Liberty Dollar Update

[notorial dissent]

I don't know if Braun started out as a conman, but he certainly ended up that way. I still don't get the logic/il-logic that seems to go with this group that thinks that bullion based coinage/economy is functional and viable. They all seem to say one thing, and then end up doing the opposite.

[fortinbras]

Von NotHaus started out as a sort of conman. He was running the Royal Hawaiian Mint in Honolulu, back in the 1980s, churning out un-official souvenir tokens and buttons. At one point business went sour and he closed up shop - so suddenly and with such little notice that even his nightwatchman hadn't been told.

Shortly thereafter, in the late 1990s, he cooked up this idea for the Liberty Dollar, which was a bit different than its latest incarnation. He produced a one-ounce pure silver drachma (it's not legal to call it a coin if it isn't real money) which he would sell for somewhat more than the market price for one ounce of pure silver. His organization was then named NORFED which was supposed to bring down both the Federal Reserve System and the IRS. Ostensibly the going price for his drachma was 1½ times (n FRNs) the market price for the metal, but for that money you didn't get the piece of silver, you got instead a very pretty multicolor piece of paper with some legalistic text that it was a 'warehouse receipt' (essentially like a pawn ticket or a coat check stub), which could be exchanged for the silver drachma IF/WHEN you paid (in FRNs) an additional story, shipping & handling fee; the addition of that fee made the drachma cost TWICE the market price of the metal. Nice work if you can get it. The warehouse receipt also said it was good for only 20 years from the date of issue.

Von NotHaus's excuse for the extra viggorish was the expense of 'research'. His website and ads contained, for example, the claim that a monetary amount preceded by a dollar sign with two vertical lines meant something different from the same with a single vertical line. This is, of course, nonsense as is shown by the history of the dollar sign and some court decisions. I challenged Von NotHaus on this item and he finally conceded that it was wrong and dropped it.

Early on, Von NotHaus was able to seduce the publisher of MEDIA BYPASS magazine to his NORFED crusade. Feature articles about NORFED and the Liberty funny money appeared in every other issue, and every issue featured a large display ad for NORFED funny money, claiming that it was legal currency (evidently they had procured an opinion from the US Treasury that just stamping out silver drachma - WITHOUT mentioning that it was supposed to be used as money - was legal; the Treasury did a reverse when it realized that Von NotHaus was peddling his drachmas to use as currency). After some advertisements to the effect that the Liberty was a new kind of currency -- even bragging that it was using the artwork for the Morgan Silver Dollar of a century earlier, I wrote to the listed attorney for NORFED - no easy feat, this was a Hawaiian lawyer who seemed to have no fixed address - and asked about the federal law against private systems of currency (18 USC § 486) - and suddenly the NORFED ads stopped claiming that they were the new currency, although they didn't attempt to dial back their previous claims.

It also became obvious that NORFED's 'warehouse' where everyone's silver drachma awaited the cashing in and extra payment to be redeemed was actually a warehouse bank. People would convert their hidden assets into Libertys, collect the paper receipts, and their drachmas (drachmae?) would be invisible to creditors, the IRS, and ex-wives. To convert their accumulated drachmas back to real money there was a fee charged by NORFED, which was probably regarded as a very tolerable expense of hiding assets in something as secretive as a Swiss bank. So NORFED also served to assist tax fraud, bankruptcy fraud, other kinds of fraud, and money laundering.

After a few years of touting the Liberty drachmas, MEDIA BYPASS had a decisive change of policy more or less concurrent with an internal change of management. The magazine had been one of the few outfits that accepted the drachmas as payment for anything; it was selling $10 subscriptions for drachmas worth about $7 in metal, assuming it could find anyone else to take the metal off its hands. You cannot stay solvent that way. The magazine announced that, in order to spread the wonderfulness of the NORFED funny money around, it was now accepting the drachmas only in 'limited' amounts (read: zero). It didn't save the magazine, MEDIA BYPASS passed away shortly thereafter. Some other SovCit type pubs, such as The American Bulletin also rejected NORFED funny money. A list of businesses that would accept payment in the NORFED funny money, nationwide, could be typed on one sheet of paper - and this list was getting shorter almost on a daily basis as its vendor realized he would be stuck with funny money he couldn't unload.

