Coin Monday: 1922 -- Into the Downtime

June 28, 2010
Written by John Dale

Downtime is just a dream for me right now; the cataloging staff spent the weekend working on the upcoming Boston ANA Auction, and it looks like two more working weekends are on the way. As appealing as the thought of downtime might be, though, there’s always the potential for too much of a good thing. In 1922, the U.S. Mint saw plenty of downtime, and as a result, only a few types of coins were struck that year.

In the wake of World War I, the United States went through a recession that lasted about half a year. The start of 1920 saw another economic downturn that lasted for 18months. During the downturn, the Mint struck a variety of denominations, but with less commerce came less demand for the instruments of commerce, coins among them.

Only one denomination was struck at all three of the active mints: the silver dollar. The 1922 silver dollars bore the then-novel Peace design; though first struck in 1921, the Peace dollars were not released for distribution until 1922. The Boston auction will have examples from Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco.

While double eagles effectively did not circulate in the U.S. by 1922, there was still demand for them in international trade, demand that was increasing as Europe recovered. The gold coins were struck on the two coasts: Philadelphia (represented in the upcoming July Summer FUN Auction) and San Francisco (in Boston). Most of today’s survivors were shipped overseas and spent upwards of 50 years in Europe; they were later repatriated in the 1970s and beyond, after restrictions on American citizens’ private ownership of gold were relaxed.

Across most of the U.S. there was little demand for small change, so no nickels, dimes, quarters, or halves were made. There was unexpected demand for one-cent coins, though, and the Denver Mint pushed through a batch of slightly more than 7 million pieces. While it was Denver alone that struck cents in 1922, certain pieces show no mintmark due to production errors, and these have become more famous than their regular 1922-D counterparts.

Beyond the regular U.S. coinage, the Philadelphia Mint also worked on a handful of other small-scale projects. For the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ulysses S. Grant, the famous Civil War general and later president, the Mint made commemorative coins in two denominations, a half dollar and a gold dollar. Philadelphia also kept up its trade in making coins for foreign countries. In 1922, it struck pieces for circulation in Colombia; Costa Rica; French Indochina (which covered modern-day Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and a small part of China); Nicaragua; and Venezuela.

It would be nice to contemplate downtime some more, but the Boston catalog calls. Back to it!

Coin Monday: Flips and Trips

June 14, 2010
Written by John Dale

Error coin enthusiasts are one of the great traditions of U.S. numismatics, if a relatively recent phenomenon compared to, say, collectors of large cents. The two specialties are not completely separate, but intersect on occasion; after all, if 21st century Mint technology wasn’t enough to keep this proof Ohio Statehood quarter from looking like a saucer, what are the chances that things would be error-free in the late 18th century?

A pair of dramatic errors in the July 2010 Summer FUN Auction tell the tale. Error-free? Not even close.

Both of these errors are large cents dated 1796. The first, graded VG10 by NGC, shows the last two digits of the date three times, indicating three distinct strikes (at least!), and the date only appears on the obverse once. The other two appearances are on the back, or reverse, with one of them on the interior of the coin, not at the rim. The progression must have gone as follows: the first strike was off-center, the second strike centered, the coin flipped over, and finally a third strike on-target. The result is a terribly wrong yet oh-so-right coin, somewhere between an attractive curiosity and a beautiful trainwreck.

The second one, given an NGC Details grade of VF with a “Scratches” caveat, has an even more outrageous appearance. It too is a flip-over triple strike, though it isn’t listed as such. Evidence of the “missing strike” is visible on Liberty’s cap on the main (final) strike, in the form of the letters ST which don’t match where the word STATES would be on the presumed “other” strike; hence, there must have been a third impression of the dies.

While both coins have something clearly “off” about them on close inspection, this second example makes it obvious from the start with the left side of a wreath stretching down over the tip of Liberty’s bust on the obverse. The reverse, too, shows the error in all its flip-over glory as the top and right sides of a Liberty impression wrap themselves around the main wreath.

One place where the error and large cent specialties diverge is attitude. While errors give us valuable information about the minting process, much of their appeal comes from their inherent “freak factor” and their status as the Mint’s pratfalls. (An old-school way to refer to errors is “FIDOs,” or “Freaks, Imperfections, Defects, and Oddities.”) To a large cent collector, however, even an outrageous error like one of these two is not treated as a freak, but as an artifact to be treasured. In its early struggle-filled years, the Mint made many errors both on and off the coinage floor, but it persevered in the end. Because of that, collectors have more than 200 years of U.S. coinage history, a source of information and wonder—and yes, the occasional laugh.

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Coin (Friday and) Monday: World Cup Commemoration

May 28,2010

Written by John Dale

(With Memorial Day on Monday, next week's Coin Monday is appearing here early. -- The Heritage Blog)

It’s just about World Cup time, when the greatest footballers from around the globe put on the national uniforms to seek out glory. Like just about every other World Cup tournament, this go-round has had its controversies. The host country! The Thierry Henry handball incident! The anthem! (Though you’d never hear me complaining about the opportunity to see...I mean, listen to Shakira.)

All of these seem pretty trivial, though, compared to the controversy when the United States was chosen to host the World Cup in 1994. At the end of the 1980s, when the selection was made, there was no prominent professional “football” league (as the rest of the world understood it) in the United States, and the country hadn’t qualified for the World Cup since 1950.

The U.S. national team qualified for the 1990 World Cup, however, starting a streak of World Cup appearances that will continue in South Africa. Major League Soccer, which had its roots in the 1994 World Cup bid, is going strong and expanding. And the 1994 World Cup left a numismatic legacy for U.S. collectors as well: a trio of commemoratives.

