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Who is/are the most famous coin collector(s)? Who's your favorite?

Augustus Caesar? What about 20th and 21st century collectors. Who do you like? USA fans have Eliasberg. Who do we have on the darkside?

I know the actor who played the engineer on Star Trek: Enterprise collects coins. I bet MagikBilly could add some interesting names to this list. He's hob-nobbed with many interesting folks.

Maybe we should make a trading card deck of famous numismatists. I bet the kids would enjoy them. Could spark future hobbyists.
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Comments

  • If you want famous collectors from the dark side then David Gee has to make the list. Originally from China this larger than life character in Australia not only owned some magnificent coins (and stamps as well) he was also infamous for the superb fakes he made of both coins and stamps. He reputedly used contacts in the mints and museums to assist his nefarious acts and had access to genuine dies. At one trial the judge asked who was the most eminent expert on the subject and the prosecutor had to admit that the accused was. He was finally convicted in 1979 and got 7 years. His fakes are now collectors pieces.
    Only died last year, the book Heads I Win was about him.
  • SapyxSapyx Posts: 1,977 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Just to clarify: by "famous coin collector", are you interested in famous people who also happen to be coin collectors, or people who are famous because they collected coins? Or both?

    First off, with regard to Emperor Augustus: we don't know that he actually "collected coins" in the conventional, modern sense of that word. The idea that he might have been comes solely from the following line in "The 12 Caesars" by Roman historian, Suetonius:


    << <i>...On the Saturnalia, and at any other time when he took it into his head, he would now give gifts of clothing or gold and silver; again coins of every device, including old pieces of the kings and foreign money... >>


    So Augustus is more of a "wealthy eccentric" or maybe an "antiquarian" than a "coin collector"; obsolete and foreign coins were just a small part of the "weird" stuff" he liked to give away for fun. Nevertheless, it is one of the earliest records of anyone doing anything with coins (other than using them as money) that we have.

    Back on topic: Buddy "Jed Clampett" Ebsen is another famous actor who collected, though again I think he was mainly American coins. For world coins, a famous modern collector would have to be King Farouk of Egypt; the 1933 Double Eagle was just one of his prize possessions.

    Coin collecting didn't become "mainstream" among the rich and powerful until the dawn of the Renaissance. The "father of the Renaissance", the Italian poet Petrarch (1304-1374), collected coins and wrote in detail about his hobby. The collection of Pope Boniface VII (pope from 1294-1303) still forms the core of the Vatican's coin collection. The collections of the late mediaeval Holy Roman Emperors, Kings of France, Tsars of Russia and Electors of Brandenburg all form the cores of the national coin collections of Austria, France, Russia and Germany respectively.

    One does have to be cautious when one hears about "famous people", particularly actors, sportspeople and similar celebrities, being collectors; in many such cases, they are simply allowing their wealth managers to buy a coin investment portfolio with some of their spare money, rather than actually having a personal collector interest as Mr Ebsen did.
    Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.
    Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"

    Apparently I have been awarded one DPOTD. B)
  • ZoharZohar Posts: 6,629 ✭✭✭✭✭
    A couple of other serious sports related collectors

    Jerry Buss

    Andre Dawson

    image
  • IosephusIosephus Posts: 872 ✭✭✭
    The Gonzaga family that ruled Mantua had a large collection of ancient coins. According to a brief write-up at the Frick Collection website, Gianfrancesco Gonzaga had more than 2000 Roman coins in his collection.

    At some point, the family apparently marked all of the coins in the collection with a tiny inlaid silver imperial eagle, as shown on this sestertius (borrowed from the above referenced page):

    imageimage
  • worldcoinguyworldcoinguy Posts: 2,999 ✭✭✭✭
    It is a shame that coin collecting is mocked in the media. Beyond the security factor, I would imagine many public figures just want to avoid the public's unflattering articles and attention. Look at how Nicole Kidman's interest is portrayed in the following article:

    Kooky celebs with weird passions
  • ZoharZohar Posts: 6,629 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I wouldn't worry about the readers of that column... I doubt they have the coin collecting gene in them regardless image
  • worldcoinguyworldcoinguy Posts: 2,999 ✭✭✭✭
    Good point - the hobby will survive without the support of the social media cheerleaders like that site. Google threw that at me and the title is what led me to post.
  • LochNESSLochNESS Posts: 4,829 ✭✭✭
    This is cool. neal, thanks for the book suggestion! Sounds like a fascinating read.

    Sapyx, excellent thoughts. King Farouk, of course! My dad told me all about him when I was growing up. I remember reading about him often during the St. Gauden circus. That was a really exciting time for my dad, who is a litesider. Knowing that I preferred world coins, he would talk to me all day and night about Farouk and his collection. Somehow the name escaped me when I was writing this thread in the wee hours last night. But now that you mention it, I believe he is arguably the singularly most famous collector of the 20th century. Definitely in the same class as Eliasberg.

