Coin Monday: Hat Trick at Heritage FUN

Jan. 11, 2009

Written by John Dale

In keeping with Chris Nerat’s post on the virtues of Heritage’s Permanent Auction Archives, I’m going to finish off my coverage of the January 2010 FUN U.S. Coin Auction (don’t forget the Post-Auction Buys!) with a look at what the auction means for Heritage’s archives, and more specifically the coin wing of Heritage’s Auction Hall of Fame.

For starters, Heritage just auctioned off three million-dollar coins. The 1927-D double eagle? Yes. The 1874 Bickford $10 pattern in gold? Yes. The 1913 Liberty nickel? Oh heck yes. Three coins - one auction, one session - for more than one million dollars. No other firm has auctioned three million-dollar U.S. coins as single lots in one sitting. That’s reason to smile.

This isn’t the first time Heritage has pulled off the hat trick, either (credit due to Senior Cataloger Mark Borckardt for the reference). Back in January 2005, Heritage rattled off its first three million-dollar coins. An 1894-S dime was the crowning glory, and it came only about 150 lots after two different types of Brasher doubloons, the Punch on Wing for $2.415 million and the Punch on Breast for $2.99 million, sold as consecutive lots. (Since then, another duo, the 1796 No Stars quarter eagle and the 1796 With Stars quarter eagle, have sold as consecutive lots at Heritage auctions for more than a million dollars, but there was no third million-dollar coin to complete the trilogy.)

November 2005 closed out that year with another hat trick, as the fantastic Phillip Morse Collection of Saint-Gaudens double eagles redefined the record books. Lot 6522, an Ultra High Relief, Lettered Edge coin from 1907 (not to be confused with the “merely” High Relief Saint-Gaudens double eagle) went for $2.99 million. After Morse’s 1921 double eagle went for $1.0925 million, excitement built, since his 1927-D double eagle was still to come - and at $1.8975 million, it did not disappoint.

The two hat tricks of 2005 are important to the history of the company, but two key achievements make the January hat trick all the more remarkable. First, never before in history have three U.S. coins have sold in a single auction for over one million dollars hammer price, before Buyer’s Premium is added in. (Buyer’s Premium is the 15% difference between, for example, the “Sold for $900,000” announced for the 1894-S dime and the customer’s bill for $1.035 million.) At $1.1 million hammer for the Bickford ten dollar, $1.3 million hammer for the 1927-D double eagle, and $3.25 million hammer for the 1913 Liberty nickel, all three clear the bar easily.

Second, while the two previous hat tricks have been dominated by one consignor (the consignor of the Gold Rush Collection in January 2005, or obviously Phillip Morse in November 2005), the January 2010 FUN Auction’s three million-dollar coins all came from different sources. Ralph P. Muller proudly put his name on his collection and his 1927-D double eagle. I also know who consigned the Bickford $10 pattern, though as always, Heritage’s consignors remain private unless declared otherwise.

As for the 1913 Liberty nickel, even I don’t know who owned it. In the coin auction business, there are three broad classes of stories: the stories you can tell, the stories you won’t tell, and the stories you can’t tell. And as for who at Heritage “can’t tell” and who “won’t tell,” well, I won’t be telling…

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-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: The Big Bickford

Jan. 4, 2009

Written by John Dale

A slightly surreal slice-of-life from Heritage, a recent e-mail exchange:

From John Dale to Noah – Still trying to come up with ideas for next Monday’s blog…would a digression into 19th century European monetary unions be interesting at all, do you think?

Reply from Noah to John Dale – As long as you can work in a reference to, or a quote from, The Dude in The Big Lebowski, I think it would be fine…

Reply from John Dale to Noah – In that case, forget it, dude. Let’s go bowling.

… and that’s why today’s topic is the Bickford international coinage proposal, which is well-represented in the January 2010 FUN U.S. Coin Auction, but which is only tangentially related to 19th century European monetary unions.

