"Freedom Tower" Coins

Hi MC (No, I'm not following you around the forum. It just seems that way. We seem to have very similar interests and you post interesting topics. .)

NY Governor-Elect Eliot Spitzer when NYS Attorney-General certainly knocked National Collectors Mint down where it belongs. I'm no longer a legal resident of NYS, but I'm proud that someone from back home had the cahones to nail NCN.

Unfortunately, the problem has not yet gone away. NCM still sells the Tower "coins" (tokens, actually) although has now omitted the claims for which it was fined and, as far as I know, no longer advertises on TV although I've seen their ads in veterans' and other published magazines. NCM also still makes the dubious claim that the silver (and other metals) came from the World Trade Center although it has never explained how such metal came into its possession. As a vet of 9/11, I tend to be incensed by such a claim which, if true, would mean NCM was a participant in looting.

A neighbor friend of mine down here in AZ brought over one of the WTC tokens struck by NCM; he had been given it as a gift. I'd been tutoring him on real coins versus privately minted tokens, so he knew its actual value was low and NCM's claims either unverifiable or questionable at best, but he wanted to show it to me anyway. No doubt, it's a pretty piece of metal, but in my not so humble opinion, absolutely worthless as a numismatic item of interest. It might gain a little value by, oh, say the year 2150. Or not.

Interesting reference to ebay fraud cases. I hope it might do some good, education-wise, but judging by the lack of comments/rebuttals, I fear it's just another gripe site with no real teeth.

Fred

Fred, I knew you weren't and I find alot of this educational and very interesting !
I imagine a movie could be made about the underworld of coins.

Seeing how you are familar with NY I thought you would enjoy this below seeing how part of it deals with Wall Street.

The link below is very interesting about money receieved from recent wall street settlements used to fund this program. I imagine it would be great to have a pbs channel that one can go to and keep advised of the recent scams etc. I would hope one day one of the judges in any of the coin scam cases sets prescedent from there on out that makes each person convicted pay to a fund to do exactly as the show below.Money would be well spent informing the masses and not just the ones that read it in law cases or a newspaper. Most miss them.

Every show also includes a "Scam Alert" report from around the country to help people avoid the most common frauds.


http://www.moneytrack.org/pressrel.htm

Seems to me I would want to protect myself before getting involved with anything that I would sign my name to that has anything to do with coins dealing with a tragedy where lots and lots of people died. With that being said it seems it makes you look like you may of known prior to its release that the coin concept was to use a very tiny tiny portion of a graded known silver coin though not how it was going to be advertised? Fine Line Here ? I don't know anything other than what I read though the appearance hurts when associated at any level.Is that your art that is still used on the coin ? And are you employed at SoftSky Inc.in Sheridan.Wyoming.
These companies like SoftSky Inc. should have restraints when it comes to making tragedy coins etc. before the marketers gets ahold of them.
Seems the claim of the coins silver with who but themselves to guarantee in which they only used tiny tiny portions of the silver from that coin from the slabs. The medallion is an inexpensive metal alloy plated with silver that is about one-third the thickness of a human hair.Spitzer says the coin was worth less than a penny. The company valued the coins at 39 dollars, but sold them at 19 dollars and 95 cents. The company took in $11 million selling the coins.Fool me once I doubt I will be fooled the next time. Guess in my opinion of those like NCM that spend all their time mind bending scheme to make money off a terrible attack to prey on those by making false misleading statements is in my opinion thugs or what the government calls fraudulent and a crime. They went to extreme measures to make this scam work. They have to keep selling most likely in my opinion because of the inventory left on the shelves I would presume before conjuring up the next scheme.

Maybe the next coins will be for each of all the 4 planes that crashed.

With the figures of 11 million dollars and more the temptation for some is just to overwhelming I suppose not to make monies off people passing away.

I have written the above with curiosity and wonderment.

dcarr your art is fabulous and it is awful it was used in that way and hopefully in the future you will legally protect yourself before you sell your art to someone that has criminal plans. Maybe by having some type of clause in your contract so you can remove the rights to your work and be compensated for damages if used illegally.

Edited because of article on link by dcarr.

You are far from the first artistic talent to be abused so by a commission. I sometimes think that for every altruist, there are a dozen thieves.

Like I said your art is fabulous and your depiction picture towards those that abused your talent is well received by me and I'm sure alot of others. Maybe the government can make some of these defiant coins and send them to each Al Quida member. They would go with the deck of cards that are in play during this war.