Created Works and the Public Domain

Public Domain Day 2025 came up as a Google News item. I have given some thought to the traditions and laws about intellectual property and I have only questions. In other blog posts I commented on the contradictions, but I have no integrated proposal. 

Common assumptions about property are rooted in the physical reality of land: it is impossible for two objects to be in the same place at the same time. Thus, land is rival and exclusionary: if an entity (person, family, etc.) possess it, then another cannot. Copyrights and patents attempt to include “ideas” into “lands.” However, intellectual property is metaphysically different from physical property. 

 Based on the definition that property ownership is rival and exclusionary, collectivist thinkers built a truth table to show Common Resources (excludable but non-rival) and Club Goods (rival but non-excludable). That is nonsense. 

Define Human as “rational animal” and the non-rational animal and rational non-animal remain not-human. So, too, are common resources and club goods not property. Non-A cannot be A. Nothing is not a different kind of something.

Contrary to the collectivist claims, freshwater, fish, timber, and pasture are all exclusionary and rival. You can’t have your fish and let your neighbor eat it, too.

 

What they call “club goods” are defined and limited by technology, not by metaphysics. Discussing radio broadcasting in her essay, “Property Status of the Airwaves” Rand correctly pointed that two broadcasters cannot share same frequency. But they can. Just not at the same time. And time-slicing allows two (or more) broadcasters to occupy the same wavelength. However, that does not change the fundamental principle that these timely-sliced increments are property. 

From Diabolo Valley College Econ101 linking from PennState,
College of Earth and Mineral Sciences.
"EBF 200 Introduction to Energy and Earth Sciences Economics:
Public Goods and Common Pools."
Also found in Investopedia and Quickonomics.

Common resources – non-excludable but rival (freshwater, fish, timber, pasture)

Common resources are defined as products or resources that are non-excludable but rival. That means virtually anyone can use them. However, if one individual consumes them, their availability to other consumers is reduced. The combination of those two characteristics often results in an overuse of these resources because demand exceeds the available quantity (see also the tragedy of the commons). Examples of common resources include freshwater, fish, timber, pasture, etc. -- https://quickonomics.com/different-types-of-goods/

 Club goods – excludable but non-rival (cable television, cinemas, wireless internet, toll roads)

Club goods are products that are excludable but non-rival. Thus, individuals can be prevented from consuming them (i.e., access can be restricted), but their consumption does not reduce their availability to other individuals (at least not until a point of overuse or congestion is reached). Club goods are sometimes also referred to as artificially scarce resources. They are often provided by natural monopolies. Examples of this type of goods include cable television, cinemas, wireless internet, toll roads, etc. -- 

https://quickonomics.com/different-types-of-goods/

 

It is true that you and I can both watch the same program on cable-TV. The hidden error was identified by Ayn Rand as “the blank out” and Rand identified its logical expression as the fallacy of the stolen concept. You and I can both watch the same cable-TV show – up to a point: we all know what happens when too many users overload a website. More deeply and cogently, for anyone to access television or the internet, physical goods must be produced. The perception of social largess as a “club good” blanks out on the previous non-existence of roads and theaters.  

We [the American Historical Association] encountered a similar experience in 2001, when the AHA decided to create a freely available online collection of Civil War newspaper editorials, utilizing two volumes originally published by the AHA in 1931 and 1942. AHA staff quickly discovered that no copyright renewal was ever filed for the second volume, edited by Harold C. Perkins, and it subsequently had entered the public domain. However, the editor of the first volume, Dwight L. Dumond, had renewed the copyright in his own name in 1959. Orphan Works Notice of Inquiry – 70 Federal Register 3739 (Jan. 26, 2005)

http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/comments/OW0676-AHA.pdf

To me, the error was the granting of the copyright to Dwight L. Dumond. As the editor, he was a hireling. His work rightfully belonged to those who paid him for it. The concept of a collective entity in law –what we call a “corporation”-- has roots in the Roman republic. Under Roman law, a flock of sheep was a collective entity: lose a lamb or gain a lamb, it is the same flock. On that basis, cities were taxed: the city was an entity that owed tribute to Rome, itself a collective entity. No one owned a city. Under American law, the American Historical Association as an entity can certainly be protected from theft by its employees. 