After all of this - after the bottom dropped out of the NORFED market - the federal govt swooped in the coup de grace. It seized the warehouse, charged Von NotHaus with a smattering of offenses including money laundering, and generally made it clear that NORFED funny money was contraband.

[Arthur Rubin]

Recently, I was going through some old books when I found a piece of proposed private currency which I received, in the mail, years ago. The copyright date on the note is 1987; but I recall receiving it in the late 70s.

I had some of his coins; I redeemed "the warehouse receipts" before he was caught. Unfortunately, the coins disappeared sometime after 2000; probably stolen by a contractor, but they could just be lost. Would there be any value to the coins above bullion value, now?

[Pottapaug1938]

Recently, I was going through some old books when I found a piece of proposed private currency which I received, in the mail, years ago. The copyright date on the note is 1987; but I recall receiving it in the late 70s.

I had some of his coins; I redeemed "the warehouse receipts" before he was caught. Unfortunately, the coins disappeared sometime after 2000; probably stolen by a contractor, but they could just be lost. Would there be any value to the coins above bullion value, now?

None at all. In fact, I would wager that the buy price would be a tad less than for bullion from other more reliable producers.

Years ago, I thought about buying enough warehouse receipts to actually be able to get a bullion piece; but instead I saved my souvenir receipt and bought something much more liquid from a local dealer.

[fortinbras]

I honestly think that the market value of the NORFED drachma (and similar purportedly pure silver/gold coins from other non-govt sources, which by now include at least one purportedly American Indian bank) is distinctly LESS than the market value for silver/gold bullion.

The reason, primarily, is that, despite the claim stamped on the drachma that it is one ounce (presumably troy oz, which is a tad heavier than an avoirdupois oz) of pure silver/gold, the potential buyer may not trust the claim from a non-govt practically-bootleg source and may feel it necessary to conduct his own tests to verify the purity. These tests are not cheap or fast or effortless. For having to go to that trouble, and knowing that he'll have a similar situation when he tries to unload the drachma on a future customer, the purchaser will insist on a substantial discount. And the purchaser who can't or won't bother with the testing will simply insist on a deep discount on suspicion that the drachma is not all it claims to be.

End result: You paid nearly twice the market price for bullion or for govt-issued (and therefore weight and purity assured by law) coins such as the Silver Eagle or the Silver Mapleleaf to get this bootleg drachma, and now you can't unload it on someone else unless you accept a deep discount approaching half the market price for bullion, Guaranteed loss to you.

[Pottapaug1938]

I honestly think that the market value of the NORFED drachma (and similar purportedly pure silver/gold coins from other non-govt sources, which by now include at least one purportedly American Indian bank) is distinctly LESS than the market value for silver/gold bullion.

The reason, primarily, is that, despite the claim stamped on the drachma that it is one ounce (presumably troy oz, which is a tad heavier than an avoirdupois oz) of pure silver/gold, the potential buyer may not trust the claim from a non-govt practically-bootleg source and may feel it necessary to conduct his own tests to verify the purity. These tests are not cheap or fast or effortless. For having to go to that trouble, and knowing that he'll have a similar situation when he tries to unload the drachma on a future customer, the purchaser will insist on a substantial discount. And the purchaser who can't or won't bother with the testing will simply insist on a deep discount on suspicion that the drachma is not all it claims to be.

End result: You paid nearly twice the market price for bullion or for govt-issued (and therefore weight and purity assured by law) coins such as the Silver Eagle or the Silver Maple Leaf to get this bootleg drachma, and now you can't unload it on someone else unless you accept a deep discount approaching half the market price for bullion, Guaranteed loss to you.

