CoinWeek: "King of American Coins Acquired by David Lawrence Rare Coins and D.L. Hansen"
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King of American Coins Acquired by David Lawrence Rare Coins and D.L. Hansen
By David Lawrence Rare Coins -
June 29, 2018
David Lawrence Rare Coins (DLRC), on behalf of Dell Loy Hansen, acquired one of the 15 known examples of the world-famous 1804 Draped Bust Dollar, known as the “King of American Coins”, for $2.64 million via the Heritage Auctions event on June 14, hosted by the Long Beach Coin Expo. As one of only eight Class I 1804 dollars, it was struck in the mid-1830s as part of special sets to be given as diplomatic gifts. This piece is graded Proof 62 by PCGS.
Known as the Mickley-Hawn-Queller specimen, the piece has a long history that can be traced back to at least 1847. In its most recent prior auction appearance in August 2013, it realized $3,877,500 in a Heritage auction. While the present offering brought far less than what was anticipated by most, it was this opportunity that encouraged John Brush, President of David Lawrence Rare Coins, to enter the bidding.
Mr. Brush stated:
“We were ecstatic to be a part of the purchase of such a legendary numismatic rarity. We purchased the coin on behalf of our partner, Dell Loy Hansen, to be added to his incredible collection. We had discussed the coin prior to the auction, but the decision to bid on it was literally made 5-10 lots before it was auctioned. With the previous auction records from 2008 and 2013 at $3.7-$3.8M, we thought it would be a bargain if we could acquire it somewhere below $3M. In the end, we thought the final realization of $2,640,000 was a fantastic value, and we were very happy to add it to the fantastic collection of Mr. Hansen.”
Businessman Dell Loy Hansen, owner of the Real Salt Lake Major League Soccer team and partner with John Brush at DLRC, has been in the process of building a world-class coin cabinet to rival the Eliasberg Collection of U.S. Coins over the past three years. The 1804 dollar was an addition that many thought would elude him. However, his patience was rewarded in this acquisition, and it appears that he obtained the coin at a significant value.
As Mr. Hansen stated, “This is another important piece for our ‘Quest for Eliasberg,’ and we are excited to add it to the collection.”
With the curatorial help of John Brush and the team at David Lawrence, the collection now contains in excess of 10,000 coins, many of which are the finest graded. Seconded only by the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian, the D.L. Hansen Collection now surpasses in quality (according to the PCGS Set Registry) the legendary collection of Louis Eliasberg, and is considered by many as the greatest U.S. coin collection of all time.
Historically, the 1804 dollar has long been considered the world’s most valuable coin. However, several pieces have entered the market in recent years, amongst them a 1933 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle, of dubious legal origin, that realized $7.59 million in 2002. Still, the 1804 dollar is one of the hobby’s most famous rarities and is coveted by collectors the world over.
Check out this coin's amazing history.........
1804 Dollar, PR62
The King of American Coins
The Mickley-Hawn-Queller Specimen
1804 $1 Original PR62 PCGS Secure. "In all of numismatics of the entire world, there is not today and there never has been a single coin which was and is the subject of so much romance, interest, comment, and upon which so much has been written and so much talked about and discussed as the United States silver dollar of 1804."
B. Max Mehl, from the Dunham Collection catalog, 1941
For more than a century, the 1804 dollar has reigned as the "King" of U.S. coinage, a fitting title to bestow on a coin made for royalty. The U.S. Mint received orders to strike complete sets of proof coinage meant to serve as diplomatic gifts for sovereigns such as the Sultan of Muscat, the King of Siam, and the Emperors of Cochin-China and Japan. While most denominations specified by the Mint Act of 1792 were still in production in 1834 and thus simple to produce as proofs, the silver dollar and gold ten dollar (eagle) had not been struck for many years - since 1804, the Mint's research found. There was just one catch: those silver dollars struck in 1804 were made from carryover obverse dies and did not bear that date. When the Mint struck those silver dollars dated 1804 and a few spares, an inadvertent rarity was created.