 

On or about the same day as the link about Public Domain Day, Google News offered a link to a story from GameRant.com about the Star Trek canon. Star Trek is owned by Paramount Global. (The July 2024 merger with Skydance may be challenged now through the FCC but that does not affect what follows.) Since 1966 many details of the continuing, expanding, and extending myth have been changed. Others remain constant. In this case, the legal owners changed an element of the canon - the physiognomy of the Klingons was altered in Star Trek: Discovery and the fans objected. (Klingons had changed once already but that was accepted.) Using a new storyline in Star Trek: Lower Decks, the owners offered some technical explanations for the change. 

 

To me, that is all good because myths change in the retelling. Mythology allows that: characters can merge or split; new characters can be entered while established characters leave. Star Wars: A New Hope is just the Wizard of Oz: Luke is Dorothy; R2D2 is Toto, … But in Star Wars, one aspect of the Wicked Witch (Darth Vader) is saved while the other aspect of the character (the Emperor) perishes. That begs the basic question: Who owns Star Wars or Star Trek or Harry Potter?  At what point does the creation of intellectual private property enter the public domain? Is there such a point? 

Back in the early 2000s, before the Atlas Shrugged movies were released, a Rand Fan created some Atlas Shrugged swag, a Rearden Steel trucker's cap, etc. The Ayn Rand Institute sent her a lawyer letter reminding her that the artifacts were based on the copyrighted works of Ayn Rand. So, as an Objectivist herself, she ceased and desisted. But we cannot imagine Paramount chasing down every "Beam me up, Scotty" bumper sticker. And personally, I think that the ARI should have just shrugged it off by labelling their gear "Official" the way that Major League Baseball does. 

 

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2025/

I have donated to the Internet Archive and the Wayback Machine. (Similar archives include the Hathi Trust and the Linda Hall Library.) Like the promoters of Public Domain Day, my comrades at the Internet Archive claim a moral high ground because they are offering the works for free and have no commercial interest in the use. To me, that argument is irrelevant. And it is falsified by several considerations. They do accept donations, and it is easy to assume that donors are users. Absent donors, the entity would not exist. So, they are in business. And in business for a profit because not-for-profit is only a matter of bookkeeping: owner's equity is called "net assets."

Long ago, writing in The Libertarian Connection, Skye d’ Aureus and Natalie Hall argued against Ludwig von Mises’s assertion that truth and beauty are not economic goods. Skye and Natalie pointed out that truth and beauty must be produced by human action.  

As collectivism grows in popularity, and as the nonproductive consider themselves increasingly entitled to the wealth created by the productive, Rand’s arguments in favor of intellectual property rights merit reinforcing not diminishing. -- "Ayn Rand's 'Patents and Copyrights'" by Marilyn Moore, posted May 28, 2019.  https://www.atlassociety.org/post/ayn-rands-patents-and-copyrights

Writing for the Atlas Society, Marilyn Moore (Director of Student Programs) parsed the difference between copyrights and patents and argued contrary to Rand that literary works should be patented while inventions should be copyrighted.  Moreover, Moore asserted, as a metaphysical fact, a discovery cannot be patented or copyrighted. First, the discoverer did not create the fact; and, second, once announced to the public, the discoverer cannot prevent other people from now knowing what they know. Third--and most consequentially--it is immoral to deny independent discovery and therefore independent invention. It is unlikely that two people will write the same book. It is well known that two people can create the same solution to a technical problem based on a shared (though independent) understanding of the facts of reality.

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Copy Rights and Wrongs 

Objective Intellectual Property Law 

U.S. Patent Law Does Not Add Up 

Patent Nonsense: Intellectual Property Rights and Non-Objective Law 

Biohackers 

 

Confiscation: Gold as Contraband

Confiscation: Gold as Contraband 1933-1974 by Kenneth R. Ferguson was a pleasure to read. Ferguson writes well. I met Ken Ferguson in person at a coin show here in Austin. He speaks as intelligently as he writes. Our time together was enlightening. 