    David Gee sounds like a third member of this elusive club. Gonzaga estate, too. To answer Sapyx's question though, I am looking for singular individuals. Eccentric, even. Collectors who seemed to devote their entire lives to "the hunt." So technically "both" are eligible candidates, but I doubt many actors and athletes would fit this description as they have clearly devoted their lives to becoming famous actors and athletes (not famous collectors).

    worldcoinguy, that article was beyond stupid. Kidman wasn't even mentioned in the version I read (it must cycle through a list of mini articles everytime someone clicks because you saw Kidman and I saw Angelina Jolie and George W. Bush).
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  • worldcoinguyworldcoinguy Posts: 2,999 ✭✭✭✭
    LochNESS - I am not going to defend that previous link in the least......how about Pinterest to redeem myself?

    Pinterest

  • LochNESSLochNESS Posts: 4,829 ✭✭✭


    << <i>Andre Dawson

    image >>


    WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WRITERS OF THESE "NEWS" WEBSITES?!?!?!?

    That article is horribly written. Only the first third is about Dawson's collection. Then it suddenly changes topic to Israeli coins (with incorrect grammar, I might add). Then it switches topic again to Carson City dollars? Who is paying these people to write this shlock?
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  • WillieBoyd2WillieBoyd2 Posts: 5,034 ✭✭✭✭✭
    He was not a coin collector in the modern sense, but this "collection" was assembled by
    Walt Disney, an American working in France just after World War I.

    He kept the items in a bag which was still in his possession when he died in 1966.

    image

    On display at the Disney Family Museum at the Presidio of San Francisco.

    For more please visit Walt Disney's Coin Collection at:
    http://forums.collectors.com/messageview.cfm?catid=26&threadid=922642

    image
    https://www.brianrxm.com
    The Mysterious Egyptian Magic Coin
    Coins in Movies
    Coins on Television

  • LochNESSLochNESS Posts: 4,829 ✭✭✭
    Great contributions guys. This is fun! I was born and raised not far from Disney, so I went more than a few times (we weren't wealthy but FL residents get a discount and kids under a certain age were free). Anyway I digress ...

    worldcoinguy, that wasn't a criticism against you in the least - but I think you knew that image the Pinterest link was actually very cool. And it includes the Kidman blurb. And something about Petrarch, of whom I've never heard before, but apparently he's known as "the father of humanism" and "the first and most famous modern coin collector." So that's cool. Let's all add Petrarch to our lists.
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  • I am with LochNess. King Farouk was my first thought.

    Successful BST transactions with:CollectorsCoins, farthing, Filacoins, LordMarcovan, Duki, Spoon, Jinx86, ubercollector, hammered54
    LochNess and ProfHaroldHill

  • SmEagle1795SmEagle1795 Posts: 2,135 ✭✭✭✭✭
    The Hunt brothers had a fantastic collection of ancients and I've just acquired a coin which belonged to a Russian prince. One of the earliest ancient pedigrees is to Apostolo Zeno who wrote the libretti for a large number of operas in the early 1700s. I tried acquiring an aureus of his last year: it was estimated at 15K CHF, I was willing to bid up to 35K, and it sold for 115K... evidently, others like the pedigree as well.
    Learn about our world's shared history told through the first millennium of coinage: Colosseo Collection
  • LochNESSLochNESS Posts: 4,829 ✭✭✭
    Well, alrighty then! We have some new additions to the list of world-famous numismatists: Hunt brothers (ancients) and Apostolo Zeno (ancients).

    Thanks for the input, SmEagle! Your contributions as always are much appreciated.
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  • SmEagle1795SmEagle1795 Posts: 2,135 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Thanks! A couple more to add which I neglected to post:

    Michael Ruettgers, the billionaire CEO of EMC, has a fantastic ancient collection which is on display at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
    Joseph J. Grano, the CEO of BusinessWeek, has a great collection of ancient coins, part of which is being sold in this upcoming NGSA sale.
    David Walsh, the owner of a large museum in New Zealand, sold some of his ancient coins at NAC - he's a collector of modern and ancient art and has both types on display alongside each other.
    Learn about our world's shared history told through the first millennium of coinage: Colosseo Collection
  • LochNESSLochNESS Posts: 4,829 ✭✭✭
    These sound like well-known individuals amongst collectors, but perhaps not "world-famous" in the same sense as King Farouk and Eliasberg, who really only achieved fame because of the quality and enormity of his collection, and having donated many pieces to the Smithsonian's collection to fill their holes.

    I think we should re-shift focus to timeless names (like monarchs who were publicly known to collect, or that humanist guy Petrarch).
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