Word: segel
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...another of Franklin's collections, which are struck in high-proof quality and limited in number to the list of those who subscribe-and pay-in advance. After that number is made, the die is destroyed, creating what the mint's founder, former Adman Joseph M. Segel, calls "instant rarity...
Winner's Likeness. The 40-year-old Segel, who has never collected coins, got the idea for producing medals from a news photo of crowds lined up at the U.S. Mint in Washington in 1964 to buy the last bags of silver dollars sold at par value. Then part owner of a firm that promoted calendars, cigarette lighters and other giveaway items imprinted with corporate trademarks, Segel saw in the picture "an interesting marketing opportunity" for a kind of non-coin of the realm. Advertising in collectors' magazines, he initially signed up 5,252 people to join...
When production problems developed in striking early medals, Segel hired away from the U.S. Mint no less an expert than its chief engraver, Gilroy Roberts, who helped set up the Franklin Mint and became its chairman. Construction was financed in 1965 by offering 400,000 shares of stock to members of the Commemorative Society and coin collectors at $6.075 a share. Anyone who then invested $607.50 in 100 shares, which have since been split six times, today owns stock worth $24,600. Segel and his wife have more than $9,000,000 of it. In 1969 Segel sold the Commemorative...