Few people ever get past citing Executive Order 6102. Even when they do point to that document, they most often stop short of fully citing and discussing it. This book delivers the facts. Ferguson tells the whole story, going past 6102 to the subsequent orders and laws. He lays out carefully and logically the many relevant details that highlight this singular event. He also examines the public response. I was impressed with his explanations of how and why Britain, France, and Switzerland returned to striking gold coins after World War II, using dies from previous years. 

This book carefully explains the intentions and consequences of the rolling orders and laws that redefined the monetary policy of the American government in the 1930s. On the first level, obviously, the goal was to get gold into the U.S. Treasury in order to meet foreign obligations. Moreover, the revaluation of the dollar did more than expand the money supply, though it did that. When the official price of gold moved from $20.67 per ounce to $35 per ounce, all of the paper profits went to the Treasury. Citizens who turned gold in were paid at the face value of the coins (or the equivalent for bullion), $20 for a $20 double eagle, not $33.86. 

As for whether surrendering gold was necessary, Ferguson demonstrates from several perspectives why it was not. Other nations made similar changes – demonetizing gold, going off the gold standard – without confiscating the private property of their citizens. That is a theme that Ferguson returns to often as he dissects the events and laws. If gold is money, then Congress (not the President) is authorized to define how much goes into what coins. That happened in 1834, for example. If gold is private property, then its uses as money are irrelevant in that context. Moreover, and most insightful (and damning) Ferguson shows that (1) Treasury stocks were not greatly improved by this law (though the Treasury did profit directly), and (2) the reason why is that half the gold in private holdings in the United States remained with its owners. People just ignored the law, as they had Prohibition earlier.

In 180 pages, this book provides a close and yet conversational examination of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s executive orders and the related Congressional acts that became laws. Ferguson identifies and explains the half dozen presidential orders and parallel banking acts, the criminalization of gold ownership, and the exclusions left open to numismatists. Turning to the international theater, the presentation builds on the official purposes of the Bretton Woods accords to illuminate the history of the 1950s and 1960s.  It was that context which provided the impetus for President Gerald Ford to lift all of those restrictions in 1974. 

From there, Ferguson considers the modern world, whether and to what extent gold is money, whether and to what extent it is an investment, and the prospects for a repeat of the draconian laws of the 1930s. That last is too often a springboard for ideologues who sell gold coins to harry the public into buying them. As a professional dealer in numismatic rarities, Ferguson shows more aplomb. 

Ferguson earned his master’s degree from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Since then, he was worked as a coin dealer. Those two facts explain why this book rests on careful research. His bibliography of 35 sources includes works by both John Kenneth Galbraith and Milton Friedman as well as authorities such as Q. David Bowers, John Craig, and Hans Schlumberger who are recognized within the numismatic community.

The weekend before, I attended a three-day seminar for authors on self-publishing. It was well worth the money. This book was published by the author and Ferguson did it right. The book is set in 11-point Garamond, which the user experience designers here in Austin assure me is the new standard in Roman (serif) fonts.  Of course, it is perfect bound. Ferguson told me that he turned for help to a professional editor. From the seminar I attended the weekend before, I learned how much he paid for the ISBN. It makes a difference in the professional presentation of any work that claims authority. Confiscation: Gold as Contraband 1933-1974 by Kenneth R. Ferguson adheres to that standard.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Objectivism and the Gold Standard 

Gresham’s Conjecture 

Electrum Sixths and the Treaty of Mytilene 

Numismatics: the Standard of Proof in Economics 

Jerry Emanuelson’s Algebraic Proof of Ricardo’s Law of Association

Most likely in the summer of 1970, Jerry Emanuelson published a proof showing that if two people work at two tasks at relatively different rates, they can trade their labor for mutual gain, even if one of them does both tasks better than the other.  His work appeared in The Libertarian Connection #13.  It is known to economists as Comparative Advantage, and it was suggested by Adam Smith, but argued forcefully later (1817) by David Ricardo. However, the formal statement was not known outside of academic economics; and it was, of course, compelling to libertarians. So, Jerry worked out several pages of algebraic inequalities for our benefit. As of this posting, it remains a lost work.

