Who is/was the greatest exonumia collector and/or who has/had the best exonumia collection ?
dcarr
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dcarr
Posts: 8,943 ✭✭✭✭✭
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Google doesn't seem to know either, that makes two of us.
This is a seldom discussed topic. I have no idea what the answer is but hope someone has some insight into it.
Ford, Brand, Bowers
Latin American Collection
Simpson? Top Cat? Hedgie?
Ford would be my guess (and it would be a total guess), but I like @Boosibri list as well/better.
Ford liked collecting anything numismatic not in the Redbook.
The Stack's auction catalogs represent much of his material, although I don't know exactly how much they didn't auction.
I've seen a lot of collections but the most remarkable one I ever saw was "Chicago good-fors". There were several binders with several hundred in each... ...all different, of course. I also saw a complete set of all three types of Cracker Jack tokens. Every single token in the cancelled set is scarce.
Great collections really are a measure of the passion of the collector. Indeed, if the collector is passionate it doesn't matter so much how extensive the collection is.
According to the late Steve Tannenbaum, Ford had so much that Stacks’ couldn’t market all of via their auctions. There was just much stuff.
Easy... Me
Since dealer/member Dave Wnuck has been calling me "The Elaisberg of Exonumia" for many years
Well F.C.C. Boyd was kind of a Simpson/Hanson in his day and Wayte Raymond was his exclusive dealer kinda like Legend/DLRC. So Boyd amassed a lot of stuff which Ford acquired after his death by hoodwinking his widow at a low ball offer of 50 cents a piece.
I tend to run across Ford's pedigree the most when I see some exotic exonumia that I like.
Given my connection to Philadelphia, I'm a big fan of the Pennsylvania Cabinet which just sold.
For out of this world exonumia, Eliasberg had this great collection collection of 15 Lincoln gold medals that I recently posted in another thread. I don't recall anyone else having as nice of a set and presentation.
Timothy Millett’s Australian convict love token collection was impressive and fascinating. The collection now resides in the National Museum of Australia. You can view it here: http://love-tokens.nma.gov.au/
Richard Burdick's "Eclectic Numismatic Treasure" collection is rather amazing, although since much is actually made from coins, it's not strictly exonumia.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Boyd was a friend of Elder and had a lot of Elder material that Ford got. Ford then donated a lot of it to the ANA Museum for a tax write off.
When I was writing my Elder Catalogue I went through the Museum holdings. There was one piece that had ten struck in each of several of his standard compositions, and the Museum had 7 of the 10 of one composition! I happened to have 2 of the 10 of a different composition from the same dies that the Museum did not have, and I offered to swap 1 each even up. The Curator would not do it without a Board vote.
I know Dick and have seen much of his collection across a few visits. It is extraordinary!
Latin American Collection
This is kind of like asking who had the best bottle cap or marble collection. I'm not remotely disparaging the field
yeah, it doesn't sound like it!!!
Exonumia is sort of like the guy down the street that you don't know but you think he's a little weird. then, you happen to meet him one day, get to know him and think he's OK. you might even become lifelong friends if you're lucky. my point is that as people we tend to disparage(yes, that's what I said) what we don't know and understand.
how many times has someone posted some Exonumia here that everyone isn't aware even exists and the typical reply is almost universally positive??
collecting stuff like that, Trade Tokens, CWT's, Love Tokens, SC$'s etc. is actually more difficult than collecting standard coins of the realm. the stuff flies as far under the radar as the collections assembled. it has always amazed me that in my personal collection there are items which are aesthetically more pleasing to the eye than most US coinage, multiples of times more rare, sought by a good number of collectors and yet unknown to the Hobby as a whole. there are dozens of other members who could probably say the same thing.
the comment by BillJones sums it up well. in some regard, the collectors of this material are the experts and apparently not even the biggest auction houses know what stuff is or how to value it.
I have the best marble collection here on the forum.... Many Guineas, Cobras and all the other rare specimens....I even have some exonumia....
Cheers, RickO
I’d guess Virgil Brand, certainly in terms of volume, he’s been dead for 100 years and I think they’re still auctioning off his stuff!
I lost my marbles years ago.........
I actually think exonumia is too broad to have a single greatest exonumia collector and/or single best exonumia collection. And if there was one, it would be significantly less complete than a single greatest coin collection due to the breadth of exonumia.
In the more popular areas, there are Civil War Tokens, So-Called Dollars, and US Mint / Assay medals. In the less popular areas there are store cards, gaming tokens, encased coins, parking tokens, tax tokens, coal scrip tokens, etc. At the top end there are amazing gold medals. There can be great collectors in all of these areas, some expensive by money, and others expensive by time.
To me, gold medals are amazing and what makes the choice hard. There a number of large exonumia collections but not significant ones with a lot of gold to my knowledge, aside from Eliasberg with the Lincoln set above. Here's a gold Jacques Wiener Cathedral Medal that I think would fit well in a greatest exonumia collection:
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1017981/gold-jacques-wiener-cathedral-medal#latest
I don't think you offended anyone, in fact it might be said that you pulled RickO out of the closet. just who might be a ClosetMarbleGuy is tough to put a finger on, but now we know!!
I saw no offense in anything you posted.
I've never seen one but I've heard of 12 or 14,000 piece transportation token collections.
If you're pretty active and collect varieties 25,000 pieces might be obtainable. Most of the varieties you'll still have to find the old fashioned way; looking at lots of tokens. I imagine someday everything will be obtainable on the net. But for now there are lots of things that are too scarce and too cheap to be available at any price.