The middle coin of the set is a silver dollar, a proof example of which appears in the June Long Beach U.S. Coin Auction. On the obverse, two players are pursuing a ball; no word on whether the player wearing number 7 is going to flop and get the player wearing number 10 stuck with a spurious red card. The reverse is a shared reverse among all three coins, with the official logo of the 1994 World Cup squarely in the middle.

The silver dollar proved extremely popular, with more than half a million proofs sold. The less expensive clad half dollar did even better, with a slightly greater number of proofs and more than twice as many uncirculated-finish coins in the final tally. Even the gold half eagle, notable for showing the World Cup trophy almost alone on its obverse, sold better in proof format than any commemorative half eagle issue had in the previous four years.

While the Dallas experience has evolved from World Cup action in the Cotton Bowl to Major League Soccer in Pizza Hut Park, the 1994 World Cup commemorative coins offer reminders of how “the beautiful game” was reborn in the United States. If the World Cup ever returns to the United States (2018? 2022?), perhaps commemorative coins will come again; if so, I hope the designs are worthy of celebration.

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Coin Monday: 1916/1916

May 17, 2010
Posted by John Dale

Heritage has had at least one Featured Collection in each U.S. Coin auction since I started cataloging here, and the June Long Beach Auction is no exception. There are three Featured Collections this go-round, the most prominent of which is The Brenda John Collection. If you haven’t seen this collection already, it’s chock-full of top-quality Lincoln cents and Buffalo nickels.

Need some further convincing? Try this: there’s a 1916 Doubled Die Obverse nickel in MS64. No, you aren’t seeing double…the doubling is that strong! That huge spread between the two dates is completely real. It’s not hard to imagine production of a die being bungled this badly—accidents do happen, after all—but for such a die to then be put into use is rather baffling.

Also rather baffling is how doubling this blatant went basically undiscovered for two decades. Once you know where to look, the doubling is obvious and unforgettable, yet collectors seem to have missed the variety at the time of release. By the time it was discovered and publicized, an unknown number of examples had been lost forever to circulation, and many others were well-worn. A survivor in MS64 is a precious treasure indeed.

Also early on, collectors didn’t really understand what they were seeing. Overdates, where one date was punched over another, were familiar to them; so were repunched dates, where the same date was punched in twice, not perfectly in sync. So collectors of the time, seeing the obvious doubling on the date, naturally called it the “1916/1916,” to signal a repunched date, only it wasn’t a repunched date at all.

Take a closer look at the coin, and look away from the date. The feathers at the back of the portrait’s head are doubled, too. Also doubled are his neck and his profile, particularly the chin and lips. As collectors increased their knowledge of doubled dies, fueled by interest in the now-famous 1955 Doubled Die Obverse cent, earlier varieties were re-examined, and the more subtle signs of the 1916 Doubled Die Obverse nickel were recognized. The “Doubled Die” usage became much more prevalent after this.

Every once in a while, though, the “1916/1916” term pops up, often in old catalogs or coin albums. It may not be considered strictly right by most numismatists nowadays, but there’s still room for the old term. Then there’s a rule of collecting that I picked up from a member of my local coin club when I was still a boy: you own the coin, you can call it whatever you like! So, who wants the naming rights?

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Coin Monday: Period of Adjustment

March 29, 2010
Written by John Dale

[Image uploading doesn't seem to be working at the moment. Consider it extra incentive to click on the link for now. I'll try to upload it again later. -- JDB]

The Fort Worth auction is in the books (though the Post-Auction Buys will still be available for a limited time), so it’s time to move on.

The next U.S. Coin auction, the official auction of the Central States Numismatic Society convention, will bridge the end of April and the beginning of May. It’ll be held in Milwaukee, a city that holds plenty of fond memories for me, mostly involving coin conventions, chess matches, and eating with my family at some of my father’s favorite German restaurants. (His favorite two, in no particular order: Mader’s and Karl Ratzsch’s.)

Actually, my mind has been on Central States for a while, since cataloging for each auction happens up until about four weeks before the coins are hammered down. I’ve already seen most of the coins that are going to be in the auction, and while there isn’t an 1804 dollar this time (ending the streak at two), there’s plenty to be excited about.

For example, there’s this 1975 Mint set. Just an ordinary Mint set, right? Of course not! This is Heritage. It couldn’t be that easy. Follow the link and take a closer look at that quarter. Looks kind of funny, doesn’t it? And not just because it’s a Bicentennial quarter, either. It’s ... not all there.

The Bicentennial quarter in the set is actually a die adjustment strike, a special kind of “error coin,” and in many ways not an error at all. In fact, die adjustment strikes are made on purpose! When a coinage press is being set up, a few test strikes are done on coinage blanks to make sure that the dies are properly aligned.

These test strikes aren’t done at full power at first, to keep the equipment from being damaged if something is wrong, but the power is enough to make a shallow, partial impression on the planchet. On this quarter, most of the broad details are visible, but the drummer doesn’t have much detail, and the words UNITED STATES OF AMERICA are illegible. (They’re supposed to be around the top. You’ll have to trust me on that.)

While die adjustment strikes are a vital part of mint operations, they’re not supposed to leave the grounds. Usually they’re destroyed, but this quarter not only wasn’t destroyed, it was packaged into a Philadelphia Mint set by accident and shipped out to an unsuspecting buyer! Fortunately for the set, the quarter was recognized as special, and rather than being “broken out” of the set, it was certified with the other coins in its packaging. It would’ve been a cool coin on its own, but now, it’s a cool coin with a great story. It's hard to argue with that!

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-- John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: Double Provenance

March 15, 2010
Written by John Dale


Provenance, pedigree (the term Heritage coin catalogers use informally), a roster of previous owners…whatever it’s called, a coin’s past can be a boon to its value. While there’s no provenance that can save a coin from itself—a harshly cleaned coin remains harshly cleaned, regardless of who owned it—the right provenance can make a good coin great, or a great coin transcendent.

