PCGS Ex-President and CoinFacts Founder Ron Guth joins Mint Error News!
Zoins
Posts: 34,291 ✭✭✭✭✭
Congrats and Thanks to Ron @BestGerman for joining Mint Error News! I'm a big Mint Error News fan as it's a great source of articles on important discoveries and great coins, going back 2 decades! Having Ron on board is amazing news and I can't wait to see what you contribute.
Ron's numismatic credentials are through the roof, including various writing awards from the ANA, NLG, PNG. At PCGS he was Director of Numismatic Research and President! See more on his PCGS President appointment here:
https://www.pcgs.com/news/expanding-collectors-universe-inc-names-ron-guth-as-pcgs-president
From a documentation and research perspective, Ron’s also the creator of CoinFacts / PCGS CoinFacts, which I think has made and continues to make an incredible impact on the hobby, and for which I will always be indebted! Far more than just assigning coins to coin numbers, I love seeing the "Ron Guth" coin notes commentary in PCGS Coin Facts.
Here's the text from the announcement:
Mint Error News wrote:
Ron Guth is a recognized authority on United States and German coins. He is a licensed Certified Public Accountant who has been involved professionally in numismatics for over fifty years as a collector, dealer, researcher, and writer. His books and articles have earned numerous awards, including the American Numismatic Association's Heath Literary award and the Olga & Wayte Raymond awards, the Numismatic Literary Guild's Best Numismatic Investment Book and Best Book of the Year awards, and the Professional Numismatic Guild's Best Book of the Year award. In 2003, Ron received the prestigious President's Award from the American Numismatic Association in recognition of his numerous contributions to numismatics. In 2021, Coin World named Ron as one of the Top Ten Most Influential People in Numismatics for the sixty-year period from 1960-2020.Ron created the CoinFacts website (now PCGS CoinFacts) in 1999 and sold the website to Collectors Universe in 2004 (where it is now presented as PCGS CoinFacts. Ron served in various capacities at Collectors Universe, including Director of Numismatic Research, President of the Professional Coin Grading Service, and President of PCGS CoinFacts.
Currently, Ron serves as proprietor of GermanCoins.com and as Chief Investigator at the Numismatic Detective Agency, where he provides expert provenance on high-end coins. Ron Guth is a Consultant to Mint Error News for Patterns and Die Trials.
Source: https://minterrornews.com/news-11-22-21-press-release.html
Comments
Mint Error News is pleased to announce the addition of four new experts as Consultants.
•Dave Camire
•Ron Guth
•Mike Faraone
•Saul Teichman
This allows Mint Error News to provide exciting new content and features that will benefit all of our readers so stay turned!
Here is the link to all of the experts and Consultants in Mint Error News:
https://minterrornews.com/about.html
Great to see Ron making himself available for consultation, but the OP saying that Ron had "Joined MEN" made it sound like he had been hired. Obviously not the case here.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Thanks for pointing this out Andy. I was thinking about how to word that, but given the type of organization MEN I imagine it to be, I thought "joining" might be appropriate, but I'm open for suggestion.
But regarding being hired, I was wondering if Mint Error News has any paid staff or if it’s all unpaid work. Mike @Byers to clear this up, does Mint Error News have a payroll and staff?
An interesting thought is that @FredWeinberg was a PCGS consultant. Do we consider Fred to be part of PCGS from that capacity or not? PCGS is a large organization and part of CU with big payroll. I've considered Fred to be part of PCGS from his consultant capacity, but perhaps you're indicating I shouldn't?
What do you think would be better wording?
@MrEureka
Andy- obviously each expert/consultant has their own career in numismatics.
You are a consultant to Mint Error News.
You obviously run your own coin business, and a very successful one!
Dave Camire joined Mint Error News too. Obviously he is the President of NCS, NGC finalizer, and NGC’s mint error expert!
@Zoins
At the moment, Mint Error News does not specifically have a paid staff. All expenses, time, effort and energy is absorbed by banner sponsers and myself.
Regarding Fred was a Consultant at PCGS, it was not a paid position either.
