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can there be another Pittman?
Gazes
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Right now we are watching a collector try to equal or best the Eliasberg collection. My question is it possible in this day that another collector equal Pittman? In other words, can a collector with a regular job and limited means (which was how I would describe Pittman) build a world class collection that will be remembered years from now? At first blush, I think most would say no. However, Pittman took chances (put a 2nd mortgage on his home), was incredibly knowledgeable and made good contacts---all virtues that are timeless.
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Extremely unlikely, maybe in an out of favor specialty (or several of those), but not like Pittman. The Farouk acquisitions were basically luck. That said, there are still some cool sets that are not public, and who knows what could happen with those.
No way. It would take 50 second mortgages today to buy the priciest auction coin that could have been picked up in the late 1940's for $1000.
Without making a political statement, wealth is substantially more concentrated now than it was 2 or 3 generations ago.
A couple of thoughts.
First, I have never read the full story on Pittman but to my knowledge, the idea that he had a regular job and was of limited means is a myth. Somewhere, I read that he worked at Eastman Kodak in "middle management" and spent over $100,000 on his collection over his life. "Middle management" to me means he was a mid level VP or something like it which is hardly a regular job. Someone can correct me if this is not accurate.
He was a collector over a long time. I believe he died in 1997 though I don't know how long he collected or how he allocated his budget over his collecting tenure. However, adjusted for the CPI (hardly the best measure but probably as good as any), $100,000 (if accurate) would still rank in the top 1% of all collectors in terms of budget and probably in the upper tier even on this forum where budgets are usually (?) not representative of the typical collector.
Second, he collected during the biggest bull market in asset prices in history, which mostly continues to this day at least for US assets though not everywhere else. It is the result of the loosest credit conditions and lowest credit standards in the history of civilization. To expect a repeat even for the rest of my life (I am 53) when asset prices are so overpriced is hugely optimistic to make a mild understatement. I expect another big bull market in metal prices which will presumably help a lot, but there is a difference with the 1970's when this first happened because the price level is so much higher. The most recent metals run up (up to 2011) did little to move the price level generally.
My prediction is that, adjusted for price changes, longer term most coins will be losing value with the most relatively overpriced for the numismatic merits mostly performing the worst. If this happens, there probably aren't going to be many coins proportionately that will turn out to be big winners where the financial return will be meaningful.
Not in the US market...in the world market more possible
Latin American Collection
I think his collection sold for 14 Million after he died.
He worked for Kodak
How many of us have a collection that is worth over 1X our annual salary?
He did have legendary insight so it would be possible...Maybe?
My Saint Set
???
I read $30MM, though I cannot remember the source.
It was the last great collection to be sold totally uncertified
That would depend on how one defines Great
Realistically, to a lower or much lower scale versus the US market only. Elsewhere, the challenge is that the most prominent coins while much cheaper than comparable US coinage are still a lot more expensive than the prices Pittman paid back then, adjusted for purchasing power.
The second tier and somewhat below mostly have the current value for the same reason US coins do. US collectors buy it predominantly based upon the TPG eligible grade by outbidding local collectors. The challenge for this coinage is that there can be no scale to collecting hardly any of these series because the coins do not exist either at all in comparable quality or in much lower numbers.
As an example, since you collect better Latin coinage, you know that the best coins are much scarcer than equivalent US and usually cannot be bought in equivalent quality; only somewhat or a lot lower based upon TPG grade. This doesn't just apply to top quality, but frequently in average circulated grades. Most of the supply for this coinage is almost certainly considered "dreck" by the quality standards of most participants on this forum.
Due to the much lower supply, the collector base cannot usually remotely approach the level in the US as no one can buy what doesn't exist. A larger collector base pursuing a larger supply makes it a lot more feasible for collectors to be able to find enough to buy that they actually want which concurrently means that the prices of the best examples can explode higher without impacting hardly anyone else.
Takes a long time to develop a collection like that.
30 million is correct. He also is one of the few "great" collectors who never sold coins in his lifetime.
Only if there's another Farouk and Farouk sale.
We all know that coins were dirt cheap at the Farouk sale in 1954, but how cheap were they by 1954 standards? I don't know.
Anyway, of course there will be more Pittmans in the future. It's a big world and the future is a long time.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
I don't see how his collection could not be considered "great", except by those who base it on differences in quality which are considered a lot more important today which were not when he was a collector, even when the coin is otherwise not particularly distinguished.
Not possible today, U.S. coin values are too far advanced from the period when JJP was in his acquisition mode.
If this nation were to fall into another scouring deflationary Great Depression, where present coin values were to fall by 97 or 98 percent, where your teeth were more likely to fall out of your head before you could ever possibly sell a collectible coin, then you could start to prepare to see another JJP. But our present society would practically have to explode (or implode) first.
I absolutely consider him one of the greatest collectors of all time
I started my collection in late 1996 when my salary was $8k a month and my net worth a few hundred thousand.