What the two topics have in common is a nebulous “international coin” movement that saw its 19th century heyday in the 1870s. The Latin Monetary Union, which aligned the values of national currencies of member nations, began with four countries: Belgium, France, Italy, and Switzerland. By 1870, Greece and Spain were also members. Many other countries remained unaligned, however, and currency conversion between, say, Great Britain and France remained frustrating, particularly for occasional travelers.

One such traveler was Dana Bickford, an inventor known in his time for creating an “automatic knitting machine,” but today best known among numismatists for his attempts to create a working international coinage. The Bickford pattern $10 coin lays out its value seven ways: there are six denominations and values in boxes that surround a center listing the weight and metal content.

The proposed gold coins would have been valued at 10 United States dollars; 51.81 French francs; two pounds, one shilling, one penny in British sterling, etc. The center, applicable UBIQUE (or “everywhere” in Latin—thanks, Mrs. Killion!) lists the coin’s weight at 16.72 grams (of gold), 900 fine (or 9/10ths pure).

It’s an utterly delightful and charming idea — until one realizes that as soon as any one country changed the value of its currency relative to the rest, the coin is suddenly wrong. This fatal flaw is why the Bickford $10 trade coin never made it past the pattern stage.

Most of the Bickford $10 patterns produced were made out of copper, like this example. Two precious representatives, however, were made out of gold, and these rarities are among the most prized patterns available to collectors today. One of them, formerly owned by numismatic legends such as Waldo Newcomer, F.C.C. Boyd, and Dr. J. Hewitt Judd (who literally “wrote the book” on patterns), is a highlight of the auction’s Platinum Night session.

In fact, it’s right there on the Platinum Night cover, next to the 1913 Liberty nickel and the 1927-D double eagle. While it may not have the instant recognition of the other two (pattern collectors excluded, of course), the Bickford $10 pattern in gold is actually the rarest of the three. Bidding is up to $725,000 as I type this…where will it end? Nobody will know until the bidding ends on January 7. Heritage’s January 2010 FUN event will be the first great numismatic auction of the new decade. Join us in Florida or on Heritage LIVE!™ to join in all the excitement!

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

-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: Value Me as You Please

Dec. 21, 2009

Written by John Dale

“Colonial” or “Pre-Federal,” “Post-Colonial” or “Early American” — all are labels attached to parts of the same broad group of numismatic issues. (Here at Heritage, we just call them all Colonials.) A nearly exhaustive definition of the broad group might be: “metal coins or tokens, issued by a colonial government or private authority, on behalf of an area now part of the United States of America in the years leading up to and immediately after the area’s territoriality or statehood.”

Why must the definition be so complicated?

Actually, considering the diversity and complexity of “Colonials” themselves, every word is necessary. (I’m sure at least one Colonials specialist is going to chime in with some variant of “You missed X, Y, and Z.” Consider this an apology in advance.)

“Colonials” were made before and after the 1783 Treaty of Paris: before, a 1662-dated Oak Tree twopence silver coin from Massachusetts; after, a 1787-dated Immunis Columbia copper token. (Unless noted otherwise, all coins are from the January 2010 FUN U.S. Coin Auction.)

“Colonials” were made for the British-styled “13 original colonies,” as well as North American French colonies and “New Spain” (present-day Texas), as seen in the Auction Archives.

As for the difference between colonial government and private authority, two prominent rarities from FUN’s Platinum Night offer a great illustration.

Lot 2390 is a “New Yorke” Token struck in brass, graded Fine 15 by PCGS. While no date appears on the New Yorke tokens, their origin can be pinned down to the space of a few years. They were issued by Francis Lovelace, who became the second British governor of the colony of New Yorke (as it was then spelled, after the Duke of York) in 1668. The colony had been captured from the Dutch, who called it “Nieuw Amsterdam.”

Lovelace’s governorship lasted until 1673, when the Dutch recaptured “Nieuw Amsterdam.” Though “New Yorke” was soon taken back by the British, Lovelace was not there to see the victory; he was instead rotting away in the Tower of London.