Lot 2176 in Heritage’s upcoming March auction at the National Money Show in Fort Worth, is a 1911-D quarter eagle. First, the date: good. The 1911-D quarter eagle has the lowest mintage of any Indian quarter eagle, just 55,680 pieces; by comparison, the issue with the next lowest mintage, the 1914, saw 240,000 examples struck.

Next, the grade: even better. This example is graded MS66. Most Indian quarter eagles don’t come close to that quality, regardless of date. Since the 1911-D started out with such a small mintage, there aren’t too many of the coins regardless of grade, and the 1911-D quarter eagles weren’t saved heavily when they were released, so most survivors are worn or heavily marked. As I write this, lot 2176 is one of only three PCGS-certified 1911-D quarter eagles graded by that firm as MS66, and PCGS hasn’t graded any finer pieces, either.

Last, the provenance: incredible. This coin is being sold as part of The Atherton Family Collection, Part Two, but before that, it was part of two of the most esteemed collections of the 20th century. The Norweb Collection was built to its full splendor over nearly half a century by Emery May (Holden) Norweb and her husband, Ambassador R. Henry Norweb.

When this 1911-D quarter eagle was sold in the late 1980s, it landed in the hands of Harry W. Bass, Jr. His researcher-collector approach to early American gold made him famous, but his eye for quality extended across the entirety of U.S. gold coinage. The Norweb provenance was front-and-center when this coin was sold at auction at the end of the 1990s, along with other Bass Collection coins outside his core holdings.

Any 1911-D quarter eagle in MS66 is sure to be coveted, but the provenance of this example, its link back to the glamour of the Norwebs and the golden touch of Harry Bass, makes it more than just a high-grade coin. It’s hard to explain the appeal of a great provenance to someone who’s never felt that way. Here’s as close as I can get: when a coin like this comes along, when it makes me forget about cataloging for a moment and sends me checking the other offices for someone to share in my excitement—a memorable provenance tells me I've been in good company feeling that way.

-- John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: "A Bonded-Mated Pair"

March 1, 2010

Written by John Dale

“A bonded-mated pair.” While it may sound like the subject of a pulp magazine cover in the next Illustration Art catalog, it’s actually a coin term, used to refer to a particular class of error. A “mated pair” is a set of two coins united by a common strike; a “bonded-mated pair” is a mated pair in which the two coins were fused together instead of separating. This is what happened to the bonded-mated pair of 1972-S proof cents coming up for auction in the March 2010 Fort Worth Official ANA Auction.

So that’s the answer to the first question: “What the heck is that?” Now for the second: “What the heck happened to it?” After all, most of the fun in error collecting comes from imagining what happened!

I described a mated pair as a set of two coins united by a common strike. More specifically, imagine one coin being struck. The planchet goes between the dies, the moving die goes down and strikes the planchet with a ton of force. Out pops a coin, which then leaves the dies. Another planchet takes its place.

But what happens when the newly struck coin doesn’t get out of the way? It can stick to one of the dies, leading to a brockage error, like this dime I wrote about back in June 2009. Or the newly struck coin could get partway out of the dies, but not completely. It lands under or on top of the next planchet, the dies come down, and suddenly there are two coins which share one impression from the dies.

Usually the two coins separate from each other after the strike. Often they are split up, with one being caught in an inspection and never leaving the mint, for example. Owning a mated pair, or both halves of a common strike, is far more desirable than having just one of the pieces.

A bonded-mated pair takes the idea of a mated pair one step further. Instead of separating, the mated pair is bonded together by the common strike. Most bonded-mated pairs never get out into the world; they’re ludicrously easy to spot in a hand-inspection, and several automated systems are designed specifically to weed out misshapen oddities like this one. Interestingly enough, this error is also a proof bonded-mated pair, and all proofs are supposed to be hand-inspected at least once before they head out the door! Makes you wonder… [Then you realize that this thing was made in the early 1970s in San Francisco, and it all makes sense. – Noah]

What’s most dramatic about this error is how it’s bent. The photographs, as great as they are, can’t do justice to how truly three-dimensional the error is. The two coins form an angle nearly 45 degrees from the horizontal, like the sides of a chevron or the two halves of a book held open as a reader searches for a page. While this error, like all the best, leaves a few unresolved questions, it does offer many insights, and more importantly, a solid jumping-off point for wild speculation. So in both speculating and bidding, have at it!

-- John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: The 1904 Double Eagle, Playing to Type

February 8, 2010
Written by John Dale

One of the broad styles or modes of collecting coins, type collecting consists of acquiring and owning a series of coins, each representative of a subset, or “type” of coin. A type set of double eagles, for example, would include coins exemplifying its various designs over the years, both long-lived (such as the “Type Three” Liberty double eagle with denomination spelled out as TWENTY DOLLARS, struck from 1877 to 1907) and short-lived (the High Relief Saint-Gaudens double eagle was made only briefly in the latter year). The High Relief double eagles are worthy of their own blog post, so I won’t go into them today, but consider this coin from the upcoming March 2010 Official ANA Auction in Fort Worth a sneak preview.

The High Relief double eagles of 1907 are the only ones of their type, so the collector by type has to get one or do without. Longer-lived types, on the other hand, have a variety of issues to choose from, and usually type collectors will aim for more common dates, often known as “type coins,” well-suited to that style of collecting. Since type coins are more available than rarer dates, they are usually less expensive than their peers, letting the type collector acquire a higher-graded coin for the same price.

For the “Type Three” Liberty double eagle design I mentioned earlier, there are several dates that appeal to type collectors. Most famous is the 1904 double eagle, struck at Philadelphia. The official mintage of coins for circulation: 6,256,699 pieces. Over six million coins at twenty dollars face value each—and 1904 dollars, no less—that’s a lot of money, even for Mark Cuban. Which reminds me, I should go to another Mavericks game one of these days...