Good point Mike. I always considered Fred part of PCGS for his unpaid consultant position.
Here, even though Ron may be unpaid, given his writing magic, I'm hoping to see him contribute in the form of authoring articles which I alluded to. I consider things like writing, editing, etc. to be "part of MEN" even if they are unpaid, it's volunteer work
I'll let Andy respond to the rest.
@Zoins
I don’t believe that whether one is paid or not, reflects on the commitment given to MEN or PCGS.
Fred was not paid when he was the PCGS Consultant.
Mint Error News Consultants are not paid either.
Mike, Congratulations on all the numismatic experts that consult for your publication.
MEN has been a great source for numismatic information and will continue to be with all the talent you have lined up.
Keep up the great work.
@ErrorsOnCoins stated:
“Mike, Congratulations on all the numismatic experts that consult for your publication.
MEN has been a great source for numismatic information and will continue to be with all the talent you have lined up.
Keep up the great work.”
Thanks for the kind words, Chris.
Alot is lining up and in the works. One example is- Dave Camire will have a regular column in each issue of Mint Error News Magazine (pdf format).
What a great, talented staff of contributors. Thank you for the link and backgrounds on these professionals. Cheers, RickO
@ricko
Mint Error News is also going to expand some articles with research, provenance and price history.
Zions will love that
Chris- yes, Zoins will like the Mint Error News expansion plans. Alot going on!
Congrats Mike! That's a list of well-respected people. I know Ron the best from his work at PCGS and CoinFacts. I hope to get to know the others better. I encourage them all to participate on the forums and write regularly for Mint Error News
I took a look at the full list and recognized some others as well. A huge thanks to Andy and Fred for participating here and MEN
Here's my suggestion, specially for Ron,
MintErrorFacts
A huge part of my interest in error coins is tracing provenance of error coins and to find/establish the great error collector pedigrees. This seems like it would be right up Ron's alley since he used to do provenance tracing for CoinFacts and now runs a Numismatic Detective Agency focusing on provenance discovery!
@Zoins
Yes, Ron Guth is also focused on the provenance!
There will be direct participation by the experts in many ways.
@Zoins
Ron Guth will have a featured column in Mint Error News Magazine as well as other contributions to the Mint Error News website.
That’s great to hear Mike! What a wonderful way to contribute to Mint Error News while building up a reputation and following. And I certainly consider that being a part of MEN.
Andy @MrEureka it would be great if you have a column on patterns! Not sure if you’d be interested but I would certainly love to read a column of yours in MEN!
@Zoins
Coincidentally, Andy’s partner in the uspatterns website is Saul Teichman ( who is also a Mint Error News Consultant and Contributor).
Saul has authored very researched articles on provenance, prices and history for mint error coins in Mint Error News.
https://minterrornews.com/news-12-15-20-pedigrees-prices-quantity-for-some-popular-error-series.html
Here is another article by Saul Teichman in Mint Error News. Although it was written awhile back, it still applies today:
https://minterrornews.com/news-2-18-03-uspatterns-pattern_or_mint_error.html
Mint Error News is a valuable source of information which I expect to get even better with expert consultants like Ron, Saul, and Andy adding input along with many others.
We should look forward to learning so much more when these experts go in depth on a subject.
Thank you Mike for your excellent publication and all it's resources.
@ErrorsOnCoins said:
“ Thank you Mike for your excellent publication and all it's resources.”
Chris I want to thank you for your contributing articles. They are loaded with great images and your mint errors are visual and dramatic!
Mike,
MEN is looking really impressive and wow, what a team!. Congratulations! Welcome, old and new friends! I can tell you people love error coin information in my coin shop. Daily, I answer basic questions of rarity and value and then I show pictures of what errors really are or are not. Suggestion, with the team now, lets talk about a guide book (but not like a Red Book of which I proudly contribute to, too) being in the future for MEN. I see the MEN book purpose to educate, retail price, and display what errors are good and not so good. It would be helpful for proving or disproving frequent questions like, "is my D mint close AM cent valuable?" Solid facts in a book fix things. And not a coffee table book. A text book.