It is specifically inequality that makes Comparative Advantage be true.  The governing assumption is not that A is better than B, but that A and B produce what they trade at different comparative costs within their own economies. They have different opportunity costs. In order to maintain autarky (to produce all of their own goods themselves) they each must give up the opportunity to produce more of what they do better.  Even if Nation A or Person A is better at producing both items, it is still in the interests of both A and B to specialize and exchange, rather than attempting to produce everything for themselves.

Ricardo’s Law of Comparative Advantage also became famous.  Not only do libertarians know all about it …

https://mises.org/library/ricardian-law-comparative-advantage

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Ricardo.html

… but even Paul Krugman accepts it: 

http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/ricardo.htm

If all things were equal this would not work. Or so it is claimed.  In fact, I believe that the economists have not considered an important aspect of human nature that supports trade: alleviation of boredom. Eventually, the carpenter buys a bookcase, rather than making one. He can do it cheaper and better, but he has done enough of it that making another costs marginal utility and brings diminishing returns.  This is an old fact. Ancient Greek cities that produced good local wines exported them, even to other cities that produced good local wines. The wines tasted different, and the difference created value.  Ancient Greek towns named for their wine include Oinoanda in Lycia, Oinoe on the island of Ikaros, and Oiniadai in Akarnania. 

The Libertarian Connection was modeled on the science fiction fanzine. For your subscription, you were allowed to contribute two pages of content. The publishers collated the submissions, copied them, and distributed them to the subscribers.  The magazine came out every six weeks.  Originally, it was mimeographed. Contributors sent their works on stencils. The LC eventually went to photo-offset.

Issue 1 here:  http://fair-use.org/libertarian-connection/1969/02/10/from-the-publishers-of-libertarian-connection

Issue 2 here:  http://fair-use.org/libertarian-connection/issue/2

Issue 3 here: http://fair-use.org/libertarian-connection/issue/3

My comments about LC for Rebirth of Reason here: http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/GeneralForum/1211.shtml

In those early days, libertarianism was a very small set of people. Dale Haviland, a professional printer, produced the A is A Directory in 1971, which listed just about everyone who wrote an article for a libertarian magazine. He also produced a directory of those publications. That is what made Jerry Emanuelson’s proof important: it influenced a small group of people who themselves went on to become the Libertarian Party, Reason magazine, the Cato Institute, and much else. 

You can find the original treatise On The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (London: John Murray, Albemarle-Street), by David Ricardo, 1817 (third edition, 1821) as a text file here:

http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/ricardo/prin/index.html

You can find the algebraic statements for Comparative Advantage in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage  The bibliography of sources for that article includes these:

· MacDougall, G. D. A. (1951). “British and American exports: A study suggested by the theory of comparative costs. Part I.”. The Economic Journal. 61 (244). pp. 697–724.

· MacDougall, G. D. A. (1952). “British and American exports: A study suggested by the theory of comparative costs. Part II.”. The Economic Journal. 62 (247). pp. 487–521.

· Stern, Robert M. (1962). “British and American productivity and comparative costs in international trade”. Oxford Economic Papers. pp. 275–296.

· Balassa, Bela. (1963). “An empirical demonstration of classical comparative cost theory”. The Review of Economics and Statistics. pp. 231–238.

· Chipman, John S. (1965). “A Survey of the Theory of International Trade: Part 1, The Classical Theory”. Econometrica 33 (3): 477–519. Section 1.8, p.509.

The theory and its algebra were known, but not widely known to those with great interest in promoting free trade.

For much more see, for instance, “Ancient Greece and Wine” in Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece_and_wine

But see, also, modern Greece and wine here:

http://enroute.aircanada.com/en/articles/greece-wine-tour

Erwin S. “Filthy Pierre” Strauss bought The Libertarian Connection from Skye d'Aureous and Natalee Hall, and soon changed its masthead to The Connection.  Filthy is active in science fiction fandom. As neither Jerry nor I can find our archives, I wrote to him to see what his terms and conditions may be.

Jerry Emanuelson's homepage is called Future Science here: http://www.futurescience.com/

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

Supplies and Demands

The Shroff

Tokens of Capitalism

What is Legal Tender?

