Coin Thursday: The Little Princess

July 9, 2009
Posted by John Dale

As I was growing up, one of my favorite books was an English translation of The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. My first memories of The Little Prince were of it being read to me, but I curled up with it on my own while I was still completely a child.

In high school, in college, and as a working writer, I read and re-read it, and each time two thoughts came to me: “How did I understand so much so soon?” and “How much will I never understand?” Like the Prince’s single rose, the story continues to unfold for me, and even as I learn and comprehend, the next layer beckons. I have no doubt that when I am old enough to be called either wise or a doddering fool, The Little Prince will be there for me, as simple and as complex as it ever was, never having lost its power to inspire and surprise me.

About the same time as my first rediscovery of The Little Prince, my passion for coins really took hold, and The Little Prince was counterbalanced by the “Little Princess,” more formally identified as the 1841 quarter eagle, a coin prominently featured in our August Los Angeles Auction.

Here’s a questions that’s been bandied about by many a numismatist: “If you could have any coin in the world, what would it be?” For several years, “an 1841 quarter eagle” would have been my answer.

As I grew up, my answer became a touch more mercenary: I would get an example of the “King of American Coins,” sell that 1804 dollar, buy my 1841 quarter eagle, and enjoy many more great coins with the rest of the proceeds. Still, the 1804 dollar is only the means to the end. Even today, the 1841 quarter eagle tops my list of dream coins.

With so many other wonderful coins out there, why did the 1841 quarter eagle capture my imagination? Pinning down one reason is impossible. There was a touch of Red Book mystique to it; it was a proof issue listed before the Red Book said there were proofs! (This was before I researched early proof coins and realized that yes, the Mint made many proof issues before 1858, just not in large and relatively well-defined quantities.)

It tied into my fascination and mild bewilderment with proof-only issues, when my child-mind would laugh at the silly grown-ups who would make “special” coins without remembering to make ordinary ones first.

The 1841 quarter eagle also happens to be highly elusive, with between 15 and 18 extant, though I do not know how well I truly comprehended such rarity back then. Maybe it really was the nickname above all else, the idea of having a “Little Princess” to call my own in the years before I was ready to claim a more famous coin.

I may be older now, but my love for the Little Princess remains. As with The Little Prince, how did I understand so much so soon, and how much will I never understand?

-John Dale Beety

Dr Pepper artifact is huge news story; Social media advances at Heritage

May 5, 2009
Posted by Jim Halperin

(There is little for me to say, today, other than thank you to Heritage’s co-founder Jim Halperin, who has lent his time and name to today’s post. He’s one of the more recognizable names in our business, and also a futurist of significant note – if you haven’t read his best-selling 1996 novel, The Truth Machine, it’s worth a go, especially of you like your fiction on the sci-fi/speculative side. You can buy it at Amazon.com or download it free at www.TruthMachine.com. With all the news of late about the Dr Pepper ledger going up for auction May 13 here, we all felt it was a perfect time for Jim to step in and address the blogging public. – Noah Fleisher)

What an exciting seven days here at Heritage!

We started last week with the sale of “The King of Coins,” a Class III 1804 $1 at our Central States Numismatic Society Platinum Night Auction, Thursday, April 30, for $2.3 million, garnering international media coverage. When a coin of this magnitude and fame comes to auction, the world takes notice. The auction itself netted approximately $45 million, a record for any numismatic auction other than a few Heritage FUN auctions, which occur every January in Florida and are invariably the largest numismatic auctions each year.

If that wasn’t enough, the Associated Press broke the story last weekend about the presence of a circa 1880-1890 ledger from The Old Corner Drug Store in Waco, TX, which we are auctioning off on May 13. This ledger contains what we believe to be the earliest known reference to the name Dr Pepper, and possibly an original formula of sorts for a tonic that may well have evolved in to the Dr Pepper we know and love today.

In the last two days, the story has taken on a life of its own. We’ve seen it in more than 400 worldwide media outlets, from New Zealand to India and the Philippines, and on NPR, BBC, on local news broadcasts across the region and on too many blogs to count. For several hours on Monday morning it was the most viewed and the most emailed story on the entire Internet, according to Yahoo! News. Just Google Heritage auction Dr Pepper formula, and you’ll see.

Now the Dr Pepper Company, which sent a delegation here last week to view the formula, has issued a non-denial denial about the formula in the book, stating simply that it’s not the formula that is used to make Dr Pepper (which we never said it was). Uh, no kidding. To their credit, however, they are not denying that it’s an original Dr Peppers Pepsin Bitters formula from the late 1800s.

My whole family and I LOVE Dr Pepper, by the way, as do practically all Texans – even transplants like us.

Greg Rohan, President of Heritage, has stated it best in our own clarification to the media, as follows:

“In its carefully worded statement, the Dr Pepper Snapple Group never claims that the ledger book from The Corner Drug Store in Waco, currently in our vault and preparing for auction on May 13, isn't the original formula, just that it's not the current one. We agree! We've always indicated that this document dates back to around 1880-1890, precisely the time when the first patent for Dr Pepper appeared.