Anyway, there were a lot of 1904 double eagles made, and many of them have survived. In the Fort Worth auction, there are examples in a variety of Mint State grades, suitable for a broad range of budgets. Go ahead and check out the price information on this MS63 example. Those “Population in All Grades” numbers? In the six figures, and no joke. NGC has graded a 1904 double eagle as MS63 64,496 times. That’s not a typo. Suffice it to say, if you want an example in MS63, you can find usually find one to your liking, and quickly.

Same for MS64, and even MS65, though as the quality increases, so does the price. There’s a dramatic drop-off in availability from MS65 to MS66, though, and the example we’re offering in that grade looks every bit the five-figure coin it is. As for finer examples, NGC and PCGS combined have graded three total. Even Heritage hasn’t offered one. If you’re holding out for an MS67, expect a long wait. If an MS66 will do for you, though, the coin coming up in late March might be just your type.

-- John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: Ode to Louis McHenry Howe

Dec. 28, 2009

Written by John Dale

While it may not have quite the same ring as “Ode to Billie Joe”, there’s an “Ode to Louis McHenry Howe” in lot 2062 of The Boca Collection, Part I, one of three volumes in the set covering Heritage’s January 2010 FUN U.S. Coin Auction.

Just about everyone who isn’t either a Franklin Delano Roosevelt fanatic, over 80 years of age, or a clicker of the hyperlink bearing his name is asking, “Who the heck is Louis McHenry Howe?”
Howe was a journalist turned ultimate political insider and ultimate confidant to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Through a quarter of a century Howe guided Roosevelt through his early state-level political experiences, his personal and political crises in the aftermath of his failed 1920 bid for the vice-presidency, and the vast majority of Roosevelt’s first term as president.

Still, Howe was doubtless more famous (or infamous) at the height of his influence than in the years following his death; even recent re-tellings of history inevitably must elide ($5 SAT word alert! - Noah) important figures of any one time, and advisors - even influential ones - are often among the first to fade.

Howe’s contemporaries could not deny his influence, however, so they called him names instead, attacking his appearance and his political acumen. He was a “Rasputin” for his perceived influence over Roosevelt, an unflattering “Talleyrand,” a “ghoul.” Less grudgingly, he was also “The President’s Other I,” “The Man Behind Roosevelt,” or as the title of a recent history-biography describes him, FDR’s Shadow.

The Roosevelt-Howe relationship was unusually close for a modern American president and an advisor, and the proof coinage of 1936 is actually a testament to that closeness. Though proof set coinage had been stopped in 1916 because of rising costs and hassle, the idea was revived two decades later.

Why? To quote a quotation of a quote (it makes sense if you read the description…), “It was understood at the Treasury that the resumption of [proof coinage] was ordered on a suggestion of Louis M. Howe, secretary to President Roosevelt, a few weeks before his death.”

Thus, it was a message from the President’s secretary and confidant – in some ways a last wish – and was, ultimately, the catalyst for the return of proof sets. The idea took only months to travel from Howe’s mind to then-Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau’s desk to the coining presses in the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia.

Why did Howe make his request? The press release that was the ultimate source of the above quote states simply, “Howe was said to have been interested in numismatics.”

The mid-1930s were a boom time for coin collecting, and there were a number of collectors campaigning for the return of proof sets at the time, but whether Howe was interested in proof sets himself or was acting on another’s behalf is not widely understood. Perhaps a further examination of Howe’s correspondence will reveal why this intriguing man – the “Medieval Gnome” at Roosevelt’s side, the whisperer in the President’s ear – looked after numismatics in his final days.

After Howe’s death, he was buried as much as he was praised, but his influence on President Roosevelt was incalculable. The last sets of the Boca Collection are the undeniable proof.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: "The $100,000 Nickel"? Not Anymore!

November 30, 2009
Written by John Dale Beety
The Heritage Blog

Last week, I mentioned that the January 2010 FUN U.S. Coin Auction contains more than one million-dollar coin. As promised, this week I’ll discuss the other piece. Interestingly enough, this won’t be the first time I’ve talked about this particular million-dollar coin in the blog; I led off my “Seeing Double?” post with a reference to a 1913 Liberty nickel in an episode of Hawaii Five-O.

In early January, the same coin—called “The $100,000 Nickel” at the time of taping and “The Hawaii Five-O Specimen” (among other names) today—will be auctioned by Heritage. There are only five authentic 1913-dated Liberty nickels, and the five have appeared in many of the most famous coin collections of all time. While this is the first time Heritage has offered this or any other 1913 Liberty nickel at auction, there is a Heritage connection in the coin’s past.

Back in 1972, it first became “The $100,000 Nickel” when it was offered by Abe Kosoff for that sum. It was purchased by World Wide Coin Investments, which was co-owned by Warren Tucker, now the Director of Heritage World Coin Auctions.

(Aside: I often call Mr. Tucker Tucker-san, after a humorous incident that took place at a wedding in Tokyo. He had been invited there by the father of the bride, a leading Japanese coin dealer of the day. The wedding guests received appliances as gifts; the men were to get radios, the women crock-pots. As a jest, Mr. Tucker was led to the wrong receiving line, and afterward, the Japanese dealer would greet him with “Ah, Tucker-san, you like the crock-pot?”)

It was shortly after the record-setting and news-making purchase that World Wide Coin Investments lent the 1913 Liberty nickel to production of the Hawaii Five-O episode. Like many high-priced stars of the screen, the 1913 Liberty nickel had a “stunt double” for its various adventures in the show. The actual nickel appears only in close-ups, but in those close-ups, it was seen by millions of viewers, which has led some numismatic experts to call it "The Most Famous Coin in the World".

