Back to Newsletter Archive

The Bret Leifer Rare Coin Letter
Summer 2004 NEWSLETTER
Professional advice you can trust

Dear Collector:

The signs of escalating inflation seem to be everywhere. Commodity prices are still soaring. The prices of milk, butter, wheat and soybeans are all higher. Health care costs are out of control. Gasoline is at the highest price it has ever been in the United States! Yet the official government inflation rate is less than 2 percent.

With the falling U.S. dollar and world currency markets in turmoil, federal and state governments are experiencing massive, record-setting deficits. As the federal government plunges deeper into debt, the Fed is raising cash by printing money at an unheard of rate. The public relations arm of the government admits to a $520 billion deficit. That is for this year. We know the true figure is higher.

Like any commodity, the more money that is in circulation, the less it is worth. What all this federal stimulus does is create business; it creates jobs and it also creates inflation. While the dollar has lost half its value against the Euro in the past two years, gold has increased over $100 an ounce. As Peter Lynch wrote in Worth Magazine, "No less a personage than Alan Greenspan once said that gold was the only refuge against profligate governments that are forever debasing their currency…." Robert Mundell, the Nobel-prize winning economist who is often credited with paving the way to the European single currency, the Euro, has called for a global currency. This wouldn't mean the end of the Euro and the dollar. Instead, the global currency would be used initially in large international exchanges, such as the movement of capital and commercial transactions. After this initial use and acceptance, who knows? What we do know is that it would be another form of fiat currency, not backed by one ounce of anything.

On television Mundell said, "The monetary collapse of the dollar is imminent within the next three to five years unless we get the Federal deficit under control because the numbers are now so staggering."

To me, this current period appears to be like the period 1972-75, just before the Jimmy Carter years, when the economy was out of control. The total national deficit is currently about $7 trillion. Our annual deficit will probably be the same for a few more years. That is an outrageous sum of money to overcome. The only way possible to repay this is by the printing press. Inflation is the future. Prepare for it. The alternative would be a monetary collapse or depression, which our politicians will want to avoid at virtually any cost.

With all this excess liquidity sloshing around, people want to spend their paper money on something that is a quality tangible. Conventional wisdom says to be truly diversified and safe, you must own gold. Every paper currency throughout history has been devalued by its government. By owning pre-1933 gold numismatic coins, you will be protected from a monetary collapse or hyperinflation. As we've said before, it is very cheap insurance.

Since we are now experiencing a respite in the price of gold and silver, these selected coins are approximately 10 percent less (as of June 10, 2004) than they were this past spring. Gold coins are a great value now. But quality coins are still difficult to locate and we think that they will get even more difficult to find.

The on-going process of upgrading your coins is important to many collectors, and now is an opportune time to trade up (if we can locate the coin). Let us know. We can tailor trades to fit your individual needs.

If you have coins you wish to sell, call me today at 1-800-331-2646 (COIN). I need coins and will send you an overnight check.

Remember:

Whether you are looking to own one important, magnificent coin or whether you are building a world-class collection (and everything in between) we can assist you in your endeavor. According to famed international newsletter writer, Julian Snyder, gold will approach $1000 an ounce by the end of 2005. He bases his claim partially on some of the above, and what he refers to as a possibility of the dumping of billions of dollars invested in the U.S. stock market by Saudi Arabia (having heard this once before, firsthand, from a group of Saudi princes), China, Japan and Europe.

If I am totally wrong and our official deflation lasts longer, gold serves that situation as well. Gold may not go up 2 or 3 times its value. However, with gold one usually maintains purchasing power. In the depression of the 1930's, gold endured and those who owned it were spared financial ruin.

The coin-collecting world is alive and well. There are thousands of new collectors that have emerged over the past five years. Many coins are going to collectors, which is good for the market because those coins will be off the market for years at a time. This could be the greatest rare coin buying opportunity in the last 40 years.

Best Regards,

Bret Leifer President

© Bret Leifer Numismatics
P.O. Box 5225 * Wayland, MA 01778
Tel: 508.655.1125  *  Fax 508.650.1847  *  US: 1.800.331.2646 * Email: coins@coinguy.com
Website Design & Development:
Southborough Website Design, LLC