Numismatics: the standard of proof in economics

Furloughs for Freedom: Downsizing the Government

On Milton Friedman's theory of the negative income tax - direct payments with no questions asked would be cheaper than the welfare system - it would be better to furlough all (almost all) of the government employees and keep paying them not to work because what they do is destructive.  If they stop doing it, we all would be better off.

Of course we would have a huge debate about what is the absolute minimum necessary government. Conservatives and  libertarians know Ayn Rand's specification that a government holds a monopoly on the use of (retaliatory) force. Thus, the government must have police forces.  Rand actually was echoing Max Weber who said the same thing in his address, Politik als Beruf (Politics as a Profession), to the Free Students Union of Munich in 1920.  In that address, he acknowledged that he was quoting Trotsky at the Brest-Litovsk Conference.  So, it seems that everyone left, center, and right agrees that the government should keep the police.  What about the post office or the patent office?  Both of those are in the Constitution of 1789.

Reducing government looks a lot like this.

It might be that we should pare down the government in reverse chronological order.  But perhaps in the days of FedEx, UPS, and big pharma and GMOs we do not need the US Postal Service but do need need the Food and Drug Administration.  The FBI was founded in 1908, the Federal Marshals in 1789.  Which do we need more?  Let the debates go on.   The principle remains.

 The principle is that political power is economically inefficient, and causes market misallocations, and therefore poverty.

The government decides what to do based on power - votes won or control extended - not on market, i.e., profit.  Therefore, all government decisions are misallocations of resources.  Therefore, all government decisions result in poverty.  The less government you have, the more prosperity you have.  That is a general principle.

The specific losses caused by taxes, regulations, prosecutions, and enforcement of laws are easy to see and hard to compute because of their volume and magnitude.  

In the case of truly essential services, we might be willing to accept a dislocation of resources for clear social gain.  It is better to have economically inefficient police than to have chaos, or so we say. Of course, government is much more than mere policing.

Federal Executive Departments

Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Department of Commerce (DOC)

Department of Defense (DOD)

Department of Education (ED)

Department of Energy (DOE)

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

Department of Justice (DOJ)

Department of Labor (DOL)

Department of State (DOS)

Department of the Interior (DOI)

Department of the Treasury

Department of Transportation (DOT)

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

Federal Independent Agencies and Corporations

Administrative Conference of the United States

Advisory Council on Historic Preservation

African Development Foundation

AMTRAK (National Railroad Passenger Corporation)

Broadcasting Board of Governors

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

Commission on Civil Rights

Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)

Corporation for National and Community Service

Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board

Director of National Intelligence

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)

Export-Import Bank of the United States

Farm Credit Administration

Farm Credit System Insurance Corporation

Federal Communications Commission (FCC)

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

Federal Election Commission (FEC)

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Federal Housing Finance Agency

Federal Labor Relations Authority

Federal Maritime Commission

Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service

Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission

Federal Reserve System

Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board

Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

General Services Administration (GSA)

Institute of Museum and Library Services

Inter-American Foundation

Merit Systems Protection Board

Millennium Challenge Corporation

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)

National Capital Planning Commission

National Council on Disability

National Credit Union Administration (NCUA)

National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Humanities

National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)

National Mediation Board

National Railroad Passenger Corporation (AMTRAK)

National Science Foundation (NSF)

National Transportation Safety Board

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)

Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission

Office of Compliance

Office of Government Ethics

Office of Personnel Management

Office of Special Counsel

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive

Overseas Private Investment Corporation

Panama Canal Commission

Peace Corps

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation

Postal Regulatory Commission

Railroad Retirement Board

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

Selective Service System

Small Business Administration (SBA)

Social Security Administration (SSA)

Tennessee Valley Authority

U.S. Trade and Development Agency

United States Agency for International Development

United States International Trade Commission

United States Postal Service (USPS)

67 Federal Boards, Commissions, and Advisory Committees

(Mostly volunteers from the communities: Citizens Stamp Committee, for instance. They do entail some operational costs, even if the work of management is freely given.)