Before and after its brush with showbiz, the coin has been owned by a variety of famous collectors, including Wall Street scion Colonel E.H.R. Green, Fred Olsen, Dr. Jerry Buss of Los Angeles Lakers fame, and the Texan Reed Hawn. (Reed Hawn’s Class I 1804 dollar was bought by David Queller and sold as part of the Queller Family Collection of Silver Dollars for more than $3.7 million dollars in April 2008, the third-highest price ever brought by a U.S. coin at auction.)

It appeared in the news a month back that CBS is looking to revive the Hawaii Five-O franchise. If they ever do a re-make of “The $100,000 Nickel,” perhaps the coin’s next owner will let it reprise its role. Of course, the episode title is out-of-date now. Nearly four decades on, that $100,000 price tag seems almost quaint. While it’s too early to tell what this 1913 Liberty nickel might bring in January, all the early signs point to “The $3,000,000 Nickel”—or maybe something more.

A look inside the mind of Jack Ruby, literally: Heritage Auctions offers Ruby's brain scan

Oct. 13, 2009

Posted by Noah

What is a seemingly innocuous little lot in the Nov. 6-7 20th Century Icons Auction at Heritage Auctions is actually one of the more intriguing lots in what is, in my humble and unbiased opinion, an auction full of absolutely stellar stuff.

The picture you see to your right is an actual x-ray of Jack Ruby's brain, taken when he was diagnosed with cancer. The nurse who took it, and consigned it to Heritage Auctions, was allowed to have it because the scan was not an exact match to the other side of Ruby's brain, and therefore rendered inutile. Now, more than 40 years later, it is a small piece of the larger puzzle that is still the most significant event of the second half of the 20th Century.

Ruby is one of those figures that has remained absolutely enigmatic since his infamous deed, and any connection to him - and the conspiracy theories that he represents - always gets people talking, and here Heritage Auctions has an actual, physical look inside his brain. Can you say creepy and compelling? Creepelling? Comcreepy?

The Ruby x-ray is going up at Heritage Auctions alongside the fedora (stylish!) that Ruby wore when he shot Oswald ("Follow the hat") and the shackles that were around his ankles at the time of his death from cancer, not to deter him from escaping, mind you, but to deter would-be body snatchers.

There's also a detailed grouping surrounding his arrest and, perhaps most spectacularly - certainly one of the single greatest things I've ever seen - Heritage Auctions is offering a signed front page Dallas Morning News morning edition form 11/22/1965, that was signed by JKF himself in Ft. Worth before he got on a plane to come to Love Field. Serioulsy. It's worthy of a blog post of its own, which it will get a little closer to the auction.

For now, however, the focus of this post is on Ruby's brain. Heritage Auctions is offering this truly unique piece - certainly the only one of its kind - from one of the most infamous players in the whole JFK scenario. Perhaps someone will buy it and save it for thousands of years until the technology exists to actually read the thoughts that I know are embedded in the x-ray. I've read about such things in many comic books, so don't tell me it's not possible...

Heritage Auctions has put a pre-sale estimate on it at $1,000. Somehow, though, I reckon it's going to go a little higher than that.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Coin Monday: The Double, Part One

Oct. 5, 2009
Written By John Dale

At around 2000 lots, the Signature® section of Heritage’s October Dallas U.S. Coin auction is small by division standards. “Small,” though, hardly implies “unimpressive” and there are several coins or varieties in the auction that don’t come up for sale every day. Surprisingly enough, two of those varieties are represented in multiples — miss out on the first one? Well, there’s another on the way!

Both the 1907 Wire Rim Saint-Gaudens eagle (or $10 coin) and the 1969-S cent with prominent obverse doubled die fall into the category. The latter deserves its own blog post, which I’ll give it next week, meaning today I’ll focus on the 1907 Wire Rim eagle, which has a mintage of only 500 pieces. We’re offering a pair of Wire Rims, both graded MS64 by NGC. Lot 1575 is the Little Rock Collection example, which I touched on in Part Two of “One Collection, Seven Spectacular Coins” back in mid-September.

Right after lot 1575 hammers down, lot 1576 comes up, the same issue in the same grade. It’d be hard to confuse the two coins, though; lot 1576 has deep orange-gold luster, while lot 1575 is substantially paler and yellow-gold in color. Between the two different looks, at least one is likely to appeal to most collectors.

Just 500 of the Wire Rim $10s were struck, as previously noted; the design for the Wire Rim $10, like the ancient Greek coins said to have been an inspiration, was in relief far too high to be practical for coinage in the 20th century. This was irrelevant to then-President Theodore Roosevelt, however; the coinage designs created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens had become a personal quest, an obsession, a “pet crime” in Roosevelt’s own words, and he would not be denied. The Wire Rim $10s, distributed to the President and well-connected interested parties, were meant to placate Roosevelt until the actual lowered-relief Saint-Gaudens eagle design was ready for production.

While a number of the Wire Rim Saint-Gaudens eagles survive, the low initial mintage, coupled with the coins’ distinctive beauty, has made them collector favorites. On most nights when a Wire Rim $10 is up for auction there can only be one winner; this time, however, two bidders can walk away happy, and for me, that’s a beautiful thing to see.

Next week: the 1969-S doubled die cents!

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: A 'Fair' Coin

Sept. 28, 2009
Written by John Dale

The Texas State Fair started on Friday, Sept. 25, and from my office window, I can just make out the Ferris wheel in Fair Park. It’s a little bit surprising, now that I think about it… somewhere in the area of that Ferris Wheel, a vendor is serving deep-fried butter (That’s deep-fried butter, not batter. The latter can be found just about everywhere!). Texas may be well known for its outlandish fried food, but every state fair has its quirks. One such quirk of interest to numismatists belongs to the Missouri State Fair, which had an intriguing souvenir on offer in 1921: commemorative half dollars celebrating the centennial of Missouri’s statehood.