I’m not sure what the parameters imposed on the question are but I highly doubt my situation is unique
A lot cheaper relative to income levels of the working population. My recollection is that the 1833 PR-67(D)CAM sold for around $500. It was a lot of money in 1954 for most people but a lot less than the $1.4MM I recall estimated by PCGS in the "Million Dollar Club".
As for the future, the more relevant timeframe is how long from now where most of us may be around to see it.
My assumption in my posts was someone starting now, though that may not have been the intent of the OP. If it includes current collectors who have been collecting for several decades as you have buying what you have disclosed, it changes the equation substantially.
Yikes, give the man some credit ALL. Egos come to the surface, I suppose though.
He really stretched and not sure if you could say his salary would be the equivalent of a modern 500k. Doubt it.
He begged and borrowed and faked his way into a major collection - I've a lot of respect for that and him.
Well, just Love coins, period.
I've rarely heard a coin dealer from that era say a kind word about the man.
Here's another way to look at it. Let's say, for argument's sake, that Pittman bought all of his coins in 1954 and that he paid fair market value. (He didn't, and he didn't. Just go with it for now.) And let's say that his purchase price in 1954 was equivalent to $1 million in 1996 dollars. And let's say that his coins brought $30 million in 1996. That would mean that the market value of his coins, adjusted for inflation, increased 30 times in 42 years. What sort of coins would you have to buy today to achieve similar success? Certainly not the same types of coins that Pittman bought, but I think that many similar opportunities remain.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Since I work only for myself, and do not have a salary, only what I give myself, then, well, my collection is worth far more than 1x my salary.
I infer an assumption that these opportunities include the extension of the US price structure both indefinitely into the future and to a lot more non-US coinage.
The US price structure will likely only last as long as the much bigger credit and asset bubble but that isn't the direction of this topic. No way it will survive in its current form without it.
Extension to more non-US coinage through TPG grading? Mostly by US collectors and not anyone else. Foreign collecting has not been financialized remotely to the same extent as here in the US. It will take a big culture change for that to happen because with minimal or no financialization, non-US collectors will never pay the prices and premiums US collectors do for what they today consider to be incremental differences in perceived quality.
Going by the population data and first hand knowledge, I know it applies to South African coinage driven by local collectors. The population data indicates it is also prevalent or at least noticeable for Chinese coins and maybe Canadian, though I suspect the latter is mostly driven by American buyers. Otherwise, mostly for NCLT, a relatively low number of individual series and for the best specimens from many other series. I have seen some apparent increase in foreign interest in TPG (such as with Swiss auction firm Numisor) but it's minimal across the board to my knowledge.
Even with the most prominent coinage such as the CAR gold you have profiled, the biggest obstacle is that coins today are priced more based upon the TPG eligible grade and "eye appeal" than scarcity or the merits as a collectible. Absent another pricing model, I have a hard time seeing coins such as these which I agree are numismatically equal to far more expensive US coinage closing the gap (upwards) substantially because few to none of these coins exist in higher or elite TPG eligible grades.
Before we start talking about the world coin market, please explain what you mean by "the US price structure".
Someone else can jump in and talk about US coins by die variety, underappreciated modern US condition rarities, tokens and medals, obsolete US paper money, or perhaps some other US niches with 30X potential. I'll limit my comments to the world market.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Pittman was shrewd and dedicated. He would travel to shows and auctions throughout the country and the world in advance of his collection, an uncommon phenomena at the time.
His choices of coins to collect, such as early proof gold, proved either extremely ingenious or lucky from an investment perspective. He made all the right decisions.
He was also either very ingenious or very lucky from a timing perspective. Pittman bought heavily starting post WWII, when the coin market was quite depressed. Many of his best acquisitions were made in the 1940's and early 1950's. And then hard assets went through a 40 year boon until his collection was sold circa 1998.
Pittman is famous for attending the Farouk sale, but he was persistent and attended other sales, and did extremely well. Here is another example of him cleaning up, similar to Farouk. The Memorable Sale (J.F. Bell) by Abe Kosoff was a major sale held in Beverly Hills in 1948. One of most impressive collections of gold coins, much of it came from the Worlds Greatest Collection Sale of 1946 ( F.C.C. Boyd). Pittman attended. Many well known numismatists attended, including Art Kagin, who called it the Giveaway Auction.
Pittman bought a slew of coins. Example, an 1836 Proof Quarter Eagle. The coin sold at auction for $80 in the WGC sale two years earlier. Pittman bought it for $45. It sold in the Pittman auction for $110,000 in 1998, and is now worth over $200k. Have not analyzed it, but would bet that a huge chunk of his profits came from Farouk and Memorable.
I would rather want to be the next Garrett.
By price structure, I am referring to the price spreads between different TPG grades and within TPG grades due to CAC or other "eye appeal" considerations. This accounts for a disproportionate proportion of the price even on most higher priced US coins. Outside the countries I listed, I haven't seen anything to indicate it's common or even noticeable with collectors anywhere else, though given your experiences as dealer, you might know at least some of these buyers to the extent they exist.
