J.K. Lilly Gold Coin Collection
Tibor
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Approximately how many gold coins U.S./Foreign did Mr. Lilly have at the time of his
death? Did the U.S. government allow all of them to transfered to the Smithsonian Institute
in exchange for tax consideration. Did he collect other coins as well and what was their
disposition?
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There is a great series of 35 stories on building and ultimately donating the collection to the Smithsonian, by Harvey Stack:
It starts on "page 10", and the donating stories are on "page 6"
http://www.stacksbowers.com/News/Pages/Blogs.aspx?category=Harvey G. Stack Remembers
Well worth reading - I read through them a couple of years ago.
It was about 6,000 coins. Included in the group were fake gold pieces that originated from Ford/Franklin, these are still held by SI/NNC. The US took them for tax consideration and there was congressional legislation to that effect. On the one hand it was great the federal government would invest in the nation's coin collection, but on the other hand the false pieces should have been acknowledged at the time and valued accordingly. As taxpayers we effectively paid for Ford's "specials." Not good.
Interesting ready, thanks for sharing !!!
Did the presence of the counterfeits cause the Smithsonian / NNC to close its exhibit on American numismatics as stated here (emphasis mine):
https://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2012/04/forgery-and-fraud-in-numismatics.html
Are the Franklin / Ford Clark Gruber counterfeits pedigreed to any known collectors like J.K. Lilly or Henry Clifford?
The Norwebs got stuck with a bogus piece from Ford also.
Is the following true from the same blog article above?
Were John J. Ford or Paul Franklin ever forced to make good during their lifetimes? If not, they seem to have done a good job keeping the scam going.
How many of the Ford / Franklin pieces are available to collect these days?
I saw this one a while back. It was offered for about $20k if I recall correctly.
However, the timing of the Lily coin acquisition was most fortunate - five or ten years later, the value of the collection was much greater. Even with some false pieces, the United States of America did very well.
This doesn't ring true to me. Areas I would investigate:
Did Kleeberg say not one thing about false gold prior to his separation from ANS? I doubt it. Did the ANS enforce any "muzzle order" against its curators on this point? Very hard for me to believe. If ANS has anything, it is academic integrity.
Regarding the closure of the numismatic area at SI, I would want to understand the impact of the retirement of the Clain-Stefanellis and other internal political issues, before attributing that to the exhibition of false gold pieces.
If SI felt so strongly about the false gold pieces so as to close a whole exhibit, then why did not they not publish all these false pieces and publicly acknowledge them as such? Doesn't add up.
John Ford never had my respect. He wanted to evoke admiration or fear. Miserable human being and a warped if brilliant intellect. Today, he would be the second-smartest person in the world using Twitter.
Nah, too classy for that 
Having gone to the Smithsonian specifically to examine Lilly gold, @MrEureka's warning held true. Generally disappointing, but I really can't say I saw more than maybe 50 pieces.. Lots of messy proof gold.
Total speculation, but I'd imagine the politicians who approved the tax deal might prove sensitive to criticism from any number of sources. Having no idea whatsoever, was Ford involved in the tax appraisal?
I remember seeing the entire set of US Lilly gold coins on display at the Smithsonian, sorted in order of date : mint mark : denomination. The display was well-configured and it was easy to get a good close-up look at every coin. But I didn't have the expertise at the time to really know or appreciate what I was looking at.
Yes the Norweb’s acquired a fake 1898 Dawson City assay bar from Ford.
Prior to the Smithsonian obtaining the Lilly Collection Paul Garland had written to his Congressmans stating that the collection contained a number of fake gold pieces.
Newman was set to testify the
same but never got the chance.
PNG member Abe Kosoff , Walter
Breen, and curator Clain-Stefanelli disagreed. No evidence of fakes.
Plus Stack’s had a good reputation
so the deal went forward good and bad.
>
Specify a time frame. He lost my respect in the 1970’s. As time passed more and more people distrusted him. By the time of the “Great Debate” I would say that the percentage of big name numismatists that distrusted him exceeded 40%.
LOL, I know via provenance and eye-ball there was a fictitious/fantastical Shuford proof $20(?) piece in the Kosoff estate, but I'd have to check to remember what date it was. You should have seen the withering look my Long Beach table partner John Dannreuther gave me when I showed it to him.
Remembered most of what he told me and the estate semi-expected the result, so didn't care to hear more. Ouch. 
That's karma. Kosoff was the guy that appraised the Lilly collection, to set a value for the tax relief that the government granted to the estate.
The amount of space required for the old coin exhibit was far out of proportion to the number of visitors to it, and also to exhibit subject requests from the pubic. In addition, there NNC curatorial staff was so small, and under the Stephanelli's amazingly inept, that they could not even rotate specimens or keep the dust off coins.
Many of the Lilly fakes were bought from Stack's, where Vladimir had worked before joining SI. I doubt Harvey Stack remembered those bits very well.