Washington, D.C. – A bill introduced by U.S. Representative Vic Snyder was signed into law by President Bush on December 22, 2005. The legislation instructs the Secretary of the Treasury to mint coins in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of the Little Rock Central High School.

“The 1957 crisis in Little Rock, brought about by the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School, was an important part of the march toward freedom and opportunity in America,” Congressman Vic Snyder said. “A 2007 commemorative silver dollar issued by the U.S. Mint will honor the 50th anniversary of these very significant historical events and the brave Arkansans who made them possible, and at the same time, raise some funds to help the Little Rock Central High School Historic Site tell this story.”

Congress may authorize two commemorative coins for each year. One of the two 2007 coin positions has already been filled for the 400th anniversary of Jamestown. The Central High Desegregation 50th Anniversary commemorative coin will fill the other.

In 1957, Little Rock Central High School was the site of the first major national test for the implementation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision and became the international symbol of the end of racially segregated public schools. The desegregation of Central High by nine African American students was influential to the Civil Rights Movement, and recognized by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as such a significant event that in May 1958 he attended the graduation of the first African American from Little Rock Central High. Moreover, it changed American history by providing an example on which to build greater equality, and ultimately a better America.

Proceeds from a $10 surcharge on each commemorative coin would benefit educational programs and capital improvements at the Little Rock Central High National Historic Site. If all of the authorized 500,000 coins are sold, the proceeds would total $5 million, but the anticipated number of coins that will be sold is indeterminable.

To learn more about the commemorative coin program, visit usmint.gov. Visit the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site website at nps.gov/chsc/

(Bloomberg) – Japan’s government plans to auction late 19th and 20th century gold coins from the national treasury next month via Yahoo! Japan Corp. to help reduce the public debt.

The finance ministry will sell 2,445 coins from Feb. 3 to Feb. 19 on Yahoo! Auctions Japan, said Hideyuki Matsui, deputy director of the ministry’s Foreign Exchange Markets Division. Proceeds will go to Japan’s general account budget, he said. Some coins may be worth as much as 10 million yen ($87,000) each.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has vowed to curb Japan’s public debt, the heaviest in the industrialized world. Combined national and local government debt may total 775 trillion yen by March 2007. The finance ministry plans to sell 32,680 gold coins by March 2008.

No matter how hard you try, you're not going to sell more than about 1,000 coins a day at a regular public auction,'' Matsui said by phone on Jan. 13.As long as a computer has an Internet hook-up, anyone can participate.”

The ministry auctioned 1,105 gold coins in October, Yahoo! Auctions Japan said on its Web site. About 300 people attended the auction in Tokyo.

( via Bloomberg.com)

WASHINGTON - Coming soon to a cash register near you — a smiling Thomas Jefferson looking straight at you from a new nickel that will end nearly a century of tradition for U.S. coins.

The Mint plans to begin shipping 80 million of the new five-cent coins on Thursday to the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks. They will be the first of an estimated 1 billion new nickels which will be put into circulation over the next year.

Since 1909 when Abraham Lincoln became the first president depicted on a circulating coin, all the presidential images have been in profile.

But in a break with that tradition, the new nickel has an image of Jefferson taken from a 1800 Rembrandt Peale portrait in which the nation’s third president is looking forward, with just the hint of a smile. The word “Liberty” in Jefferson’s handwriting is also shown as is the phrase “In God We Trust.”

On the opposite side, the nickel features Monticello, Jefferson’s Virginia home. Jefferson and Monticello had been on the nickel without change for 66 years until 2004.

In that year, the Mint began the “Westward Journey Nickel Series” to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase and the exploration of the new territory by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

For two years, Monticello was replaced with images commemorating their journey including a keel boat, a buffalo and a view of the Pacific.

The new nickel with a smiling Jefferson is the perfect way to complete the series, said Acting U.S. Mint Director David Lebryk.

“This nickel features a forward-looking President Jefferson who recognized that the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark expedition would expand our horizons in numerous ways,” Lebryk said. “This is a hopeful, positive image, emblematic of a bright future for our nation.”

The redesigned nickel is expected to be around for quite a while with no current plans for further changes. The next circulating coin that will undergo changes will be the Sacagawea dollar. Beginning in 2007, two-thirds of those coins produced each year will feature images of deceased presidents in the order they held office. Four past presidents will be honored each year.

