This video gives a brief overview of the "penny" (more correctly known as the one cent piece) in the United States, and makes a compelling argument for its demise.

(Newport Beach, California) -- Coinflation.com, an increasingly popular informational website that provides the values of precious metals and the intrinsic values of gold, silver and base metal coins, has been acquired by Collectors Universe, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLCT), the parent company of Professional Coin Grading Service.

"Adding Coinflation.com to our family of offerings really makes sense. There is tremendous synergy between Coinflation.com, PCGS.com and PCGSCoinfacts.com. Together, we'll become the ultimate destination for anyone seeking information about coins and precious metals," said Don Willis, PCGS President.

Coinflation.com was founded in 2004 by Alec Nevalainen who now has joined Collectors Universe as part of the transaction. The number of unique monthly visitors to the website has more than quadrupled in the past year to over 640,000.

"Coinflation's goal is to help people discover the metal value of their coins, which in many cases is the absolute minimum value. Due to the recent media attention on gold and silver prices, many unscrupulous buyers have appeared offering 'buy' prices significantly below melt value, particularly for pre-1965 silver coins. Coinflation helps people make informed decisions when buying or selling gold and silver coins," Nevalainen explained.

"There's also an emerging group of collectors who accumulate base metal coins, such as the pre-1982 copper cent which has a metal value of 2.6 cents and the current nickel with a value of almost 6 cents."

Collectors Universe President and PCGS co-founder, David Hall, stated: "Alec Nevalainen, in a very short period of time, has built what I consider to be the ultimate metallic value web site. Gold and silver coin information is becoming very important as U.S. citizens wake up to where the value of the U.S. dollar is heading. We have a long way to go to match the rest of the world's attitude about gold and silver, but we're starting to 'get it.' Coinflation.com is right in the sweet spot of the 'What are my gold and silver coins worth?' info space. I literally use coinflation.com every day. And the name, coinflation, says it all!"

Collectors Universe authenticates and grades collectible coins, trading cards, event tickets, autographs, memorabilia and stamps, and compiles and publishes authoritative information about United States and world coins, collectible trading cards, sports memorabilia and collectible stamps. The company also operates CCE, a dealer-to-dealer Internet bid-ask market for certified coins, and the Long Beach and Santa Clara Coin, Stamp & Collectibles Expos.

(Rosemont, Illinois) -- PCGS Mobile CoinFacts, a new application that lets smart phone users instantly access all the historical numismatic information and crystal-clear coin images from the extensive PCGS CoinFacts™ database, will be available free to everyone for a ten-day trial period, August 12 - 20, 2011. After that, this indispensable app will then be available free only for those with a PCGS CoinFacts subscription.

"This is the coolest piece of software we've ever done," declared Don Willis, President of Professional Coin Grading Service (www.PCGS.com), a division of Collectors Universe, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLCT). "It's a revolutionary breakthrough for collectors and dealers, and I'm really excited about this!"

PCGS CoinFacts is the Internet's most comprehensive source for information for over 30,000 United States coins, including current prices, auction records, population and images. All the information and photos hosted on the PCGS CoinFacts website are now immediately available to subscribers on any smart phone, and accessible anywhere the phone works.

"Imagine being at a coin show or an auction and being able to instantly look up coin pricing information, population data and recent auction prices realized about the coin you're thinking about buying. Of course, this app will be helpful when selling coins as well. We've tried to make this as easy to use as possible," said Willis.

PCGS Mobile CoinFacts will be introduced by PCGS at the American Numismatic Association Chicago World's Fair of Money, August 16 - 20, 2011. A Beta version of the app will be available free at m.pcgscoinfacts.com for anyone with a smart phone to personally sample between August 12 and 20. Additional information will be available at the PCGS booth, #400, during the convention.

"When you're buying or selling coins, the person with the most current information is usually the one who's most successful. Now you can get essential, up-to-date information from PCGS CoinFacts with just a few clicks on any smart phone," said Willis.

Here's a close look at the symbols that can be found on the humble dollar. If you find this interesting, Dan Brown's The Lost symbol delves into even more symbols that can be found on our currency.