This is perhaps one of the key reasons while "alternative" or "private" currencies or coins will never catch on. Every merchant who receives one of these currency notes will have to consult an online database to see if the note is still valid; and more than likely it will be received only at a discount. The same goes for private coins, with the added burden of having to conduct an assay, acid test or something similar to gauge the fineness of the piece, and then weigh it carefully to see if it is actually clad or plated, rather than solid. Most merchants will simply say "the heck with it. No private currencies will be accepted here."

[notorial dissent]

fortinbras and Pottapaug both make very valid points re the NORFEDies. The weight and actual value of them would be/should be a critical point to anyone being presented them for sale. They started out at a value deficit, with an unknown provenance, and that hasn't changed. As far as I can remember there has yet to be an actual statement by a certifying entity as to the actual value and fineness of any of the slugs so produced. This would put them in the highly suspect category as far as I was concerned, and unless I was buying them as collector's items I wouldn't at all, and the discount I would give would be steep as I would figure I was taking a serious risk on them. Basically, the NORFED buyers got screwed when they bought them, and will get screwed even more so when they try to unload them.

[Kestrel]

But... but... but... you can sell them on eBay!

[Pottapaug1938]

But... but... but... you can sell them on eBay!

Not anymore. They are barred from sale, as are other counterfeits and replica coins.

[Kestrel]

But... but... but... you can sell them on eBay!

Not anymore. They are barred from sale, as are other counterfeits and replica coins.

Apparently that policy changed. Or it's not being enforced.

Here are a few, and there are more from a variety of sellers:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-LIBERTY-DOL ... 3a84a1fa7e

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2008-Liberty-Do ... 3cd75559e9

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Very-COLLECTIBL ... 3f2ad8393f

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-NEW-LIBERTY ... 565527f205

Someone's even selling a BitCoin:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Physical-SILVER ... 5939?rt=nc

[Arthur Rubin]

Did you try reporting the sales to Ebay as policy violations? (The Liberty Dollar has been found by a court to be contraband; I don't think there is any similar finding on BitCoins.)

[Kestrel]

Did you try reporting the sales to Ebay as policy violations? (The Liberty Dollar has been found by a court to be contraband; I don't think there is any similar finding on BitCoins.)

No. I don't spend enough time on eBay to be familiar with their policies and reporting procedures. I only buy something from eBay about once a year.

Perhaps someone else more familiar with the issues will have time to log on there and do the reporting. In my five-minute look I saw a lot more Liberty Dollar slugs than just those, and no two of them appeared to be from the same seller.

[The Observer]

This thread has been inactive for quite a while, which is a surprise (at least to me) given the subject's prcolivity for writing in public about himself, his trial, "projects" and the like.

What is the latest on Von Nothaus? Or did he just disappear?

[Fmotlgroupie]

I can't find anything recent on Nothaus but I see that the 2013 Liberty Dollar 1) bears the phrase "private inflation proof currency" to theoretically avoid more counterfeiting charges and 2) retails for less than $30 (i.e. it's lost almost half it's value in a year. Next stop, Zimbabwe!) 3) that's still a big premium on the $20 of silver in the coin. Someone out there understands seigniorage!

[fortinbras]

Apparently LIBERTY DOLLAR NEWS has gone way underground. If it still exists on the web, it requires registering to get to read it.

However, one hanger-on reprinted it on his website (it may only be visible for a temp period, it already is halfway down his webpage):

http://tekgnosis.typepad.com/tekgnosis/

{By the way, this guy is also a deep-dyed fan of Paul A. Mitchell - Mitch Modeleski}

This links to a transcript of the jury summation of von NotHaus's defense lawyer, who is identified only as Randy Lee. The Liberty Dollar News seems to blame him for Von N's conviction because he spoke for only ten minutes out of a possible 40 - but I think we can agree he tried hard to save an impossible case.
i have had some problem identifying this Randy Lee - there's a lawyer by that name in Texarkana and another in Hawaii - but one early Liberty Dollar News item gives his name as Randal Lee, in which case he may be the same guy who was Attorney General of the State of North Carolina in 1993, a background that suggests something better than amateur status.

