I have a cute story about this piece I will write out tomorrow.
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
Back when I was working in Coin World Editorial, so 1974-1978 but probably towards the latter part of that, we received a letter from some company informing us that they had copyrighted this design (see the copyright symbol below the eagle), and that we and everybody else, including the Redbook, would have to pay them a royalty or whatever every time we ran a picture of ANY Kellogg $20!!!
The letter also included a press release which said that they would be selling gold-plated copies of this particular copyrighted reproduction (duly marked "COPY" in accordance with the then-recent Hobby Protection Act of 1973) with a variety of jewelry mountings (bezels, chains, etc.), and would we please run a story about them in the paper. We got a good laugh out of this nonsense.
Oddly enough, over the years while working in coin shops I have seen several of these pieces with the word "COPY" ground out. I would assume that the jewelry business failed spectacularly, and the pieces already struck got remaindered to some crook who altered them and sold them at flea markets or the like.
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
Comments
Hmmm... if that were on ebay would we be trying to get it pulled?
It does say copy which is more honest than those without IMO
It's all about what the people want...
I have a cute story about this piece I will write out tomorrow.
I stand corrected. I didn't see it hiding up there.
Mine has a hole in it but it was made for jewelry. If I remember right it’s not even the size of a double eagle. It’s much smaller.

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CoinsAreFun Toned Silver Eagle Proof Album
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Gallery Mint Museum, Ron Landis& Joe Rust, The beginnings of the Golden Dollar
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More CoinsAreFun Pictorials NGC
Found this at the shop today …
Reverse
Back when I was working in Coin World Editorial, so 1974-1978 but probably towards the latter part of that, we received a letter from some company informing us that they had copyrighted this design (see the copyright symbol below the eagle), and that we and everybody else, including the Redbook, would have to pay them a royalty or whatever every time we ran a picture of ANY Kellogg $20!!!
The letter also included a press release which said that they would be selling gold-plated copies of this particular copyrighted reproduction (duly marked "COPY" in accordance with the then-recent Hobby Protection Act of 1973) with a variety of jewelry mountings (bezels, chains, etc.), and would we please run a story about them in the paper. We got a good laugh out of this nonsense.
Oddly enough, over the years while working in coin shops I have seen several of these pieces with the word "COPY" ground out. I would assume that the jewelry business failed spectacularly, and the pieces already struck got remaindered to some crook who altered them and sold them at flea markets or the like.