The correct answers are posted here.

1) Who is the current U.S. Treasurer?
Rosie Rios

2) How many planes were hijacked, and where did they ultimately crash?
Four (4) planes: Two into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, one crashed into the Pentagon and the fourth in Shanksville, Pennsylvania

3) President Barack Obama signed the National September 11 Memorial & Museum Commemorative Act on August 6, 2010.

4) What does the water on the medal’s reverse symbolize?
Peace and the continuity of life

5) Did anyone who was on the flights survive?
No

6) Who designed and sculpted both sides of the medal?
Front: Designed by Donna Weaver, sculpted by Phebe Hemphill
Back: Designed by Donna Weaver, sculpted by Joseph Menna

It’s official: The Realm of Coins has a new heavyweight champion—with a seven-figure price tag to back its claim to the title.

A 2007 Canadian Maple Leaf containing 220.5 pounds of gold (that’s 100 kilograms to you metric-minded nerds) changed hands (or forklifts) for $4 million at an auction held in late June in Vienna, Austria. Put another way, it sold for 3.27 million euros.

That’s among the highest prices ever paid for a single coin. But most single coins are designed, of course, with people’s pockets—not flatbed trucks—in mind.

More to the point, the price appears to be an all-time record for a single bullion coin—for that’s how the auction bidders seem to have viewed this behemoth.

The coin is .9999 fine—essentially pure gold—and contains 2,646 troy ounces of gold. With the yellow metal trading for about $1,250 an ounce at the time of the sale, that translates into a bullion value of roughly $3.3 million.

Austria’s Dorotheum auction house, which conducted the sale, concluded–correctly, it appears–that bullion value, not rarity, was the primary motivation of the buyer, a Spanish precious-metal trading company called Oro Direct.

Dorotheum sold the coin as part of its liquidation of assets belonging to the previous owner, AvW Group, an Austrian investment firm that went bankrupt.

 The coin is 21 inches (53 centimeters) in diameter and 1.2 inches thick, carries a face value of 1 million Canadian dollars ($960,000 U.S.) and bears the same design as the regular 1-ounce Maple Leaf, with the standard coinage portrait of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse and a (very large) likeness of the maple leaf, Canada’s national symbol, on the reverse.

Why make a coin weighing more than a tenth of a ton? As a pocket piece for Paul Bunyan … a teething ring for Godzilla?

It was produced by the Royal Canadian Mint (presumably with great difficulty) in what seems to have been a high-profile game of “Can You Top This?”

In 2004, the Austrian Mint celebrated the 15^th anniversary of its Philharmonic gold bullion coin by producing 15 super-size examples of the coin, each containing 1,000 troy ounces (68.57 pounds) of pure gold and carrying a face value of 100,000 euros. This earned the giant Philharmonics a spot in Guinness World Records as the largest gold coins in the world.

 Canadian officials—green with envy and flush with gold—set about rewriting the record book by coming up with an even more mammoth Maple Leaf. The RCM made just five examples of the 2007 coin, one of which reportedly found its way to Queen Elizabeth.

Obviously, being one of only five pieces known doesn’t do nearly as much for the value of a 220.5-pound gold coin as it does for a 5-gram base-metal five-cent piece. Five, of course, is also the number of known examples of the 1913 Liberty Head nickel. One of those sold for $4.15 million in 2005—making it more valuable than the huge Maple Leaf, as well as much more portable.

With all these gold gargantuans floating around, who can blame the U.S. Mint for seeking its “pound of flash” by offering 5-ounce silver versions of the (dare I say those trademarked words) “America the Beautiful” quarters depicting national parks and historic sites. These, after all, are every bit as impractical as the Austrian and Canadian manhole covers. And having intrinsic worth of about $100 each, they seem even more foolish with their statement of value inscribed as QUARTER DOLLAR.

What’s more, the Mint’s “hockey puck” silver coins should give certification services a chance to stretch their new “Plus” grading to the limit. With all the king-size slabs that could be required, in fact, this might be the best time to get into plastics since Mister McGuire gave that advice to Benjamin Braddock in “The Graduate.”

If this keeps up, British coins won’t be the only ones whose value is measured in pounds. And everyone’s pay will be based on scale.

Then again, the whole idea may end up going over like a lead balloon.

We’ll just have to weight and see.

The first is the four-coin Famous Airships collection, the mint’s first oval coin. Each coin is 1 Troy ounce minted from 99.9 percent pure silver. The coins are $2 legal tender of Fiji Islands.

The collection has a restricted mintage of 20,000 sets for worldwide distribution.

The second is a one-ounce, 99.9 percent pure silver coin that celebrates the resurgence of the humpback whale. The coin is $2 legal tender of the Pitcairn islands.

The “Airships” set and the humpback whales coin can be ordered online at www.newzealandmint.com.

