Baker collection sale
jonathanb
Posts: 3,686 ✭✭✭✭✭
Stack's just sold the first part of the Willian Spohn Baker [corrected] collection. Baker wrote the book (literally) on Washington tokens and medals, back in the 1880s. When he died in the 1890s he gave his collection to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. And there it sat. And sat and sat and sat. The pieces sold today have been off the market for literally 120+ years. Talk about fresh!
On top that, the pieces were apparently stored extremely well. For the most part they did NOT have museum accession numbers inked on them, which is common for institutional collections. The coins that could tone typically did tone, and wildly. Blues and purples were practically the norm for the copper and silver pieces. No worries about artificial toning here, either.
I knew the prices would be high. These were great pieces. They deserved high prices. Indeed, the prices started off high. Then they got higher. Towards the end of the auction they got stratospheric. When I tuned in near the end, I already had a guess what was going on. One bidder -- 3975 -- apparently had no limit. I guess that everyone bidding live twigged onto that eventually and started driving the prices up. Now we're going to see eBay sales from a bunch of other people expecting to get similar prices. Sorry, folks. Even considering how nice these pieces were, the prices were still a one-time thing.
Unofficial stats:
761 lots
$2.17 million total sale including premium
$2,855 average price
$1,200 median price
EXTREMELY high prices for exonumia, but not even worth a sneeze relative to the fine art market. If someone was buying these with plans to resell, they could be in trouble. If someone was buying with plans to enjoy them for a very long time, I tip my cap. These are some great pieces.
Comments
I had quite a few on my watch list and several healthy bids but lost everyone of them.
They are outstanding pieces. I was still blown away at the thought that these are going
to be only the 3rd to own these pieces!
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I wonder how many will end up on eBay thinking the can flip them, which I don’t think will
be an easy task.
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There are a few pieces still left to be auctioned, hopefully I can snag one.
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CoinsAreFun Toned Silver Eagle Proof Album
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Gallery Mint Museum, Ron Landis& Joe Rust, The beginnings of the Golden Dollar
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More CoinsAreFun Pictorials NGC
My head hurts from this sale.
I had many pieces on my watch list that were absolute dreams of mine. I decided I was making a run for them. I even had financial arrangements in place for the big push. And then...I watched... one guy just...buy...everything! It was disheartening and frustrating to see my nuclear secret max bids get obliterated in seconds. Sometimes 3 or 4 times what they should go for.
Money was no object! Pretty much the whole collection auctioned piece by piece to THE SAME GUY! 3975. I just cant imagine being there in person and watching this highly anticipated auction go down like this!
From the internet, I imagined a bidder possessed by the ghost of Pittman.
So bummed...
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
@DCW did you notice if 3975 was active for the entire sale? The lots near the beginning sold for prices that I thought were fairly reasonable, given how nice these pieces are. I wasn't paying attention to see if 3975 joined later or if nobody was bidding him up early on.
They didn't buy LITERALLY everything. I saw some lots hammered to other folks. Sure bought a lot, though.
I started to actually conjecture early on that nothing was actually for sale, and it was all a ruse. Like the house was bidding against everyone in order to return the collection to the Pennsylvania Historical Society. But I actually did manage to squeeze two pieces out of the sale. Paying dearly for them, but sense that doesnt fit the narrative of bad guy bidder 3975 taking it all away from poor me, I will leave that to another thread.
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
@DCW i didn’t know the majority went to one guy. Well, that actually makes me feel
a little better. Hopefully they will be something that goes off the market for a long time
and not show up on eBay trying to flip.
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CoinsAreFun Toned Silver Eagle Proof Album
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Gallery Mint Museum, Ron Landis& Joe Rust, The beginnings of the Golden Dollar
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More CoinsAreFun Pictorials NGC
3975 was there from the beginning @jonathanb
Should he reveal himself, I'm sure he will announce that he got the lion share.
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
And dont forget: They auctioned off the collection of William Spohn Baker at the same time! Haha
(Warren Spahn pitched for the Milwaukee Braves)
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
I heard doing the auction things were going crazy with one dominant bidder. Working with John Kralovich i was able to obtain one of the earlier lots, a wonderful Manly Medal in white metal. What an incredibly historic collection. I as did others thought so much material would create exciting buying opportunities, it was the opposite. It generated terrific and broad enthusiasm! I've only seen this a few times, but it has occurred before. Always tough on everyone.
You never know as with a actual Baker pedigree they might still be very salable if a dealer bought them for inventory.
Exonumia as a whole has been on the rise yearly for well over a decade... While the regular coin market keeps tanking.
Think that's a ...lasting... phase? I sense burnout and a return to coins.
Not right away, but within a couple years.
Exonumia would seem to have a very limited apreciative audience.
???
This was a very exciting sale. If the whale wasn’t there I would have picked up many, many more pieces. I wonder who the big buyer was. I was the underbidder on a few pieces where I could be convinced to go higher in a resale.
Oops! :-)
This was like an Eliasberg sale for Exonumia! Many of the coins in the Eliasberg Collection came from J.M. Clapp, who actually visited the mints to collect truly Mint-State condition coins at the time of their release. Likewise, Baker was alive and collecting at the time that these medals and tokens were struck, and basically collected them at the time of issue. Bequeathing them all to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Society served as a time capsule preserving them all in their spectacular condition!
I was online for a good portion of the day on Saturday, and I saw one lot that closed and it was noted as "PASSED." I was surprised to see that! Maybe that was a error?
@cardinal
Were you the guy buying it all?
I agree this was kind of an "Eliasberg" moment for exonumia. Once in a lifetime stuff for sure, sort of like the Zabriskie Collection of Lincolniana at Sotheby's but much bigger. I still cannot come to grips with the prices realized!