Jacob Eckfeldt and William E. DuBois revealed the existence of the Class I or "Original" 1804 dollars to the then-small coin collecting community of the United States by including a picture of one in their 1842 reference, the Manual of Coins of All Nations. Matthew Stickney became the first confirmed non-royal, non-government-employee owner of an 1804 dollar in 1843, when he traded a gold Immune Columbia piece - a remarkable numismatic delicacy - as well as other coins to the Mint Cabinet to get his example (for more on Stickney's transaction see Moulton, Karl and Stone, David, "The Stickney-Dubois Connection", The Numismatist, October 2016 edition). The second confirmed piece to come into a collector's hands was this very coin, which had come into the possession of bank teller Henry C. Young in October of 1847 and was sold to now-legendary numismatist Joseph J. Mickley the same day. By the end of the 1850s there was enough financial incentive for the self-enrichment crew of the midcentury Philadelphia Mint to try their hand at 1804 dollar restrikes, though their various gaffes - not least of which was striking the singular Class II Restrike over an 1857 shooting thaler from Bern in Switzerland - stopped their plans in the short term. After the Civil War, the market for the various 1804 dollars blossomed. The Mickley specimen offered here sold at a W. Elliot Woodward sale for $750 in October 1867, while the Chapman brothers cracked the four-figure mark and coined the phrase "King of the U.S. series" in May 1885 when they sold the Dexter specimen for $1,000. While those Originals were setting records, the Second Restrike or Class III coins, artificially worn and given artificial backstories (e.g. the Berg specimen of the Class III dollar turning up in Vienna), were working their way toward marketplace acceptance. In 1907, Henry Chapman called the 1804 dollar "The King of United States Coins."
If the 19th century had made the 1804 dollar "niche famous" among the relatively small elite core of U.S. coin collectors, the 20th century was an era of popularization and broader celebrity. While the 1804 dollar has been the subject of multiple scholarly volumes (Newman and Bressett, The Fantastic 1804 Dollar, Q. David Bowers, The Rare Silver Dollars Dated 1804 and the Exciting Adventures of Edmund Roberts, and Mark Ferguson, The Dollar of 1804, The U.S. Mint's Hidden Secret), no one person has done more to raise the 1804 dollar's profile than B. Max Mehl. His Star Rare Coin Encyclopedia set the numismatic gold standard for self-promotion by convincing collectors and non-collectors alike to pay for what was effectively his buylist, and his direct appeals through mass media such as newspapers and radio put his Encyclopedia in hundreds of thousands of homes.
Where B. Max Mehl was a teller of lore, four numismatic scholars in the late 1950s began researching the facts behind the 1804 dollar. At first independent, they joined forces in 1959, and in 1962, authors Eric P. Newman and Ken Bressett, with Walter Breen and Lynn Glaser listed as "associates in research," published The Fantastic 1804 Dollar, a scholarly reference that gave the facts of the 1804 dollars as they were known to that time. Shortly before the book's publication, David Spink revealed the existence of a previously unknown 1804 dollar, part of a set of mostly 1834-dated proof coins that had been presented to the King of Siam. The "King of Siam" set was the last but by no means least important piece of evidence included in The Fantastic 1804 Dollar, which remains a fundamentally sound reference more than half a century after its initial publication.
Prices for 1804 dollars at auction soared as the decades passed. In 1960, the Davis Restrike 1804 dollar brought $28,000 at auction, while in 1970 the Mickley Original specimen realized $77,500. In 1980, at one of the U.S. coin market's great heights, the Berg Restrike example reached $400,000, while the 1989 offering of the Dexter Original representative saw it go for $990,000, another bull-market record tantalizingly close to the million-dollar threshold. The Stickney Original piece, which in 1946 was the first five-figure U.S. coin at $10,500, became the first seven-figure 1804 dollar and the most expensive U.S. coin ever auctioned when it sold as part of the legendary Eliasberg Collection in 1997 for $1,815,000. The Sultan of Muscat Original, universally considered the best-preserved of 1804 dollars, leapfrogged that price to bring $4,140,000 in 1999, a record that stood for several years.
