Simpson's Legacy
Zoins
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One of the greatest collectors of our time is Bob Simpson... but what will he be remembered for and what will his legacy be? @specialist mentioned something that was interesting to me, which was that while Simpson has a lot of patterns, there are entire areas he avoids.
What would Simpson's legacy be if he kept on his current collecting approach? For his gold set, he's only missing the St. Gaudens Indian Head Double Eagle which was owned by Dr. John Edwin Wilkison Sr. in his great set of gold patterns. Does Simpson exceed Wilkison?
What would Simpson's legacy be if he attempted to collect all available patterns? If Simpson did collect all available patterns, including series which are currently out of favor with him, would his legacy be stronger, and possibly the only one to achieve such a feat?
Comments
As i said yesterday in the Hansen blog, when i discussed Wilkison as being the king of gold patterns before Bob, Bob has a much deeper and broader collection then just gold patterns. He may now indeed have the greatest gold patterns ever despite the missing key double eagle. That would be a fun exercise to compare them coin by coin zoins. Ron published a series of articles on the subject i think there were five or six chapters. My understanding is that Bob never desired to complete patterns, but he bought a huge 30 million collection to get to certain key coins like the Amazonian set. Legend arranged this deal which had been well documented, at over 30 million, with those coins likely being worth substantially more today. The Amazonian patterns, complete in all metals is a national treasure, now of untold value imho. But his collection is much, much broader. But he had sold many things as well that didn't hold his fancy, like his half dimes, standard silver patterns and most of his 1792 patterns to name a few. His quality is out of this world on the things he likes. Laura and George (and Bruce) deserve respect for their aid to his ongoing set building. So i think your legacy question in a fun one to consider zoins. Perhaps this can become another long and historic thread.
Mr. Simpson has a ton of great coins. I can’t ever remember seeing one that I didn’t say say “dang, that’s a great coin”. I own one of his discarded walkers and love it
I think his legacy will be that he owned a ton of great coins and a lot of the greatest. Some mind boggling rarities. I’m not aware of a registry set for these categories but if they had one ......
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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......
I agree, Simpson has many incredible coins and if you do some research you can figure out he owns many of the absolute finest Bust coins that just happened to not be in his Set Registry. But many of his sets are very fun to view and appreciate.
Andrew Blinkiewicz-Heritage
He owns things I totally forgot about-10C 1796 PCGS MS67 CAC -a monster specimen coin, 50C 1853 A/R PCGS MS67 , a complete set of PR Gold 1885-1912-all PR 65 or BETTER, a $2.5 1796 w/stars PCGS MS65 CAC, Go Bust is sad about this: 50C 1824+1833 PCGS MS68!!! A J-1 1792 PCGS MS67 CAC!!!! Mr Simspon gave me free hand to buy anything that was really neat. He does have a PR Gold Civil War set 4-67. This list just goes on and an on. The one thing that makes him different-EVERY coin he has is QUALITY oriented. And unlike certain people, he knows every coin he has and he really can grade them!!!!!
I just want to make sure he stays on top with all the noise out there.
Oh yeah, I built him the greatest ever MS 3cS SET!!! EVER!
I have his old 1846 Half Dime, he sold it thru legend a few years ago when the gardner 62 gold cac came available.
I think it’s pretty clear you want him to stay on top but I think one challenge you’re having is the approach of owning lots of different, great coins, which he’s doing, vs. having a singular, impressive accomplishment, which someone else is doing. It’s the difference between having one big thing that captures the imagination vs. lots of individual things to keep track of and potentially forget. Even your post here starts by saying you’ve forgotten coins followed by a list of coins that may be easy to forget. With a single large accomplishment, people remember the top level accomplishment. If you’ve forgotten, how will others remember?
From a legacy perspective, which approach captures the imagination and attention?
Of course, Simpson might just care about the coins and not care about what others think, but you certainly care and can help shape his legacy, which makes this interesting to think about.