In the years following the successful Illinois commemorative halves of 1918, several other states got in on the statehood centennial celebration bandwagon: Maine in 1920, Missouri in 1921, Alabama also in 1921 (notably, these were two years late to the party), Arkansas in 1935 (and every year through 1939), and Iowa in 1946. There are also a number of near-misses; Texas, for example, chose to celebrate the centennial of its independence from Mexico instead.

Going back to Missouri, the commemorative halves honoring its statehood centennial make specific reference to the Missouri State Fair… once you know where to look. On the reverse, below the feet of the two figures, is an exergue with the incused word SEDALIA. The meaning would have been abundantly clear to any fairgoer, since the fair was (and still is) held in Sedalia, MO. The coins don’t say STATE FAIR anywhere on them, but they might as well have!

One variety of Missouri half was sold at the fair, but there’s a second variant which features the numerals "2" and "4" flanking a star. Ostensibly, this symbolized Missouri adding a 24th star to the U.S. flag; in practice, that star should’ve been a dollar sign, because all it really meant was the creation of an artificial variety to fleece coin collectors. While collectors generally handled their coins with care, the “plain” Missouri halves mainly sold to folks who didn’t have the foggiest idea how to tend to their new souvenirs. Such half dollars were often cleaned in a misguided attempt to keep them shiny, and many of them slid around in pockets.

Still, a half dollar is a durable souvenir, much more likely to survive a day of fair-going than a silly hat or a cheap plastic sword. Speaking of which, I hear there’s a Pirates of the Caribbean-themed diving show this year…

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-John Dale Beety

A night in Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater? I'll take two!

Sept. 25, 2009

Posted by Noah

... Okay, so it's actually not a night in Fallingwater, but two evenings in a house on the property and a day and an evening to hang out, eat, talk to others like yourself who love this house, and the overall work of Frank Lloyd Wright, the master...

So what if a lot of Wright's designs, while revolutionary and undeniably gorgeous, came up a little short on the sustainability scale. What matters is that it looks good. If you've studied any of Wright's designs, read his work, and made a point of touring his buildings - and I'm betting a few of you out there have - then you know what I'm talking about.

Throughout my journey as an antiques, art and auction writer for the last (mumble,mumble) years, great Modern architecture has been a constant. The first big story I wrote for a Northeastern antiques paper was on Wright - Russel Wright, actually, the industrial designer. I know that's the wrong Wright, but his personal Manitoga house in Garrison, NY made sure to set me on the right path and I've followed, studied and written about Modern Architecture, and Modernism, very closely ever since.

Of course, when I read the story linked to above I also ran to the handy Heritage Archives to see what evidence of the master's handiwork had come through Heritage and didn't come up disappointed. There is a healthy dose of FLW associated stuff, topped by a spectacular archive relating to the building of Wrights Parkwin Village in Kalamazoo, MI. Great stuff, really, and at just more than $13,000 in Oct. of 2006, a relative steal to be able to get inside the creative process of the such a brilliant and influential mind. There are also books that have sold for $10, and everything in between. Wright did not discriminate between his great and small projects - whether it was Fallingwater, Taliesin or one of his many "working class" Usonian structures, Wright did not hold back his talent. Neither does Heritage hold back in offering Wright-related artifacts that are five figures, two figures and everywhere in between.

No Wright structure seems to have captured the world's imagination like Fallingwater. Sure, The Guggenheim Museum is spectacular. The Johnson Wax building is sublime, both Taliesins (Spring Green, WI and Phoenix, AZ) are a special treat, and the Darwin D. Martin House in Buffalo, NY is amazing, while even the Kalita Humphreys Theater here is Dallas is a rambling and intriguing piece of Wright madness - whose future is now in doubt, btw - and countless movies and TV shows have made use of his futuristic and ahead-of-its-time design. Somehow Fallingwater is the one that turns everyone on.

As one of the curators of the place says in the story above, "it's the tree house you always wanted to live in."

That's about Wright, er... right. (You would've done it, too, were you writing this post. You know it.)

To get the one hour tour of Fallingwater costs about $18. To spend two evenings around Fallingwater and a day in it, will set you back a cool $1195. Pocket change, right? Perhaps to some. I personally would love to do it if I had the cash. It would indeed be a dream come true. It will have to wait, however, as I doubt my 3-1/2 year old daughter, cute, sweet - and brilliant, I might add - as she may be, would quite yet understand just why it's not a good idea to climb in that tree.

"But Papa, it's right in the living room!"

Chances are I'd probably agree with her and we'd both get kicked out. So much for my dream of spending a big chunk of cash to pretend for a day that I lived in the most famous private residence in America!

Wright does, however, still figure prominently in my life. I read about him whenever I can, I go to his buildings wherever I can and I remember very well that he said that the blocks he played with as a child unlocked his architectural genius at an early age. Needless to say, one of the first things we got our daughter when she mastered her hands was a set of blocks. I have a feeling she might be getting a whole new, and sizable, addition to her collection over the holidays. I have no doubt that she will directly channel Wright's genius.

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-Noah Fleisher

Coin Thursday/Collector’s Corner: A Smithsonian Encounter

Sept. 24, 2009
Written by John Dale

In May 1997, I was a newly signed-up member of the ANA, thoroughly in love with coins and coin collecting. I was also far too busy to think about them much, between a deluge of seventh-grade homework and obsessive studying for the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee. (It’s the Scripps National Spelling Bee now, but it was Scripps Howard then, and I still call it that.) When I got on a plane with my mom and dad and flew out to the Bee, though, both of those distractions stopped.