Congress has also directed the Mint to bring out a redesigned penny in 2009 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth. The image of Lincoln on the coin will remain in profile although the Lincoln Memorial on the other side will be replaced with various images of Lincoln’s life.

Mint officials predicted that the new Jefferson nickels will start showing up in change drawers over the next four to six weeks. People who can’t wait that long can order bags and rolls of the 2006 nickels at the Mint’s Web site or by calling 1-800-USA-MINT.

(via msnbc)

Leslie John Hamilton Jr., formerly of Sheboygan, was sentenced Thursday in federal court to 25 years in prison for swindling 402 investors out of $14 million, a federal prosecutor said.

Hamilton, 54, now of Mount Charleston, Nev., was convicted in April of 28 counts of fraud in the U.S. Eastern District Court of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

Hamilton, the owner of Capital Collectibles of Nevada, a coin investment firm, will have to serve 21 years and three months of the sentence, said Assistant United States Attorney Carol Kraft, who prosecuted the case. Fifteen percent of the sentence is knocked off for “good time,” she said.

“The evidence at trial showed it to be a Ponzi-like coin investment scheme,” Kraft said in an interview Thursday. “Ponzi schemes are typically where investor money comes in. It’s used to pay previous investors and as long as the new investor money comes in, the scheme can stay afloat, but as soon as the investments dry up, then the person who’s perpetrating it becomes unable to pay the old investors and things collapse.”

Douglas Bihler of Greenfield, Hamilton’s attorney, declined to make any comment except that he’ll file an appeal.

Hamilton stole from 300 Wisconsin residents and others who live elsewhere, prosecutors said.

Hamilton began his coin investment business in Sheboygan. At one time, he had other outlets in Wisconsin and in Las Vegas.

Hamilton promised investors large returns through selling rare coins, authorities said. Hamilton’s customers made a string of investments and were promised a profit on their investments ranging from 8 percent to 150 percent, prosecutors said.

In Sheboygan County Circuit Court, 28 felony fraud charges filed against Hamilton in November 2001 were dismissed in January 2002. Three other fraud charges filed against Hamilton here in June 2001 were dismissed a year later.

Hamilton also is facing 30 felony counts filed in February 2003 in Dodge County Circuit Court and four felony charges filed in June 2002 in Iron County Circuit Court.

Angelina Roebuck, who was Hamilton’s live-in girlfriend, was sentenced in July to six months in federal prison for one count of fraud, according to court documents.

Here’s another article on the subject. (via sheboygan-press.com)

Nevada struck it rich Thursday as shiny new quarters began rolling off the production line at the U.S. Mint in Denver.

“After all the work we’ve done to get ready for our quarter, it was exciting to see it being produced,” State Treasurer Brian Krolicki said in a telephone interview.

Krolicki led a 25-person Nevada delegation to Denver for the “ceremonial strike” of the Silver State’s quarter, which features three wild horses.

The Nevada visitors, including representatives from Krolicki’s office and from Nevada State Bank, were each able to press some quarters and take a look at the coins before returning them to Mint officials.

The coin is scheduled to go into circulation Jan. 31 in a Carson City ceremony planned at the Capitol.

Among those in Thursday’s group in Denver was Krolicki’s “special adviser,” his 7-year-old daughter Kate, a second-grader at Zephyr Cove Elementary School who suggested a wild horses design.

In a month-long voting among the public for five finalist designs, almost 60,000 ballots were cast. State officials said the votes of schoolchildren were pivotal in the selection of horses.

The other finalists were images of a desert bighorn sheep, an old-time miner, ancient Indian artifacts and two pickaxes with sagebrush and rising sun.

The coin is part of the U.S. Mint’s 50 State Quarters Program. The quarters were introduced in 1999 and minting is done in the order of each state’s entry into the union.

Under the 10-year introduction program, coins of five states are added each year. Nevada became the nation’s 36th state in 1864.

Krolicki, who was appointed four years ago to direct the design and selection process of the Nevada coin, said Mint officials told him there will be a 10-week production run for the quarter. The number of coins to be produced hasn’t been determined. For the five state quarters minted in 2005, the average production was 602 million.

Read the full article.