Changing course, commenting on some of the questions above, I will confirm contributors to MEN like the contributors to Whitman’s Red Book are definitely invited. You are not paid. To be clear in the case of MEN, Mike Byers or MEN or anyone related does not pay me or anyone else for being a contributor to MEN.
I am asked to contribute because I can grade all coins, especially weird ones. So I am helpful. I also share my old handling knowledge of US Patterns. I am no Andy Lustig nor am I Saul Teichman but I have an excellent feel for rarity as i have bought and sold thousands of US Patterns over the years and I know a lot about US Patterns from what I have seen, and not seen.
This will be different for every contributor but my payoff is showing my coin shop customers what I do and that adds value to my business. Put another way, when any dealer tells you he/she contributes to MEN, the Red Book, Grading Services the US Government, etc., your customers take you seriously. No contribution pay is required.
Marc Crane.
Very good points Marc!
With this caliber of people on Mint Error News, exciting things are certainly possible and it would be great to make some of them come to fruition. A definitive Error Guide Book would be great!
And it's a good comment on being paid. Being a Mint Error News contributor is an invite-only privilege and that in itself confers a great deal of respect and value.
Regarding Ron, CoinWorld named him as one of the Top 10 Most Influential people in numismatics from 1960 to 2000!
https://reader.coinworld.com/mostinfluential/
Here's a great quote from the CoinWorld bio page:
With Ron joining MEN, it will be great to add more to the pedigrees of impressive error coins, like the Brand-Carter 1886 Morgan Obverse Die Cap and others.
Mike, It is a privilege and I want to thank you for inviting me in as a contributor.
With soo many industry insiders joining your team, it is a honor to come in from the outside.
Here is my very quick bio ...
I did collect coins and stamps as a kid with my dad . As a teen I got into girls, 4x4 trucks and all in on professional photography, so coins took a back seat. My dad continued to put together an impressive stamp collection, which I inherited and still have. In the beginning of my photography career I did commercial product photography in a studio and then went all in on nature photography where I made it to the top inner circle of landscape photographers. Shortly thereafter, the whole stock photography market fell apart and started a never-ending downward spiral. I saw the writing on the wall.
For some reason, after my daughter was born in 1996 I started collecting coins again. I bought her a 100 year old silver Morgan dollar
I played around with Morgan Dollars, Buffalo Nickels, Commemoratives, and a 7070 type set. I then found major error coins. I started researching and buying different types of error coins. I started building error coin sets. I got in deep, too deep. I could no longer afford my coin addiction as the stock photo business was on a death spiral so I started selling error coin around the year 2000 in order to be able to afford other error coins. I did the roll searching thing for years and could make good money on small varieties using my photographic skills.
I had to make the decision to stop producing stock photo images in order to put all my time and energy into building an error coin business. On advise from forum members, I put my whole error coin collection up as inventory and held nothing back. I would use all profits to reinvest in bigger and better error coinage. I have been studying error coins for 25 years and have been an error coin dealer for the last 21 years.
Fast forward to today where I have 650 certified error coin in inventory . With a background in art and photography, I really focus on error coins with exceptional eye appeal. I seek out different error type coins and unique specimens. I absolutely love the extreme rarity of modern mint errors produced since 2002.
Mike asked me to be a contributor to Mint Error News because of my exceptional error coin photography. I feel I am extremely knowledgeable in major mint error coinage and can write about my coins as well. I am hoping to expand my knowledge of error coins with all the new talent Mike has put together as contributors and draw on that knowledge to write even better more in-depth articles.
Hi Marc, I am Chris.
I have been thinking about an error coin type book for some now. A photographic book of all types of error coinage.
Show a photo of a blank planchet, an off center, a double struck coin, a triple struck coin, etc, every conceivable (photographical) type of error produced by the US Mint with along description explains how each error type occurred.
I think it would be a worthwhile project.
Mike, what would be really cool if you could arrange a mint tour to discuss the minting process with as many of your contributors as you can. I have never been on one of those tours with a group of mint error experts. I would look to learn as much as I could.