The National Spelling Bee has emphasized this pause, to spelling families and the outside world alike — after winning a paid trip to Washington D.C. for a week, spending the whole time huddled in the hotel and obsessing over Latin roots is a terrible waste.

An hour of studying just before bed is fine, but during the day, there will be sightseeing and other activities, like the ice cream social (chocolate for me, with hot fudge and about half a jar of maraschino cherries) and the Memorial Day barbecue (which hosted sack races and other contests that were almost as hotly contested as the Bee itself). Then there were the museums, monuments, memorials, and moments when tour guides realized they were facing down several dozen scary-smart kids who were not shy about asking difficult questions.

As many activities as were booked, though, there were mornings and afternoons the spellers and their families had to themselves, and it was on one of those afternoons that I set out with my parents, seeking the perfect souvenir for the trip.

After a good deal of calling-around, my parents had discovered that a few commemorative Smithsonian Institution silver dollars, struck in 1996 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Institution’s establishment, were still in stock at the gift shop in the Institution’s National Museum of African Art. (For reference, here’s an example of the design in our upcoming October Dallas U.S. Coin Signature Auction.)

That particular museum hadn’t been on our radar beforehand, but while we were there, we couldn’t help but look around before finding the gift shop. There, I bought my proof Smithsonian dollar, paying for it with traveler’s checks in my name (those traveler’s checks made me feel like such a grown-up!), and we went back to the hotel, where I packed it away for safekeeping… but not before taking a good, long last look.

At the Bee itself, I managed a respectable tie for 36th place, but in the fifth round, I heard that dreaded bell tell me I was wrong. (I will never, ever, ever misspell “myocarditis” again!) The two days I actually spent spelling, though, are the part of that week I least remember. What have stayed with me more strongly are the memories made away from the Bee - the conversations over ice cream or behind the back of a docent, the times I’d look out the window of my room and see legions of inflatable dictionaries staring back at me, the quest that took me to a museum I’d never thought to visit. It’s just one of the uncountable stories found at the intersection of a coin and a memory.

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-John Dale Beety

Got a great story about collecting? Send it to CollectorsCorner@HA.com

Sept. 22, 2009
Posted by Noah

When we first opened the Collector's Corner to our readers stories several months ago we got a lot of great responses. Now we want to open it up a little more. Heritage's Collectors Corner (CollectorsCorner@HA.com) is looking for any great story on collecting you may have hidden in the cobwebbed corner of your collectors brain.

Whether it's about your area of collecting, your particular collection, or the collection of your Mom or Dad, we want to hear the story and use it in our Collector's Corners post at www.HA.com/Connect, and on this blog.

Did you ever witness something amazing happen at a show, or an auction, that made you re-think how you viewed the pursuit of collecting? Did a family member pass along a great story, or a piece of family history regarding a family collecting? Do you just know a good joke about collecting and you want to share it? Well, that's what we want for Collector's Corner.

Just so you know, we reserve the right to use any submission in our Collector's Corner, edited and presented anonymously - it's just about the story.

Remember, that's CollectorsCorner@HA.com, and we want your story!

To leave a comment click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Coin Monday: One Collection, Seven Spectacular Coins (Part Two)

Sept. 21, 2009
Written by John Dale

A quick recap:

On Friday, I introduced the Little Rock Collection, a small but dynamite Featured Collection in Heritage’s upcoming October Dallas U.S. Coin Auction. I covered the 1871-CC double eagle and the 1892 double eagle, which both qualify as the “good stuff.”

Now that the good stuff is out of the way, it’s time to talk about the better stuff.

The 1885 double eagle, graded MS61 by PCGS, certainly qualifies. From 1882 to 1885, double eagle production at Philadelphia was minimal or nonexistent, at least as far as circulating coins were concerned. In 1883 and 1884, the Philadelphia Mint coined only proofs of the denomination. In 1882, there were only 571 business strikes produced. The year 1885, which this coin represents, saw only 751 double eagles struck for circulation at Philadelphia. With a mintage figure that small, is it any wonder that the 1885 $20 is very scarce regardless of grade?

Finishing off the theme of low-mintage, high-desirability Liberty double eagles is an 1891 $20, graded AU58 by NGC. It’s one of the best surviving examples from an issue of just 1,390 business strikes. The 1891 and 1892 Philadelphia $20s are the last of their kind; beginning in 1893, the main Mint struck a much larger number of double eagles instead of letting San Francisco do all the work.

Rounding out the collection is a trio of tempting Saint-Gaudens $10 coins. Leading off is a Wire Rim 1907 eagle graded MS64 by NGC. The Wire Rim eagles may be considered an analogue to the famous High Relief Saint-Gaudens double eagles, in that they are the first issue in the series that can be collected by more than, say, a dozen numismatists. Only 500 Wire Rim tens were struck, and examples this nice don’t come up for auction every month. Take note!

Two late San Francisco issues finish off the collection. The 1920-S eagle, represented by an NGC MS62 example, was heavily melted in the wake of the gold recall of 1933, leaving only a small scattering of lightly circulated and Mint State coins. The 1920-S is even rarer than the San Francisco eagle issue that followed it a decade later, the 1930-S. The Little Rock Collection sports a lovely MS64 representative of the 1930-S eagle. Its story is much the same as it was with the 1920-S, though surprisingly, more examples of the 1930-S have survived; it’s believed that at least one roll of 1930-S eagles was saved and eventually distributed to collectors.

So, there it is… seven coins, one collection, and plenty of excitement. Join us in October to bid on these golden treasures!

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Coin Friday: One Collection, Seven Spectacular Coins (Part One)

Sept. 18, 2009
Written by John Dale

“Big things come in small packages.”