“We know of no earlier reference to the name, and certainly not one that can be traced, conclusively, back to the drugstore where Dr Pepper was created. Like millions of others, we at Heritage Auction Galleries remain fans of the beverage and of the way its formula tastes today. We certainly wouldn’t recommend reverting to the original formula!”

Heritage operates from a place of transparency and honesty. The way we’re presenting this lot – and, happily, the way in which it is being portrayed across the planet – reflects that honesty, no matter how anyone else may try to spin it.

It is exciting when one of our upcoming auctions captures the world’s attention, as the Dr Pepper lot has done, but it’s a whole new ball game when a news story gets legs like this. This story has now survived several different news cycles – a feat in and of itself – and still seems to have steam.

Last but not least, throughout all of this, Heritage has been on top of the wave of social media. I’ve been Twittering about developments since the 1804 $1 sold last Thursday, and since the Dr Pepper story broke, and you can also find plenty of Heritage Auction stories if you dig into StumbleUpon, Reddit and Digg, all state-of-the art social media meant to keep people informed in this instant-fix 24/7 news environment. I’m proud to say that I know of no other auction house on earth that is, or ever has been, as technologically adept and current as Heritage. We owe our valued consignors and bidders nothing less.

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Adams-Carter 1804 $1 brings $2.3M, Halperin Twittters, and Platinum Night is a rousing success

May 1, 2009
Posted by Noah

$2.3M on a $1 coin? That’s like, what, a return of 2.3M%? Where can I get odds like that?

In all seriousness, it is after midnight as I write this and I just spent the night glued to my computer watching the “dramatic” unfolding of the CSNS Platinum Night Auction and the selling of the Adams Carter Class III 1804 $1, which did indeed bring $2.3. Either coin collecting has gotten amazingly cool – as in I’m such a cool guy – or I’ve lost all perspective on what coolness means. I guess I’d have to go with the latter, though I know all of you would heartily disagree and insist on the former…

It was indeed a good night, with the total topping $32M for the session and more than $35 for the overall event, and there are still more sessions coming. It’s looking good. If you didn’t follow Jim Halperin’s Twittering throughout the night you missed some good fun. He’s a natural for it, and he’s got the charisma to make it interesting in the voyeuristic way that makes Twitter such a guilty pleasure. Here’s a sample:

“Platinum Night just ended. Coin auction at $32,979,089 with 4 sessions to go, plus Currency, so we should break $40 million. Not too shabby.”

“John Albanese on his $2.3 million 1804 $1: 'I don't drink, I don't smoke, so I needed a coin fix, and this will satisfy me for a while.'”

Given that I can’t really speak with any authority on the real meaning of coins, I’m going to turn it over to John Dale, who relays a true inside understanding and excitement about the event:

“It's past midnight in Cincinnati and past 11 p.m. in Texas, but I might have trouble getting to sleep tonight. I just finished watching a bit of numismatic history.

“First things first: $2 million hammer price on the 1804 dollar, $2.3 million with buyer's premium. It's Heritage's fifth multi-million-dollar coin sold at auction, and though all the action was online, there was still plenty of excitement, a Digital Age version of the mail bidder against the floor bidder.

“A HERITAGE Live! participant, seeing a starting bid of $1.7 million established by an Internet bidder, put up a digital paddle twice, the second time a cut bid at $1.95 million. The Internet bidder was willing to bid $2 million, though, and the Heritage Live bidder didn't jump in for another full increment. The lot was hammered down, and the sale moved on, but not before some clapping.

“Walking into that room, then, there was an auction record set for a Class III 1804 dollar; the previous record, set back in 2003 by the same coin, was just more than $1.2 million including buyer's premium, so a minimum hammer price of $1.7 million was going to blow that figure out of the water.

“(Auctioneer) Bob Merrill also moved even higher on my Cool People list when he paused the action just before the 1804 dollar.

Mark Borckardt, the "missing name" in my earlier post about the 1804 dollar, is the Senior Cataloger at Heritage, someone who's up there on the aforementioned Cool People list, and was in attendance. Bob took time to point him out and start a round of applause, praising Mark as the best in the business. I sat at home, watching and listening, and I smiled a little. Two more decades in the business, and maybe I'll get where he is... maybe. Beyond the obvious, the expertise that comes from being a professional numismatist for more than half one's life, Mark has a level of innate numismatic talent that leaves me in awe. Oh, yes, and he's a better bowler than I'll ever be.

“Back to the auction proper. As impressive as the 1804 dollar's showing was, the Platinum Night offering was more than just the 1804 dollar and a bunch of backup singers. Platinum Night hauled in more than $27.4 million, meaning that even if one were to take away the 1804 dollar, it would still be a $25 million session. There's plenty of money out there to buy the best coins, and many bidders took opportunities when they saw them. Of course, the auction is far from over, and judging from the bidding on a few of the lots yet to come, it seems as if they would've been right at home in Platinum Night. It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out...and how the news wires respond.”

Thanks John Dale! FYI, AP has already picked up the story, it has appeared in Texas, Ohio and New Jersey, so it should break nationally today, if it hasn’t already by the time this gets posted.

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-Noah Fleisher and John Dale Beety