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A Zerbe letter - 1909
RogerB
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Letter from numismatic promoter and charlatan Farran Zerbe concerning mintage of 1909 cents. 
4
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So what were his ulterior motives? Peace Roy
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Was he speculating? Sorry stupid question. He probably was.
You'll have to ask Zerbe. This was the only coin dealer letter I found, but I suspect there are others mixed with letters from August to early December.
Removal of "VDB" created a large speculative demand. Here's one of many hopeful "penny pincer" letters. This type of behavior accompanied nearly all introductory releases of new designs, and accounts for the large proportion of first-year specimens now available.
What a fool.
The Mint returned her 1-cent pieces - post paid.
Thanks for the post.good history.
Very interesting... Poor Hilda was sadly misled...I am glad she got her nine cents back. That would have purchased bread with some left over. Cheers, RickO
Is that "nine" or "mine"? Looks like "mine".
Lance.
Her letter does not state the number of cents included, and the reply does not, either -- unless that word is "nine" rather than "mine" as I thought.
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
But amazing history . . . .
Drunner
Mine.
I fail to see what Zerbe did wrong here. He was trying to speculate on some coins, pretty capitalist behavior to me.
Zerbe did nothing wrong. He was not alone among dealers and collectors who requested mintage information, especially in unusual situations. Most were told to look in the annual report, but known US Mint customers usually received a written reply or at least a note on their original letter as in Zerbe's case. What is not known is why this letter remained in US Mint files -- it should have been mailed.....unless Zerbe got a separate reply and the comments are just clerk's data gathering.
So are you tell that all those early Red Book mintage numbers may be correct after all?
Nope. The production reported to Zerbe might not be correct. After all, the letter is dated Feb 3, and final numbers might not have been prepared by then.
I did not mean that letter.
Not sure what is meant. Prior year Guide Books seem peripheral - it's the current data that matter.
Interesting...Thank you for sharing