Gold Coins

Three years ago, when Carroll County Arts Council was searching for a winter fund-raiser, someone suggested the group hold a Christmas crafts show. "Please don't make me. There's a million of those already," Sandy Oxx, the group's executive director, remembered saying. Instead, the group decided to auction decorated wreaths that had been donated by people in the community. Selling 24-inch circles of faux pine boughs festooned with ribbons and berries seemed like a practical, seasonal way to raise money, Oxx thought.

Barb and Greg Damon traveled to Maryland from Oregon to run a marathon and left with an unusual souvenir. The Damons were among the first people who went to Fort McHenry Monday to purchase commemorative coins created by the United States Mint to mark the bicentennial of the War of 1812. Barb Damon said she and her husband ran in the B&A Trail Marathon over the weekend as part of a quest to complete a marathon in every state. She said they also collect coins and couldn't pass up the chance to purchase a coin on the first day it was issued.

Proud Patriot The bald eagle was chosen on June 20, 1782, as the emblem of the United States of America because of its strength and majestic looks. The image of the eagle can be seen on all the gold coins, the silver dollar, half dollars and quarters. what's for DINNER? Bald eagles live along the coastline and near water; therefore, their diet is mostly fish.

Weeks later, and I'm still getting mail and phone calls about columns I wrote in September and August. Readers are still fascinated with the tale of Theodore Jones and Henry Grob, poor Baltimore teens who unearthed gold coins in the basement of an Eden Street tenement in 1934. What brought the story back from musty newspaper and legal archives was the recent publication of Leonard Augsburger's Treasure in the Cellar: A Tale of Gold in Depression-Era Baltimore. Howard J. Sapp, 80, a retired Social Security Administration disability examiner, wrote me. He said that one of the boy's parents paid a debt to his grandfather, owner of a Caroline Street store, with a 2 1/2 -dollar gold piece from the stash.

County police arrested a Deale man Wednesday on charges of stealing jewelry, coins and a television from a Shady Side home.Jesse Herbert Mitchell, 33, of the 5900 block of Rockhold Drive was charged with burglary and felony theft.Police went to a house in the 4900 block of West End Ave. about 12: 30 a.m. Fredus E. Proctor Jr., owner of the house, told officers someone took an air conditioner from a rear window, climbed in and stole a 13-inch television, four diamond rings, two gold coins and two gold chains from a bedroom.

The story of two Baltimore teenagers and their random discovery of a cache of gold coins in a copper jug while digging in the dirt cellar floor of a three-story rowhouse at 132 S. Eden St. became a national story during the height of the Depression. Theodore Jones, 16, and Henry Grob, 15, both from fatherless families who were on relief, had formed a club, the "Rinky-Dinky-Doos," and were busy digging a hole on the warm afternoon of Aug. 31, 1934, in the floor of the Eden Street tenement where Jones and his mother resided.

The Peruvian sol failed to shine. The Tongan pa'anga was no big thing. People at the coin convention did not notice the ceramic notgeld minted during the German hyperinflation of the 1920s and did not flip over the 1909 Lincoln penny.Gold coins captured most of the attention Friday at the Atlantic Rarities Coin Exposition, which ends today at the Baltimore Convention Center.Driven by fears that widespread computer failures will cause the international banking system to collapse on Jan. 1, survivalists preparing the barter economy of the apocalypse are fueling reported rises in precious metal sales from coin dealers in Baltimore and nationally.

Elizabeth C. "Nancy" Smith, the 82-year-old Columbia recluse who died in February, had an affinity for gold. Much of her $1.8 million in stocks was in South African gold mining companies, and her $11,000 coin collection was dominated by gold coins.Those holdings were revealed in a partial inventory of her possessions filed last week in the Howard County Orphans' Court by attorneys for two of Smith's cousins -- Carolyn Smith of Baltimore and Tabi Williamson of Eureka, Calif. They will inherit Smith's 300 acres of undeveloped farmland along Route 175.Smith, who died without a will, was not married.

THE Q: We Buy Gold, the commercials say. You've probably seen the ads on TV and in newspapers. With gold prices at or near record highs lately, more and more people are taking a second look at the precious metals sitting in their jewelry boxes and drawers, wondering if they should sell, sell, sell. Harvey Galinn, a 70-year-old Towson resident, has been thinking about selling American Eagle gold coins dating from 1993 to 1997. "I was just wondering what the process is?" Galinn said. "I sell it to somebody and then they resell it or do they melt it down?

CAESAREA, Israel -- Stare for long at the blue sea here with Kenneth Holum, and you will find yourself in the past.The University of Maryland professor will take you back 1,600 years, back to a great city on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, an important outpost of the Roman Empire. This is Caesarea, pride of Herod the Great, provincial capital for the Holy Land.In A.D. 400 -- four centuries after Herod built it -- the city is comparatively quiet. It is no longer vogue to throw Christians to the lions in the amphitheater, and the sweeping invasion by Muslims -- and brutal reprisals of the Crusaders -- are yet to engulf the city.

