth.  When selling your stamp collection, consider selling it as a whole set or in individual groups.  If you have stamps of value, your best approach may be to arrange a meeting with a stamp collecting dealer.

Donating is also an option if you are looking to pass on your stamp collection.  Depending on your stamp collection, it may be of great value and not just in the monetary sense.  You may have stamps in your collection that would be valuable to a historical organization or another nonprofit organization.  To assist your local community, inquire locally first and then expand your search to a national level if you do not see the results you were hoping for.  When donating your stamp collection, inquire about its intended use.  Will it be auctioned off for the profits or will it be housed on display?

As highlighted above, you have a number of different options.  As for which option is best for you and your stamp collection, it is important to remember it will vary.  Before deciding what you would like to do with your stamp collection, it is important to think about your decision.  Are you looking to pass on your stamp collection because stamp collecting is no longer an interest of yours or are there more important reasons, such as your health?  This important question should have an impact on your final decision.

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Victorian Architecture

The Carson Mansion - is a Queen Anne Victorian mansion at 143 M Street in Eureka, Northern California
Photo: Wikimedia

In Eureka, California sits one of the most beautiful examples of Victorian Architecture. The Carson Mansion, with its 18 rooms and excess of 16,200 square feet was constructed between 1884 and 1886. The cost of this structure was an incredible $80,000.

It is a mix of every major style of Victorian Architecture and is the most written about, most photographed house in California, possibly the U.S.

Victorian Architecture is known by many other names and can be of various styles. The building period of Victorian Architecture overlaps the reign of Queen Victoria, for whom it was named.

These structures are highly decorated and so aptly nicknamed Gingerbread houses for all of their pieces and gingerbread type scrollwork and ornamentation.

Interestingly enough, in the U.S., Toledo, Ohio is recognized as having one of the largest collections of Victorian homes, East of the Mississippi. Boston is noted in the National Register of Historic Places as having the oldest Victorian neighborhood in the U.S.

But of course, the U.S. isn’t the only place where these intricate creations of Victorian Architecture can be found. Notable Victorian-era cities range from London to Glasgow to Melbourne and to New Orleans.

Typical Victorian Architecture is grand in size, containing many functional rooms and passageways throughout the structure. Most throughout the country are not only fancifully decorated with intricate woodwork throughout, but they are usually known for their grand color schemes, both on the exterior and interior. Large inviting rooms welcome guests into their depths.

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Stun Guns

Stun Gun - Photo: Wikimedia

The Stun gun is an effective weapon used to subdue a person by administering an electric shock that disrupts muscle function for a limited amount of time.

While the taser fires projectiles that administer the shock, the stun gun is a handheld weapon that causes a shock in direct contact.

Stun Guns use a temporary high voltage low current electrical charge to stun the body’s muscles and immobilize the recipient.

The recipient feels pain and is momentarily paralyzed. It is also reported that applying the stun gun to more sensitive spots on the body will cause more pain.

Tests show the most effective parts of the body to stun are the upper shoulder, below the rib cage, and the upper hip. The resulting shock causes muscles to twitch uncontrollably, like muscle spasms.

The margin of safety on the use of stun guns depends highly on the overall general health of the person receiving the shock. There is some controversy over the use of the stun guns.

The internal workings are basic and simple, based on either an oscillator, resonant circuit, and set-up transformer or diodecapicator voltage multiplier. This is what causes the continuous, direct, or alternating high-voltage discharge.

They are powered usually on one or two batteries depending on the manufacturer. The power of the output current depends on the recipient resistance, skin type, moisture, clothing, and the battery conditions.

A shock lasting about half a second will cause intense pain and muscle contractions, which startle most people. Two to three seconds will often cause the target to become dazed and drop to the ground, and over three seconds will usually completely disorientate and drop an attacker for several seconds.

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