Golden. The first American-made gold coin denominated in dollars was the Brasher doubloon. In 1787, Ephraim Brasher, a goldsmith and silversmith, as well as a neighbor of George Washington, petitioned the State of New York to mint copper coins. But he was denied when New York decided to not to get into the business of minting copper coinage.
Brasher at the time had developed a wide reputation for his craft and his hallmark, which he stamped on all his coins, was very significant. Over the next few years Brasher struck various coppers, in addition to a small quantity of gold coins. In March of 1981, one of those gold coins, weighing 26.6 grams and composed of .917 (22-carat) gold, was sold at public auction for $625,000. Last week, another of those same rare pieces traded hands at a reported $7.4 million. The deal was brokered by Blanchard and Co., the New Orleans-based coin and precious metals company. They said a Wall Street investment firm purchased the doubloon.
Good news. The Christian Science Monitor reported that one big reason teenage pregnancies went down in 2010 was better communication between the kids and mom and dad. There were other factors, like better education for abstinence, more usage of birth control and even the poor economy. The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics reported last month that the rate declined 9 percent from 2009 to 2010, with 34.3 births per 1,000 teens ages 15 to 19. That marks the largest single-year drop since 1946-47, and the lowest level ever reported in the United States. Teenage birthrates have tracked a relatively steady downward trend since 1991, when the rate was 61.8 births per 1,000 teens. (The rates were 52.2 in 1981, 64.5 in 1971, and 88.6 in 1961.)
Why it matters. Scientists in Geneva, Switzerland announced that they are as near as they’ve ever been to proving the existence of the Higgs boson particle, or the “God particle,” as the media likes to call it. If this comes to pass, physicists say it will give important answers concerning our universe. It’s still a bit gray, however, just what the questions are, but the Higgs boson, we are told, will explain why all other particles have mass and is fundamental to a complete understanding of matter. The tool being used for the discovery is the controversial $10 billion Hadron Collider, located at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva. The mammoth machine is able to circulate a high-energy proton beam around the collider’s 17-mile tunnel. Stay tuned.
Early polls. A new NBC/Marist poll is showing President Obama ahead of Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney in South Carolina, of all places. Yes, we’re talking about the home state of Lindsay Graham and the late Strom Thurmond. Michael Tomasky of The Daily Beast said that if the president actually wins the state, “we will know that the Republicans are headed off the cliff.” In Florida, a state with more delegate significance, NBC/Marist has Obama leading both Romney and Gingrich by outside the margin of error. He leads Romney 48-41 and Gingrich 51-39.
Christmas Spirit. It’s a common site this time of year, the bell ringers in front of stores across the land collecting spare change from shoppers for the Salvation Army. But in Kansas City, Mo., they did a little better this season. Over the weekend, two gold bars were dropped into the collection kettles – a 10-gram gold bar worth up to $800 and a 5-gram gold bar worth $310, in different parts of the Midwest city. Then in the neighboring state of Kansas, a $2,000 ¾ carat diamond was dropped in a kettle outside a Walmart in Shawnee. The Salvation Army kettle tradition dates back to 1891, when Captain Joseph McFee was looking for a way to buy holiday dinners for the poor. He decided to use a pot to collect money, with a sign that read, “Keep the Pot Boiling.” Today, the Salvation Army helps more than 4.5 million people during the holidays, providing poor families with toys and Christmas food baskets.