An old saying like that sticks around for the truth that’s in it, and the Little Rock Collection is as good a reason as any to trot it out. The Little Rock Collection doesn’t appear on the Heritage Web site yet (that’ll come in the next few weeks, when the October Dallas U.S. Coin Auction comes out of previews), and when it does appear, it won’t take up much real estate on anyone’s monitor. There are just seven lots in it, you see.

On the printed page, however, the Little Rock Collection is going to make itself known: out of seven lots, five of them will have a whole page to themselves, and the other two - the relative laggards of the bunch - aren’t far behind.

As I type this, all seven of the coins in the Little Rock Collection are imaged, though two have not been described. Coincidentally, those two are the “laggards” that just missed out on landing a full page in the catalog. I’ll touch on those two coins briefly and then continue on to the already-cataloged pieces.

The two undescribed coins are Liberty double eagles. First is an 1871-CC double eagle graded AU55 by NGC, and while I haven’t had the chance to check this coin in person, from the images it looks gorgeous. Early Carson City gold is a longtime collector favorite, and that interest is almost certain to carry over for this AU55 coin - AU55 is an excellent grade by the 1871-CC double eagle standards.

Then there’s the 1892 double eagle graded MS62 by PCGS, one of just 4,430 business strikes made for the year. While the 1880s has a string of low-mintage or (no-mintage) Philadelphia business strike issues, the trend continued only briefly in the 1890s.

In fact, the 1892 double eagle is the last $20 gold piece to have a four-figure production total. Once again, I don’t have access to the coin proper, but it’s pictured on the Web, and I like what I see.

Next time: two Liberty double eagles, three Saint-Gaudens eagles, five full pages. See you then!

Mr. DOB: A Murakami Lithograph Coming in October

Sept. 15, 2009
Written by John Dale

The recent posting of the October 2009 Modern and Contemporary Art Auction had me browsing the lots, and as I was drawing close to the end, I saw a name and broke out into a grin. The name was Takashi Murakami, and his work appears in lot 63117, a lithograph on paper titled And then, and then, and then…Variation 4. Mr. Murakami is famous for his artistic and commercial prowess - to be more specific, his remarkable faculty for managing and merging the two.

Based on my slight [Slight?! Slight?! – Noah] penchant for Japanese popular culture, as previously mentioned in “Thoughts on Assorted Japanese Imports-,” it shouldn’t come as much of a shock that I’m intrigued by Mr. Murakami and his art, which counts Japanese popular culture, particularly the otaku subculture frequently associated with manga and related phenomena, as an important inspiration. The lithograph being offered by Heritage shows that inspiration clearly: the face of Mr. Murakami’s signature character, Mr. DOB (check the ears), dominates the space with his wide eyes and broad grin. The wide eyes in particular are an important part of the manga aesthetic.

Artistic influences such as Pop Art and manga, however, are only part of Mr. Murakami’s appeal. He operates not only in “fine art,” as it is understood in the West, but also in a variety of more commercial fields. His firm Kaikai Kiki, a combination studio and agency representing Mr. Murakami and selected other artists, pursues a variety of merchandising opportunities: “pillows, bags, towels, key chains, sticker sets, and even soccer balls” bearing the designs of Mr. Murakami and other represented artists, according to the site. It’s worth noting that Kaikai Kiki is listed as the publisher of the lithograph in the auction.

Through his strategy of selling products and lending his name and designs to commercially successful projects, Mr. Murakami has continually raised his profile as an artist and the demand for all his work, costly art and inexpensive sticker sets alike. When he collaborated with Louis Vuitton on a line of products bearing his “Multicolore” reinterpretation of the famous LV monogram pattern, both parties benefited. Similarly, his art for a series of Kanye West singles (no VMA jokes here; those are so 48 hours ago) and West’s Graduation album introduced Mr. Murakami to a broad and previously unaware audience.

With an estimate of $1,000 to $1,500, this lithograph makes for a relatively inexpensive introduction to Mr. Murakami’s work. As for myself, well…maybe I’ll settle for a key chain.

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-John Dale Beety

The cautionary tale of Lenny Dykstra

Sept. 15, 2009

Posted by Noah

If you're remotely a fan of sports - as a concept and and industry - then the name Lenny Dysktra is familiar to you. If you follow any sport religously then you have watched SportsCenter enough times to have heard at least something about Lenny Dykstra. And if you are reading this blog post, then you probably know that Dykstra's demise has now partly intersected with Heritage Auctions in the form of the trove of his World Series and MVP memorabilia that will be in our Oct. 1-2 Sports Auction.

Over the weekend AP broke the story about the auction and it has since traveled to hundreds of outlets worldwide - yet it is a bittersweet PR victory. It's always good to have our name out there in association with an important collection or individual lot, and even better when it attracts potential bidders, but would that Dykstra had never pawned his memorabilia to a high-end shop in Los Angeles. Desperate times led the man known as nails to such measures. It is well-chronicled in the story from the New York Times that I have linked to here.

I'm not one to pile on the man, he certainly has his fair share of detractors, but I take his story as a cautionary tale, one so atypical yet sadly typical of professional athletes. His rise from MLB star to financial wizard - almost a poster boy for the lost wealth of the last year - is equaled only by the dizzying fall from grace at breakneck speed. If, for some reason you don't know the story, just Google his name and take your pick. Dykstra's hubris earned him much animosity when he was at the top, and it has resulted in an entire huge sector of Cyberspace dedicated to salaciously documenting the tumble.

From my perspective, I hope the auction makes a ton - it's a superb collection of amazing stuff, and the Dykstra material is just one course in a huge meal, a buffet, a virtual smorgasbord of the rarest stuff you've ever seen, even if it's not quite as juicy as the older, more-seasoned slice of Lenny Dykstra.

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-Noah Fleisher