Impossible to do today unless your wealthy, rarities are just too expensive compared to back in the day, even considering the value of the dollar. Just like TDN said, he started in 1996 with a budget of 8k a month, Ill bet 90% of my customers don't make 8k a month now in 2019.
Pittman never made anywhere near that much money
why do you prefer him?
From what I've read Pittman was passionate, immensely focused, obsessed maybe, and either prescient or very lucky. As much can be said about many people who have accumulated wealth in their area of expertise, but to repeat this performance with a focus on US coins, or numismatics for that matter, is hard to imagine given the huge run-up that many of us have witnessed. Even if we were to have some huge value increase in numismatics in some area, how many middle managers would bet everything on that today, and how many of those would be as patient or knowledgeable? A rare bird.
The closest to Pittman seems to be Ford. His collection seems to have been worth as much or even more than Pittman's if $14MM is correct and $30MM is not. I don't recall the content of his collection (only some of it) but as a long time dealer with presumably good connections, he should have been in a good position to maximize his financial returns.
https://govmint.com/coin-authority/post/one-collectors-story/
The 1997 auction brought $14 million. The total of all 3 auctions was $30 million.
There are some insanely cool collections being built Today in my narrow field.
I would not attribute it to luck. To travel across the ocean, take out a second mortgage and basically do what no one else was doing at the time as a collector goes well beyond luck.
Well, but it also doesn't have to be smarts. [Though he was very clever in his own way.] Simple obsession will also do that to someone.
does anyone have a rough idea how much the collection would be worth today ?
It wasn't at all unusual for me to see John J Pittman no matter what show I went to.
...And this was in his later years.
Pittman had some wonderful coins, but he had a fair amount of other admitted rare coins, that left a lot to be desired when it came to preservation. I remember seeing a fairly large exhibit that he mounted of Proof 19th gold. All of those coins are rare to be sure, but they were mostly heavily hairlined and probably would not have gotten into straight graded today.
As for his position, I think that he eventually because a vice president or something like that at Eastman Kodak. He was not the mega wealthy, like Eliasberg, but he was not short of funds by any means.
Another collector of the same era was Jules River. He had an incredible collection of early coins by die variety. He went to the University of Delaware at the same time as my mom did, and they knew each other.
I remember his MO was to try to get an example of every listed die variety in the major books, like Sheldon, Cohen/Gilbert, Valentine, Browning, Overton and Bolander. He was not head over heals fussy about condition, and seemed to shun upgrades when they became available. Still he put together a remarkable group of early coins.
For record I understand that Eliasberg built his collection for a total of $450,000. It shows you how nominal prices have go up since he was a major player in the '30s and '40s.
I remember meeting Jules early in my collecting/dealing career. He asked if I would accept his want list of early US coins by die marriage. Of course I said yes and he handed me a 3X5 index card with his complete want list which took up almost one side of the card!
Needless to say I never was able to help him.
I do remember going to his house somewhat late in his life to research his bust quarters for a book I was working on with Rea, Peterson and Kovach. Rory was not yet part of the group so the other two authors and I spent a wonderful afternoon looking at his quarters. Jules always loved to obtain different die states of the coins, especially the latest die states. So you could often see multiple examples of a die marriage in differing states. We were able to confirm die remarriages in the series using the multiple coins he had of each of the marriages that shared dies.
A wonderful day spent with one of the kindest gentlemen of numismatics.
A: The year they spend more on their library than their coin collection.
A numismatist is judged more on the content of their library than the content of their cabinet.
Here is an old thread with a TON of good info on the subject. He was shrewd and an opportunist. By admission he colluded in auctions.
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/789354/old-thread-numismatic-history-john-jay-pittman
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Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
You can definitely make money on coins as certain areas will go up but you have to be very astute and very disciplined.
Great link! thank you. Also didnt realize that Pittman risked his safety building his collection (ie attending the sale in Egypt)
Being a Life Member of the ANA helps
You have to be willing to do things that others are not willing to do, by choice or consequence.
I don’t think it’s possible. The Information age has leveled the playing field where extreme hard work and determination do not go as far as they used to. The requirements to view lots is simple as logging on and looking at extremely accurate photos (in most cases).
Back Then, one had to travel and spend the time....and know how to grade. Now the work is all done for you (for the most part)....just decide what you’re willing to pay. There are very few stones unturned and you can bid on and see lots from across the globe.
Think about it:
Then: bidding on raw coins in various locations where you have to travel far and wide to see the lots on hand. Auction catalogs had poor or no photos and descriptions were not very detailed. You had to mail bid or show up in person.
Now: Bidding on certified graded coins that are double certified (CAC). All market values and past sales are available. Catalogs are digital and well represented. Photos are very high quality. Bidding can occur in real time from your phone at any location.
Ian can confirm that record sales numbers are made with GC and some winners never seeing the coin in hand. Purchases are made off photos with a limited description.
Not to say that hard work and determination do not go far....but nothing compared to before.
I don’t think it’s possible for U.S. coins which is a super mature market. It’s more possible for other areas which are less mature and will mature over time.