Anyone heard of the John Q. Adams collection?

ajaan

Posted this also on the WAC forum because the coin was ancient. Wondering if any US coins were in the collection.

I was at our local club show today and a dealer I know bought a collection of coins and one coin was from the John Q. Adams collection. I've never heard of that before. I thought it was kind of neat. He wasn't interested in selling the coin. Sorry for crappy image.

Smudge

I was not aware that he collected coins.

Sonorandesertrat

Actually, the collection was started by his father, John Adams, and then expanded by him. Representative coins spanned the ages from Greco-Roman antiquity to JQA's lifetime. The Adams Family numismatic collection and huge trove of papers/documents were maintained by the Mass. Historical Society, which found itself unable to properly document and preserve them by the mid-twentieth century. The coin collection was transferred to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where Corneleus Vermeule oversaw its cataloging. The Historical Society decided to sell coins to raise money to catalog and microfilm the Adams Family documents, and Stack's was chosen as the auction house to oversee this. Sales were held in 1971 and in 1973.

DIMEMAN

I would love to have something from that collection.

astrorat

Yes, I have an ancient Roman brockage from his collection.

Timbuk3

Cool !!!

TPRC

Yes, I also had a Mexican proclamation piece from the collection but I sold it. It did bring a premium, but it was individually catalogued, though not pictured. I thought it was neat to consider that JQA might have handled it as a child. I think that the Massachusetts Historical Society sold other numismatic holdings at the same time, so provenance to the ex. pres was not assured.

I recently went through a large collection of coins from a dealer friend and many of those coins, dozens of them, in fact, had those same inserts. I bought a few. The trick is to find out what lot it your coin was from. Only the choicest coins were photographed, as plates, and the photographs are not high quality by today's standards. I suspect that your coin came from the collection, but from a group lot.

The catalogues are available on line...I found them after some searching. If you email me, I'll send you the links.

ajaan

Thanks Tom, but I don't own the coin.

Swampboy

This is one I picked up.

Q. Antonius Balbus 83-82 B.C.
AR Serrate Denarius 20mm. 4.06g. Rome Mint
Laureate head of Jupiter r., S.C behind; R below chin.
Victory in quadriga r., holding palm-branch and wreath; In ex.: Q.ANTO.BALB / PR
Crawford 364/1b; RSC Antonia 1a

BStrauss3

Auction catalogs at the NNP

https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctionlots?AucCoId=3&AuctionId=516470
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctionlots?AucCoId=3&AuctionId=516474

ricko

@Swampboy...That is a nice Denarius..... Cheers, RickO

Swampboy

@ricko said:
@Swampboy...That is a nice Denarius..... Cheers, RickO

Thanks

logger7

Thanks for posting; he represented the best culture of the day, and as such I am not surprised he was a follower this great hobby.

RogerB

Several very rare items departed the MFA collections as if they were common. This includes the only known 1908 $5 Indian pattern piece. But what passed for research scholarship back then was mostly copy-cat stuff -- much like using the internet today. ;(

johnny9434

thats the first ive heard of it

1630Boston

RogerB

Many merchant, middle and upper economic class families had nice collections of coins. These were dominated by ancients and more modern European types. It appears American coins were thought of more as "money to spend" than "coins to collect."

Wabbit2313

He was born in 1767. Can you imagine the US coin collection he COULD have had?

denga

JQ Adams was Minister (ambassador) to Russia during the Napoleonic era. He
picked up a fair number of Russian coins and medals while there, of which I
obtained several from the 1971 auction.