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newsletters. Mr. Conturi acknowledged that overall sale prices
in the coin market were lower toward the later part of 1992, but
concluded that this "recession" had little if any effect on
premium coin collections like the Trompeter Collection. Mr.
Conturi did not factor in any type of discount to arrive at his
conclusion of fair market value.
The estate argues that the applicable value of the 191 coins
was between $4.5 million and $4.8 million. The estate relies on
two experts. The first expert, Maurice Rosen (Mr. Rosen), is the
president of Numismatic Counseling, Inc., a rare coin company
that specializes in assembling and managing investment
portfolios. He has been the editor of the Rosen Numismatic
Advisory (a provider of coin analysis and market commentary)
since 1976, and he was a part-time grader at NGC from 1987
through 1990. He valued the 191 coins according to the following
methodology. First, he assigned an unadjusted value to each
coin, based on raw price data and relevant grading factors. In
so doing, he graded 61 percent of the coins the same as PCGS,
26 percent of the coins lower than PCGS, and 13 percent of the
coins higher than PCGS. In the case of one set of coins (the
6-piece Amazonian Set), he did not grade the set but relied
solely on his opinion as to its fair market value. Second, he
aggregated each coin's unadjusted value to arrive at an
unadjusted value for all coins. Third, he adjusted his
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