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Comments
Amazingly beautiful coin !!
If only money wasn't an issue...
Later, Paul.
CoinWeek does it a disservice by leading with (essentially) ‘one of 15 examples known’. The restrikes aren’t even in the same ballpark- lead with ‘one of 8 originals known’.
Meh.
--Severian the Lame
How jaded we have become. Yes, it’s a 55-58 technically. Yes, it’s the poorest original striking know. But damn, man - it’s the King of American coins.
Jaded or educated? I can think of a dozen coins I'd rather have.
--Severian the Lame
That’s nice. I can’t
I'd love to see it.
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working" Pablo Picasso
Awesome !!!
Bit of puffery in this piece. Does anyone really consider the Hansen set to be the greatest collection of all time as the author suggests.
Latin American Collection
Actually the sentence is somewhat ambiguous.
The intent may have been to state that the Eliasberg collection is considered by many to be the greatest.
The PCGS Registry quality metric (weighted average) seems fair, but the set owner has also stated that completeness is important and that will take time.
So I don't think they are claiming it as the greatest U.S. collection yet.
You don't want me to comment on that. I'm kinda insulted. Remember I deal with a little guy named Bob Simpson. His patterns alone defy the laws of even being known to exist (he has a virtually complete gold pattern set among his incredible collection-including the ultra monster 1804 $10). He has so many mind boggling coins-a $1 1795 PCGS CAC MS66 and a complete 1795 set in GEM (including a small head Bust half), a $2.5 1796 W/S PCGS MS65 CAC, the J-1 PCGS MS67 CAC, the best ever $10 Indian set-just to name a few things. Then he has the 1943 P, D, S copper 1C-the best that exist, the best set of Stellas, a 84+85 Trade dollars. He has a friggen Satin Proof 1907 Saint PCGS CAC PR68-that multiple times we have turned down more then $1 million.
Call me jaded and a sour puss.
Delloy does indeed rank among the very top though. I take nothing away from him and I do have great admiration for him. I can say from my point of view, his learning curve has greatly improved. But when they start this greatest ever stuff and over Mr Simpson-I respectfully disagree. I'll bet the owner of the Tyrannt Collection does too (so many people did not know he even existed until he started displaying his coins at Long Beach).
I think you guys are reading into to the artcle something that just not there. John describes the collection as incredible collection. Hansen describes the collection as a Quest for Eliasberg. The article does state legendary collection of Louis Eliasberg, and is considered by many as the greatest U.S. coin collection of all time. I don’t consider it as the greatest. It is the measurement for completeness, but greatness, not so sure. I could say Pogue is considered by many as the greatest collection of all time. I could say Simpson is considered by many as the greatest collection. All these statements are true.
My 20th Century Gold Major Design Type Set ---started : 11/17/1997 ---- completed : 1/21/2004
Share your list!
Make a new thread if you want, but you can't just stop with telling us there a dozen others you'd rather have.
Actually, I could name a dozen specific coins that I’d rather have than that specific 1804. But I couldn’t name a dozen dates that I’d rather have than an 1804 in general.
I will only say that any of these collections (mentioned) qualify for 'greatness'...and since there really is no measure to define the term, likely they are all 'the greatest' based on their own merits. Cheers, RickO
If we choose to be technical about quantity minted, rarity and surviving population, it seems there is an argument to be asserted that the 1849 Twenty Dollar Gold piece which is in the Smithsonian should receive top billing...
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Yep. The 1804s are emperor's new clothes. I like powerful, important pieces that stand alone and on their own.
Just off the top of my head and not in any order in any way or shape (well, except for the first one
) :
The 1794 Morelan dollar
The Garrett 1792 Birch cent
The Starr 1792 half dime
The Garrett 1792 silver center cent
The NDP EB on Wing Brasher
The 1907 Saint Gaudens eagle pattern proof
The 1907 ASG edge PR68 Saint
The 1851 Proof Humbert $50
I could go on with pieces that dip well below the market value of this 1804 dollar but that I'd rather have.
--Severian the Lame