The New Zealand Mint is New Zealand’s only precious metal mint. Founded in 1967, it has been minting legal tender commemorative coins, gold bullion and medallions for more than 40 years. Best known for its Gold Kiwi bullion, New Zealand Mint produces and markets a wide range of precious metal items.

If the status of your subscription is in doubt, call our authorized subscription service at (760) 291-1549 or or e-mail coinagemag@pcspublink.com and request a reply.

Four years have passed since the Smithsonian closed the long-running “History of Coins and Medals” exhibit in 2005 and put the collection in mothballs—and that’s far too long for such a national treasure to be locked away where people can’t see and enjoy it.

I’m pleased that a new exhibit—said to be better than the old one—is now showcasing highlights from the collection.

Still, I can’t forget the frustration I felt when Smithsonian higher-ups announced their intention to pull the

coins from public view and then went on to stash them—unceremoniously and unapologetically—in the deep recesses of the institution known as “The Nation’s Attic.”

Back then, we were told the collection was being shelved as part of a long-term reorganization and “revitalization.” The action was necessary, officials explained, because major renovations were planned at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., where the collection was housed. Indeed, that whole museum was shut down.

The renovations, it turned out, didn’t really center on the numismatic collection. Rather, Smithsonian bigwigs had formulated plans for a major new display honoring “The Star-Spangled Banner” linked to the bicentennial of Francis Scott Key’s famous poem.

The new display, it seemed, would require opening up a three-story area, including space previously used for the numismatic exhibit.

I’d never demean a display devoted to Old Glory. Saluting the Stars and Stripes is a privilege, and I’m sure the Smithsonian’s tribute will be well received by everyone who sees it.

Nonetheless, I resented the matter-of-fact, almost imperious way the Smithsonian broke the news that the national coin collection soon would be sent to the sidelines for nearly half a decade.

“Surely,” I wrote at the time, “museum officials could have come up with a

way of keeping the collection—or at least a major part of it—open to the public while the physical changes were under way.”

Significantly, the collection’s longtime curator, Elvira Clain-Stefanelli, had died in 2001 and wasn’t around to battle the bureaucracy three years later. Mrs. Stefanelli fiercely resisted earlier attempts to limit the size, scope and exposure of the collection and would have fought tooth-and-nail to block—or at least temper—this one. But following her death, the reins passed to more compliant hands.

Clearly, the people who closed the exhibit had little sensitivity to how deeply its loss—for such a lengthy period—would be felt by many Americans in and out of the hobby. Nor did they anticipate the extent and intensity of the outcry that greeted their decision.

At first, there was real concern that Smithsonian officials might never put the coins back on public display in anything resembling the previous form. This fear was fed by their stated intentions.

Instead of a centralized exhibit area devoted exclusively to coins and related items, they said they envisioned more sweeping thematic displays in which numismatic items would be used to help tell larger stories. Thus, an exhibit on the American Revolution might incorporate Continental currency to show how the Founding Fathers financed the war.

“This approach,” I wrote back in 2004, “would be fine as a supplement to a central numismatic display, but not as a replacement. By itself, without a core numismatic exhibit, it would scatter the components and minimize the impact of what is, after all, the finest such collection in the United States.”

Thankfully, Smithsonian officials reconsidered such plans. In fact, they redrew much of their original blueprint—influenced, I suspect, by the storm of angry protest that erupted when their intentions came to light. I’m sure they were swayed, as well, by the strong financial support they got from hobby sources to help ensure that key elements of the collection would be returned to public view.

During the four-year gap, they even opened a small coin display in a building called the Smithsonian Castle and set up modest displays at major coin shows.

However it came about, the new display at the Museum of American History—“Stories of Money”—is most welcome.

Let’s hope it reflects a new and more enlightened attitude, as well, by the people overseeing The Nation’s Attic.?

A new exhibition at the National Museum of American History lets the public interact with rare coins and paper money

by Dom Yanchunas

Uncle Sam’s Coin Collection

The United States didn’t always have a National Numismatic Collection. Now, a fraction of it is back on display

by Tom DeLorey

The Unsung 1909-S Cent

The 1909-S Indian Head cent is always overshadowed by that “other” 1909-S cent, even though its statistics should make it more desirable

by Dom Yanchunas

Coin Capsule: 326 B.C.

Alexander the Great had conquered the world, and the idea of “coinage” was starting to catch on worldwide

by Jon Blackwell

Book Notes

There’s something for everyone as the author reviews three new books and comments on one second edition

by Mike Thorne

Presidential Dollars: James Knox Polk

Polk accomplished all four of his objectives and honored his pledge to serve only one term as president

by Ron Meyer

Sarah Polk

She was the only first lady who took on the additional role of the president’s private secretary

by Ron Meyer