[Dr. Caligari]

Someone remind me what happened to NotHaus-- I know he was convicted, but has he been sentenced? Has the appeal been decided? (And yes, I'm too lazy to scroll back through 23 pages of this thread.)

[webhick]

I don't think he's been sentenced.
You can read the updates here: http://www.libertydollarnews.org/pommo/ ... ilings.php

He hasn't much to say. I'll post them here with unabridged and with color commentary shortly because I don't want to do anything productive right now..

[webhick]

LIBERTY DOLLAR ALERT:
November 30, 2012

ALERT: Gov Turns Up the Heat

Dear Liberty Dollar Supporters!

Some years ago, news reporter Simon Constable joked that you should hide your Liberty Dollars because the feds are coming after them!

Unfortunately, the Secret Service just took an alarmingly big step in that direction.

I just received the message below that was sent to an E-Bay seller who had all his NORFED Liberty Dollar (NORFED) removed from his site:

Message from E-Bay:
=====================================================================
Dear mike XXX,

You recently listed the following listing:

221158190865 - $5 Liberty Dollar Silver Certificate Warehouse Receipt (Norfed) 1/2 Oz UNC
221158191090 - Liberty Dollar $10 Silver Certificate Warehouse Receipt (Norfed) 1oz UNC

Unfortunately, we had to remove your listing because of the following:

The United States Secret Service has requested the removal of all Norfed Liberty dollars on the eBay site as counterfeits. If you have any questions you can contact them at the US Secret Service Public Affairs Office: 202-406-5708.

Please do not relist this item(s).

We appreciate that you chose to list this coin on our site and understand there was no ill intent on your part. Your listing fees have been credited to your account.

=======================================================================

And the flood of emails keeps coming in! It is clear that e-Bay is working their way through the listings that use NORFED as the key search word. Of course, there is no way to know how long this will take. I would imagine that this witch-hunt should be over by the time this Alert is posted. But please contact me immediately if you still have Liberty Dollars listed on e-Bay.

The alarming nature of this action is that Mike's only two listings were for two paper warehouse receipts only and they were acknowledged to be legal by the US Mint in a letter to Senator Benson of Florida.

In other cases, everything that was listed was removed, even non-Liberty Dollar material!

And in other cases, there are still some sites with Liberty Dollars. Just search eBay for NORFED and you will have the latest results.

Certainly, the most alarming chain of events would be for the Secret Service or the God awful FBI to pursue the e-Bay sellers and start raiding their homes and businesses. The truth is that there is no way to know how far this criminal government will push this ghastly action. So it is important to be prudent.

Please report any and all relevant actions that you experience to the email address below.

I deeply regret reporting this tyrannical action by the government.

Many thanks for your continued support. For it is only by banding together and adopting a free and independent currency that provides us with "just weights and measures" will we be able to throw off the yoke of a manipulated monetary/tax system and generate a peaceful and prosperous society.

Bernard von NotHaus
Monetary Architect/Editor
Editor@LibertyDollar.org

[LPC]

What is the latest on Von Nothaus? Or did he just disappear?

I looked at the docket of his criminal case, and it's a little mysterious (at least to me).

NotHaus filed a motion for acquittal or new trial under rules 29 and 33 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure soon after his conviction in March of 2011, new memoranda of law were filed in April 2013, and that's where the docket ends.

And there's nothing on the docket about sentencing other than references to a presentencing report and objections to the report.

So he was convicted more than three years ago, has not yet been sentenced, and motions for acquittal or new trial have been briefed and pending for more than a year.

What's all that about?

[wserra]

I took a look at the docket as well, and agree with Dan - with one caveat. That in fact looks like the docket of someone who decided to cooperate following conviction. Yes, that does happen. It takes a long time to come together - multiple proffers, law enforcement checking out the info, arrests and trials of the targets, etc. The result is a docket that looks like this one.

I can't figure out, however, against whom von Nutbert might cooperate. Demo?