Another cool "workshop" would be to arrange a day or days with D Carr and his press to make all sorts of fun things
@MarcOne said:
“MEN is looking really impressive and wow, what a team!. Congratulations!”
Marc-
Thanks for the compliment. MEN’s success is a result of the effort of many contributors! MEN has big plans to expand. Thank you for being a Consultant. Your input is valuable.
Your idea about a MEN error coin book is a great idea. Having the input and involvement from MEN consultants would make a MEN error book a success!
Also under consideration is a second edition of my NLG Award Winning Best Book, World's Greatest Mint Errors.
Regarding your comments on the MEN Consultants…. it is true that no Consultants are paid, they are invited to join, and must have expertise in mint errors or patterns.
@Zoins said:
“Regarding Ron, CoinWorld named him as one of the Top 10 Most Influential people in numismatics from 1960 to 2000!”
https://reader.coinworld.com/mostinfluential/
Yes, it is an honor having a former PCGS President and Top 10 Numismatist, who also won the Numismatic Literary Guild's Best Numismatic Investment Book and Best Book of the Year awards, to be a Consultant and Contributor to Mint Error News!
@MarcOne said:
“… I have an excellent feel for rarity as I have bought and sold thousands of US Patterns over the years…”
Yes you have!
I remember almost 20 years ago, you sold me this unique and unbelievable double denomination pattern/mint error.
Amazing coin @MarcOne and @Byers!
This was most recently sold in the Bob Simpson Collection!
1846 $5 Obverse Die Trial - Struck on $2½ Trial - Judd-110A
PCGS MS65 BN; NGC MS65BN
Pedigree: Stetson University, Marc Crane, Mike Byers, Bob Simpson
Here's what Ron wrote about this coin on CoinFacts:
This is from USPatterns.com (emphasis mine):
Of note, there are several provenances listed in various places. It seems like it would be nice to come up with a standardized way to list provenances.
Heritage Provenance:
CoinFacts Provenance:
USPatterns Provenance:
Here are the most recent photos from PCGS and Heritage.
It's great that you have these classic photos Mike! It's great seeing these same wonderful coins over the years!
@Zoins said:
“Amazing coin @MarcOne and @Byers!”
Yes it is an amazing pattern and mint error. And it was interesting going from PCGS Proof 62, to MS 65 NGC, then crossing to PCGS!
That is amazing as it is interesting!
Do we know how this ended up at Stetson University? Is some numismatic detective work necessary?
@ErrorsOnCoins said:
“Mike, It is a privilege and I want to thank you for inviting me in as a contributor.
With soo many industry insiders joining your team, it is a honor to come in from the outside.”
Chris- thanks for the compliment but it takes the effort of the Consultants and Contributors as well.
Thank you for your informative articles with amazing pictures. Your inventory of 650 certified mint errors should have something for every collector!
We are throwing around several book ideas.
Your idea of a Mint tour is a good one. I have had a floor tour of the Denver Mint. It was fascinating!
I have been to Dan’s workshop near Denver and have seen his coin press in action!
Mike you're very welcome.
FYI the photos (digital files) I provide you and list on various websites are much smaller than the original files so they can be easily uploaded to the internet. I also photograph a large number of coins so I would consider these production quality images say for a catalog. I can certainly produce book quality imagery if I knew that were the end product instead of say an eBay listing. By far the best photography would be to photograph raw coins. I know all the wanted coins would be in TPG plastic so let's make Zions happy, crack them open, take high quality (book) images and reholder the coins with a pedigree
If the the coin must stay in plastic, I can easily do that as that is all I do now. Just wanted to throw my hat in the ring for any any coin books as there are so many talented coin photographers.
A Denver Mint tour and D Carr workshop all in one trip with a bunch of coin nerds would be super cool
@ErrorsOnCoins said:
“ A Denver Mint tour and D Carr workshop all in one trip with a bunch of coin nerds would be super cool”
Like I mentioned, I have done both, but doing both again with MEN Consultants and Contributors would be a blast!!
@ErrorsOnCoins said:
“ I can certainly produce book quality imagery…”
Chris - your images in your articles for Mint Error News are among the best images out there!