Additional Advisory Committees cost about $350 Million per year

http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/249013

Quasi-Official Agencies

Legal Services Corporation

Smithsonian Institution

State Justice Institute

United States Institute of Peace

SEE 

http://www.usa.gov/Agencies/Federal/Executive.shtml

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

The Cure for a Failing Empire

Active Defense and Passive Aggression, Part 2

Stand Up and Be Counted

Etruscans and Americans

The American Political Tradition and Profiles in Courage

Numismatics: History as Market

Most people call it “coin collecting” but numismatics is the art and science that studies the forms and uses of money. This includes stock certificates, bank drafts, military decorations and fine art medals as well as coins, which, after 2500 years, are still the most common form of money. “Coins are history you can hold in your hand,” is a common saying in numismatics.  You can own a coin struck by Philip II of Macedon and believe within reason that it might have been given to Aristotle.

 

Miletos 1/12 stater: lifetime of Thales
(0.9 cm; 1.1 grams)

Back in the 1990s, inspired by the episode “Backbone of the Night” from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos broadcasts, I assembled about 25 ancient coins from the towns and times of famous philosophers, from Thales to Hypatia. Except for the Owl of Athens and a tetradrachm from Alexandria in Egypt, none cost more than $200 and most cost less than $100 at the time.

Middlesex DH 1033a:
Sir Isaac Newton
Half Penny Token

The political leaders of the American Revolution who signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, also signed paper money. Many of these are available in middle collector grades, Very Good to Very Fine, for less than $500, sometimes surprising less.

During the late 1700s and early 1800s, the British royal treasury was nearly empty, yet the benefits of capitalism were everywhere. Taverns and merchants issued their own bronze penny and halfpenny tokens. Hundreds of types and thousands of varieties are known. Many of them celebrate trade, commerce, peace, and prosperity.

Reverse of DH 1033a
about the size of a
US Quarter

In America, from about 1834 to about 1844, a series of economic changes brought “hard times” and Hard Times Tokens. These privately minted coins stand out as being pointedly political, for or against Jackson, Van Buren or Daniel Webster. There were even Abolitionist tokens. These all circulated in daily trade. Many are also advertising cards, for instance for Van Nostrand, which then was only a bookstore in New York.

 

Canadian tokens of the 1840s were part of the social fabric that led to The Rebellions and ultimately to the burning of the Parliament at Montreal. Other Canadian tokens from the Maritime Provinces explicitly honor Trade and Commerce, and state “Pure Copper is Preferable to Paper,” and assert, “More Trade, Fewer Taxes.” 

During the early 19th century, private banks in America often displayed vignettes of Spanish and Mexican coins.  Promising to pay "25 cents" or "50 cents" the pictures would be of one- and two-reales coins.  (See Spanish Coins on American Notes here.)

Stock certificates from the Edison Companies are always in greater demand, and certificates from the mid-1800s cost much more than those from the early 20th century. However, the Erie Railroad, the New York Central, Bethlehem Steel, and the many Edison Electric companies left us legacies that are very affordable. 

Numismatics is one of the last unregulated markets. In the USA, no government licenses or special regulations exist to define who is a numismatist.  (Specific laws do define “coins” and otherwise regulate the creation and production of money objects and money substitutes.)  The very few college courses in numismatics on American campuses are fleeting at best, though in Europe such studies are recognized. In this market, anyone can claim to be anything. Validation, such as it is, is by ad hoc standards of conduct set within the hobby by private organizations: the American Numismatic Society, the American Numismatic Association, the International Association of Professional Numismatists, and the Professional Numismatists Guild. These groups set standards far above any government laws. For instance an ANA dealer can be banned from membership for selling a single counterfeit item, and ignorance is not an excuse.

Realize that even among the oldest known examples, few types of coins are objectively rare. In fact, demand drives price.  So, an ancient Roman coin, known only from a museum catalog, will be dirt cheap compared to a so-called “rare” American coin with a certified population in the tens of thousands.  Coins, stock certificates, bank drafts, and other monetary media always were  intended to be common. Coins are easily the most common artifact of any civilization - and even so-called "primitive" societies have objects of social status that serve some of the purposes of money. 

