News
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September 06, 2017
All .9999s fine. All IRA eligible. All double struck with high mirrored finish. All delivered in superior packaging. All for less than any sovereign mint equivalent.
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September 04, 2017
The Chinese zodiac scheme (also known as the lunar scheme) assigns an animal to each year in a rotating 12-year cycle. It is an important aspect of Asian culture and is widely recognized in China, Thailand, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Burma, and the Philippines. In celebration of this cultural institution, various world mints have issued lunar-themed coins. Each piece display tigers, rabbits, dragons, snakes, horses, goats, monkeys, roosters, dogs, pigs, rats, and oxen to commemorate each year in the Chinese zodiac.
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August 28, 2017
With the discovery of gold in California in the late 1840s, a huge amount of newly-produced gold was converted into coinage. However, with no US Mint facility west of the Mississippi, and no transcontinental railroad links yet constructed, the process of transporting all of this gold across the country was highly inefficient. In lieu of adequate circulating coinage, the boomtown of San Francisco used gold dust for commerce. Once California became a state in 1850, Congress was petitioned. In 1852, President Millard Fillmore approved a plan for a new mint facility in San Francisco, which opened in 1854. The new San Francisco Mint worked at full tilt, converting more than $4 million worth of gold into coin by the end of 1854 alone.
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August 28, 2017
Dear TPM Customers:
Due to the continued adverse weather conditions affecting our area, we will be closing our offices on Monday, August 28th. At the present time, we anticipate reopening on Tuesday, August 29th if weather conditions improve as anticipated.
We want to thank those of you who have written offering your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time. We feel very fortunate that we may have escaped the worst of it, but flooding and power loss in our area is significant. Thankfully, our employees are all well. Areas directly along the coast have been ravaged, and Houston continues to receive a deluge of rain, as I am sure you have seen reported on the news. Please keep those families in your prayers.
Our ordinary course of operations will be affected for at least the coming week. We ceased all metal shipments on Thursday, and we do not expect to resume shipping until Wednesday at the earliest. Many of the roads are no longer navigable for UPS. As you know, we take great pride in shipping quickly, but customer shipments will be delayed during this week. We will ship out all orders as soon as it is safe to do so.
There will be no customer support by phone until Tuesday the earliest, and incoming payment confirmations will be delayed by at least one day. We will continue to respond to inquiries via email in the interim, and we will work to answer those inquiries as expeditiously as possible.
Normal online trading will remain available 24/7.
We apologize for any inconvenience during this time and we thank you again for your prayers and well wishes.
Sincerely,
Tarek Saab
President & Co-founder
Texas Precious Metals
959 St Hwy 95N
Shiner, Texas 77984 -
August 22, 2017
We are eliminating order minimums. We are extending free shipping to all orders, no minimum or maximum! We will accept Visa/MC as a form of payment. We will unveil an online selling feature, allowing customers to sell online to us 24/7 (coming later this fall). We will introduce improved limit order features, including sell limit orders (coming later this fall). We will be extending our customer service hours 7 a.m. - 7 p.m. CST and much, much more. Thank you for your continued loyalty to our business. We are excited to bring you these improvements!
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August 21, 2017
There is currently some controversy over whether the lowest denomination US coin – the penny – should be eliminated from circulation. Has the penny become obsolete
From the perspective of the US Mint, the most basic argument for eliminating the penny is its cost. It now costs about 1.5 cents to produce a one-cent coin. The penny’s composition was changed from a bronze (95% copper) to mostly zinc in 1983 due to inflation and rising material prices. Nickels suffer from the same problem – they cost more than 9 cents to produce! A 2007 regulation prohibits the melting of US pennies and nickels; while some scrapping of pennies probably does occur, the illegality of the process does preclude a more widespread level of hoarding for this purpose.
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August 14, 2017
As long as coin collecting has been a hobby, numismatists have enjoyed exhibiting and displaying their collections. With the advent of the internet, a new means of sharing collections has been developed: the online set registry. The two major third party grading services, PCGS and NGC, have created an internet-based database whereby collectors can input the details of their collections. In addition to basic details like the date, denomination, and grade of each coin, collectors can also upload photos and personal notes about each piece. Each registered set is then scored and ranked.
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August 07, 2017
Doubled die errors are a type of mint-made error. There are a few famous examples of doubled die errors in US coinage, such as the 1955 doubled die cent (one of the most valuable mint-made errors in existence). A doubled die error is a type of hub-and-die error, rather than a strike error, as many assume. The error originates when the die itself is constructed – not when the coins are actually struck.
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August 03, 2017
Q2 gold demand of 953.4t was 10% lower than 2016, while H1 demand slowed 14% to 2,003.8t. Y-o-y comparisons are affected by record ETF inflows in 2016: demand from this sector slowed dramatically after last year’s H1 surge. Central bank net purchases of 176.7t were also slightly lower in the first half (-3%). By contrast, bar and coin investment improved, as did jewellery demand, although the latter remains weak in a long-term context. Technology demand also made modest gains.
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July 31, 2017
“A penny saved is twopence dear,” wrote Benjamin Franklin. This aphorism is frequently misquoted as “A penny saved is a penny earned,” but the original version is much more informative as to the history of the penny. The term is English in origin, dating to the Dark Ages (cf. the German equivalent, pfennig). Its value was eventually standardized at 1/240th of a pound sterling under that currency’s pre-decimalization system. The US cent had a similar value at the time of its introduction.