My column several weeks ago chronicling the Depression-era story of two Baltimore youths, Theodore Jones, 16, and Henry Grob, 15, who turned up 3,558 gold coins in the dirt cellar of an Eden Street tenement, brought some interesting responses. A full-length account of the find and subsequent legal wrangling over who owned the stash of coins that today would be worth more than $10 million is the subject of Leonard Augsburger's Treasure in the Cellar: A Tale of Gold in Depression-Era Baltimore, which was recently published by the Maryland Historical Society.

The story of two Baltimore teenagers and their random discovery of a cache of gold coins in a copper jug while digging in the dirt cellar floor of a three-story rowhouse at 132 S. Eden St. became a national story during the height of the Depression. Theodore Jones, 16, and Henry Grob, 15, both from fatherless families who were on relief, had formed a club, the "Rinky-Dinky-Doos," and were busy digging a hole on the warm afternoon of Aug. 31, 1934, in the floor of the Eden Street tenement where Jones and his mother resided.

THE Q: We Buy Gold, the commercials say. You've probably seen the ads on TV and in newspapers. With gold prices at or near record highs lately, more and more people are taking a second look at the precious metals sitting in their jewelry boxes and drawers, wondering if they should sell, sell, sell. Harvey Galinn, a 70-year-old Towson resident, has been thinking about selling American Eagle gold coins dating from 1993 to 1997. "I was just wondering what the process is?" Galinn said. "I sell it to somebody and then they resell it or do they melt it down?

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Gold comes in a variety of flavors when it comes to investing. You can buy the metal itself - gold coins and gold bullion. You can buy shares of individual gold-mining companies or mutual funds that invest in a slew of mining businesses. Then there are ETFs, or exchange traded funds - you buy and sell them like stocks - that track the price of gold. Be aware, however, that investment experts are split about whether investing in gold in any shape or form is wise. Some counsel that gold has a place in a well-rounded, diversified investment portfolio, but that investments in it and other commodities should not exceed 5 percent of your total investments.

Proud Patriot The bald eagle was chosen on June 20, 1782, as the emblem of the United States of America because of its strength and majestic looks. The image of the eagle can be seen on all the gold coins, the silver dollar, half dollars and quarters. what's for DINNER? Bald eagles live along the coastline and near water; therefore, their diet is mostly fish.

GERMISTON, South Africa - Fears that the U.S. economy is souring and heading toward a recession might cause most business owners to groan but here at the world's largest gold refinery, just south of Johannesburg, those are signs, perhaps, of better times to come. Like snow-blower salesmen before a blizzard, managers of Rand Refinery Limited are hoping that economic uncertainty ushers in the comeback of their once best-selling, later banned, and now largely forgotten gold coin: the Krugerrand.

Spring, and Baltimore's fancy turns to thoughts of gold! For free! At the Inner Harbor amphitheater! Just show your Maryland driver's license!More than 100 people raced downtown yesterday morning after WQSR-FM's drive-time radio host Steve Rouse used his top-rated morning show to spread word of the fabulous offer from the "Constellation Restoration Committee."Many of the breathless and greedy finally met reality in the form of police officers, tourist information workers and Constellation officials, who gently reminded them of the date.

THE GOLD RUSH is back.But this time around, low prices are driving the demand for the precious metal, industry sources say.That's a significant change from the late 1970s, when fears surrounding double-digit inflation drove prices to a record $875 an ounce.This summer's recent drop to a 12-year low of $318.10 an ounce has pushed sales of U.S. American Eagle gold coins more than three times higher than normal for June and July, reports Jack Szcerban of the U.S. Mint in Washington."Bargain hunters are buying," Szcerban said.

Three years ago, when Carroll County Arts Council was searching for a winter fund-raiser, someone suggested the group hold a Christmas crafts show. "Please don't make me. There's a million of those already," Sandy Oxx, the group's executive director, remembered saying. Instead, the group decided to auction decorated wreaths that had been donated by people in the community. Selling 24-inch circles of faux pine boughs festooned with ribbons and berries seemed like a practical, seasonal way to raise money, Oxx thought.

The Peruvian sol failed to shine. The Tongan pa'anga was no big thing. People at the coin convention did not notice the ceramic notgeld minted during the German hyperinflation of the 1920s and did not flip over the 1909 Lincoln penny.Gold coins captured most of the attention Friday at the Atlantic Rarities Coin Exposition, which ends today at the Baltimore Convention Center.Driven by fears that widespread computer failures will cause the international banking system to collapse on Jan. 1, survivalists preparing the barter economy of the apocalypse are fueling reported rises in precious metal sales from coin dealers in Baltimore and nationally.