We have a slogan in numismatics: Buy the book before you buy the coin. It is a general warning that this is a hobby where knowledge and money are identical. Numismatics is a hobby that actively rewards greed. 

If you have a passion for a time and place in history, such as the American Revolution or the Golden Age of Athens, you will enjoy your acquisitions - but you may not find another buyer later.  In a previous generation, most American collectors accumulated circulating American coins.   Today, collectors tend to become specialists. 

The American Numismatic Association offers two sequential week-long seminars on its Colorado Springs campus. They also provide a range of self-study materials; and they grant a master’s certificate in numismatics.  Numismatists are autodidacts.

My interest, of course, goes back to reading Atlas Shrugged as a teenager.  But it was not until 30 years later that I became active in the hobby.  I wrote magazine articles and then joined Coin World as their international editor for a year.  After that, I stopped collecting entirely, sold off my inventory, and focused on research and reporting.  (See Forgery and Fraud in Numismatics here on Necessary Facts.)

I have been editor and webmaster for the Michigan State Numismatic Society (2004-2011) and for seven years (2003-2010), I wrote the “Internet Connections” column for The Numismatist.  Below are some of the trusted resources that will help you find your own interests in this huge, unregulated market for the material artifacts of trade and commerce.

The American Numismatic Association was founded in 1891, and chartered by Congress in 1912.  Congress declared the charter permanent in 1962.  At semi-annual ANA conventions, about 300 dealers from around the world come to meet several thousand collectors.  You also will find sales booths for private and government mints from around the world, as well as educational seminars, museum-quality educational displays and judged exhibits, various auctions, and nightly awards dinners and celebratory parties.  You can find local member dealers via the ANA website.

The American Numismatic Society  was founded in 1859 and is considered the more scholarly of the two national American organizations. The ANS is focused closely on colonial and early republic American coins and paper money, ancient coins, and similar topics. 

Eugen Böhm-Bawerk founder of Austrian economics

• The Wildwinds database of auctions of ancient coins is highly regarded.
• Coin Archives posts auction results for a small group of dealers in ancient and world coins.  These firms are members of the Professional Numismatists Guild, the ANA, and other similar societies.
• The International Banknote Society  provides a very active resource for hobbyists.
• The VCoins dealer ring was founded over ten years ago to overcome the distressing lack of trustworthy online auctions.  Their dealers are typically members of other professional societies as well.

For several years, Clinton Hollins ran classified ads selling 100 different stock certificates for $55.  After he passed, his wife took over the business.  They also sold the standard catalog for American stocks and bonds.  Scripophily is the formal name for the study of stocks, bonds, and fiduciary instruments; and specialty clubs and other resources are out there.  Find the Professional Scripophily Trade Association here. 

• Whitman Publishing  https://www.whitman.com/store
• Krause Books http://www.krausebooks.com/
• Amos Press http://www.amospress.com/
• Stanton Publishing http://www.stantonbooks.com/
• Coin World newspaper (Amos Press)  http://www.coinworld.com/
• Numismatic News (Krause Books)  http://www.numismaticnews.net/

These discussion boards are trusted places for new and experienced collectors to share information, news, and gossip.  

• Coin Talk: http://www.cointalk.com/
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 (This article was based on a similar post for Rebirth of Reason website, Monday March 21, 2005.)

Also on Necessary Facts

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Numismatics Informs Economics 

Numismatics: the Standard of Proof in Economics

Murray Rothbard: Fraud or Faker?

Money is Speech 

Money as Speech and Peacemaking 

To Make Money 

Objectivism and the Gold Standard 

Gresham's Conjecture

We learn it as "Gresham's Law" the claim that "bad money drives good money from the market." But the general rule has many exceptions.

Free market economists quickly amend Gresham's Assertion to insist that both moneys must be legally equivalent. If a gold dollar and a silver dollar both circulate, and if their relative value changes, then the under-valued one will be hoarded.  If you can get $1.10 in silver for a gold dollar, you will save the gold coin and pass off the silver dollar, which is overvalued: worth only 90.9 cents in gold; it is good for 100 cents of a dollar. Therefore, people will hoard the coin with the greater intrinsic value.  This has some truth; history provides examples. 