Before that end, though, Lovelace had enough favor to create the “New Yorke” tokens, which point to him on both sides: as noted in the catalog description, “the eagle on the reverse is identical to the crest on the Lovelace coat of arms.” The obverse, which shows Cupid and a woman on either side of the tree (various sources list her as Venus or Psyche), is a vignette depicting love, and puns such as “love-Lovelace” were not uncommon in coinage at the time.

While Lovelace’s “New Yorke” tokens were made with the approval of the Duke of York (or at least his indifference), the Higley coppers struck in Granby, Connecticut were strictly unauthorized. The coppers, represented in the auction by lot 2389, are traditionally attributed to Dr. Samuel Higley, a medical professional and a metallurgical amateur. He also owned a copper-mining business, and it’s believed that starting in 1737, Higley began making copper tokens, possibly with metal from his own mines.

His early copper tokens were self-described as “THE VALUE OF THREE PENCE,” according to their legends, though their closest approximations were actually British halfpennies. It would’ve been a nice racket if Dr. Higley had gotten away with it, but he didn’t, judging by his later tokens such as lot 2389; they read “VALUE ME AS YOU PLEASE” instead.

Lovelace and Higley were separated by the better part of a century and wildly different circumstances of birth and fortune, yet both contributed in their own way to the history of Colonial coinage. Theirs are also just two of the uncountable chapters in that history, told across two full centuries and a touch beyond. When Heritage’s next auction comes around, what will its Colonials have to say?

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-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: Lucky 13 and the 1927-D Double Eagle

Nov. 23, 2009

Written by John Dale

Normally, I’d be talking about a coin in the upcoming December 2009 Houston U.S. Coin Auction in this space, but if I don’t get started on my preview/commentaries for the January 2010 FUN Auction , I know what’ll happen — it’ll be the day before the auction and I’ll still have half a dozen coins to write about. (That may happen anyway, though. Heritage’s FUN auctions are just that awesome.)

For the longest time I had to keep the secret that a certain coin is coming up for auction, as part of a remarkable set of Saint-Gaudens double eagles. With the mailers we’ve sent out, though, plus the Heritage Web site preview and the humongous advertisement in Coin World, I figure it’s safe to say…

We have a 1927-D! We have a 1927-D! (Insert video clip of me doing the Heritage Happy Dance of Coin Joy.) [Not happening. – Noah]

The 1927-D double eagle is rare, and I’m not talking garden-variety rare. When Heritage sold a Class III 1804 dollar earlier this year for $2.3 million, one of the big selling points, as has always been true in its history, is that there are only 15 known 1804 dollars out there.

In our census of 1927-D double eagles, part of an in-depth and potentially mind-bending catalog description in its final stages, Heritage has accounted for only 13 distinct examples. While 13 is seen by many as an unlucky number, it takes a mighty lucky (and wealthy!) numismatist to own one; moreover, since four of the 1927-D double eagles are in museum collections and thus as good as permanently impounded, that leaves just nine coins for collectors.

Just between us, there are a lot more than nine people who want this coin.

When Heritage offers a 1927-D double eagle, the results can be impressive. We offered this particular 1927-D $20 once before, when it was consigned by the Connecticut State Library; it brought $390,500 back on June 2, 1995. (For reference, I was still in fifth grade then. You may now feel old.)

In the Heritage Auction Hall of Fame’s Coins Wing, 17 of the 20 pieces listed sold for more than a million dollars total, and of the 17, two of the coins are 1927-D double eagles. In November 2005, we sold the MS67 Morse specimen for just under $1.9 million, while the MS65 example we offered in January 2006 went for slightly more than $1.3 million.

This coin is graded MS66, so it splits the difference, and it seems a fairly safe bet that this 1927-D $20, part of the Ralph P. Muller Collection, will be Heritage’s Million-Dollar Coin #18…unless it turns out to be Million-Dollar Coin #19, that is!

The story of that other seven-figure coin, however, will have to wait until next week, so stay tuned…

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-John Dale Beety