Even that thumbnail explanation may be too broad; and unwarranted extensions and expansions are issued by shallow thinkers such as the "anarcho-capitalist" Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995) of the Austrian school. In his book, A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II, on page 126, Rothbard claims that the nickel-copper small cent was hoarded (true) and exported (not true). Rothbard also asserts: "The penny shortage was finally alleviated when a debased and lighter-weight penny was issued in the spring of 1864, consisting of bronze instead of nickel and copper." This is utter nonsense.

There was no incentive to export a coin in the uncommon nickel alloy 88% copper 12% nickel. Nickel was chosen largely from the influence of Joseph Wharton who owned a mine. The Mint found the nickel alloy too hard: dies wore out.  The Mint turned to the more familiar and softer "French bronze" 95% copper with a 5% tin-zinc mix. The lighter coins did not drive the older issues from the market. The success of the Northern armies in the War Between the States brought confidence to the markets, though perhaps any peace  would have, regardless of who won.  In point of fact - facts often being absent from the works of Rothbard - when the smaller cents (called "nicks" or "nickels") were first issued in 1854, people lined up at the Philadelphia Mint to turn in their heavier (and therefore more intrinsically valuable) Large Cents (1793-1857). The Mint was exchanging old cents for new, one for one, but boys who had been early in the lines sold their Small Cents for premiums.  They were curios.  Eventually, they fell to parity ... and Large Cents (now scarcer) were pursued even more passionately by numismatists.

Proof  Three Cent Silver  1858
Heritage Auctions Sept. 2010 Long Beach Signature Sale Lot 5029

Proof Three Cent Nickel 1870 
Heritage Auctions Sept. 2010 Long Beach Signture Sale Lot 5132 

The history of United States federal coinage provides other counter-examples to Gresham's Conjecture.  The silver half dime circulated alongside the nickel 5-cent coin. The 3-cent silver circulated alongside the 3-cent nickel. While gold and silver did fluctuate in value, causing problems for the Mint, which was a huge consumer and reseller of both, mostly, US silver coins and US gold coins went into separate channels.

Proof Seated Half Dime 1870 
Heritage Auctions 2010 April-May Milwaukee Lot 2515 

Proof Shield Nickel  1870
Heritage Auctions 2010 January Orlando, Lot 3679 

From 1878-1904, the US Mint struck over 24 million ounces of silver dollars per year, far in excess of anyone's demand, to meet the political agenda of Western mining interests. The Comstock Lode and other strikes flooded the markets with cheap silver and the price of it fell relative to gold.  Nonetheless, silver dollars sat in bags; and even today fully one-third are in uncirculated condition.  According to Gresham's Suggestion, silver dollars should have driven gold dollars from the market.  They did not. It seems that gold dollars were not in demand at all. (See http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v18n30a13.html)

The tendency just described is, however, limited by the fact that coins of different metals are unlikely to be equally useful in different transactions. In particular, gold coins will generally be of larger denominations and as such cannot supply the need for smaller change (cf. Sargent and Velde 2002). Consequently, even though gold may be legally overvalued relative to silver, and silver may cease to be voluntarily rendered to the mint, silver coins are unlikely to disappear from circulation altogether.  "Gresham's Law" by George Selgin at Economic History here.

Gresham's Rule does have some validity.  In the Middle Ages, when coins hundreds of years old still circulated, old, worn coins were spent while new, heavy coins were held.  As Europe experienced perhaps putative "silver famines" the purity of coinages fell. As silver became relatively more valuable, it took less to buy the same goods and services. Coins fell in purity.  Had they not, you would have needed tweezers to hold a penny's worth of silver. Debasement was a convenience.  But it still meant that if two coins are both "pennies" and one has more silver than the other the common choice is to spend the lighter coin.  Even so, history provides many examples of heavy coins such as the stable and reliable English sterling penny being the engines of commerce.

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS
Numismatics Informs Economics
Numismatics: the Standard of Proof in Economics
Supplies and Demands
Murray Rothbard: Fraud or Faker