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
I was successful on 5 lots out of the 1,202 lots up for auction!
You did better than I!
(I was hoping you were the mysterious bidder 3975, and those treasures would remain in the PCGS forum family)
I cant wait to see which 5 you got, and I have a feeling they are Libertas Americana themed
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
Most of these lots went for multiples of what we generally accept they were worth.
I say this with the caveat that I know "worth" is a subjective term. What something is worth to one person can vary drastically to what another person considers fair. It is especially hard to price exonumia, as even the common stuff is rare by comparison to most US Coins. This is a special collection, and I expected spirited bidding. But this bidder just bid up everything...EVERYTHING! Even when there were duplicates in sequential lots, he just bid them up and away.
This could well be the realization of my biggest numismatic nightmare... a celebrity type (whale) entering this niche of the hobby or otherwise advised of an investment opportunity. This kind of blanket bidding doesn't happen too often in my view. And someone with real money is not overly concerned with dropping 2 million dollars on tokens and medals when that is a fraction of what art costs.
I also understand that it takes two people to launch a lot to the moon. I think that had a lot to do with desperation to acquire SOMETHING from this historic auction. Or maybe it was just people in the room bidding up 3975 as payback for taking all the treasure in the room? A couple of times it was me, losing my head on what I love.
I'm still trying to process it all. I cried into my pillow last night
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
all I can say is that there were some interesting Medals for sale, the Provenance was outstanding and the quality on most of what interested me was exceptional. I tried to be picky about what I thought I could bid on but prices climbed past what I was willing to pay. I expect that in years to come I may regret not "reaching" higher for at least 1-2 of the selections but I will fight on another day --- probably in January and again in March!!!
Martin, were you chasing anything in particular??
Most of these lots went for HIGH multiples of what we generally accept they were worth. 10x multiples were common. I saw some that were in the 50x-100x range. Yes, I totally agree that many of these pieces were truly special. They weren't 50x special, and the ones that were bid up especially high were sometimes among the least special.
There WERE some reasonable prices in the sale, mixed in with all of the rest. I have no problem seeing a nice example sell for $300 when I see similar pieces on eBay for $100 or even $50. This was a special sale. A reasonable premium is appropriate.
I do have a problem seeing $100 items sell for $5,000, or in some cases $10,000+. I'm fairly confident that some people in the room were intentionally running up the bidding. Because, well, they could.
FWIW, sometimes I've seen sets that were broken up and provisionally sold as individual lots, followed by a single lot at the end of the run with a starting price 10% over the sum of the individuals. That keeps the individual bidders motivated, but also gives someone a chance to keep everything together if they have the pockets to do so. I don't think I've ever seen that done for an entire sale. I wonder what would have happened if Mr. Mystery Bidder convinced Stack's to do that for the entire collection here, if that would have sat better or worse with all of the other bidders involved...
Your feeling is correct! There were a number of others on my radar, and seeing the prices, held out to be able to stretch more for the most important ones:
The first four all have the same provenance: Ex Charles I. Bushnell, S.H. and H. Chapman, June 1882, lot 1497; William Spohn Baker Collection, to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania by bequest, November 15, 1897. So these 4 will stay together as a group, as they have been for the past 140+ years.
I also picked up this one, so that can assemble a 5-coin holder with the 4 Libertas sides face up, and the 5th one with the Washington side face up.
Awesome pieces, @cardinal !
So, does anybody think that perhaps DL Hansen is behind the paddle of 3975?
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
Thanks!
I'm not sure who was behind the paddle of 3975; however, when watching live auctions, when I see a particular number come up frequently, I see that as the auction house buying something on behalf of the "book."
I just hope he contacts me to offer my beloved lots at 30 percent of his cost. I will forgive him, then.
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
It occurred to me that Hansen might be in play here. I have no info to back that up, though.
I'm pretty confident this was not the auction house buying stuff back. If it was, they did a horrible job of it. Bidder 3975 was on the internet, and they apparently had a flaky connection. There were long period without bids, followed by bids squeaking in just before (or in some cases just after) the hammer fell. Whoever it was, it looked to me like a real person, bidding manually -- which I suppose is also argument against it being Hansen...
During the auction, I was not aware of paddle 3975 going after many of the lots, and so didn't know it was from an internet bidder. That said, I have attended live auctions, and watched as other attendees entered internet bids on their laptops in secrecy. If #3975 was an internet bidder, it would be less likely to have been the house buying on behalf of one or more clients.
I had a screwy connection, too. On at least 5 lots, I had no option to bid...there was no button to press! Thanks, Stacks...you probably saved me from myself
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
Amazing pickups @cardinal truly beautiful pieces.
This is what made this sale so special. Baker had so many pieces in so many areas in such great condition. Bequeathing them to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania was a great idea and being stored for such a long time made this collection special.
Having so many pieces of exonumia in mint state collection, in multiple metals but also with special rarities, made me think of of his collecting kind of like collecting modern Daniel Carr, Gallery Mint pieces today. I imagine he must have known and chatted with the die sinkers.
It's not just because people could run them up, it's because they "had" to be up in order to win against buyer 3975. There were a lot of items that sold for less than $1000 which I imagine all went to buyer 3975. I think Buyer's 3975's strategy probably got him all or many of the the pieces that sold for less than the average price of about $2800 for the first day.
Beautiful pieces @cardinal! I especially liked the following which I considered bidding on but wanted to save my budget for things more core to my central collections. Actually, the only reason I ended up with more budget for the Baker collection was that I set aside more than I ended up needing for the Adams collection sale where I thought I might end up bidding against you for a Libertas Americana piece.
I did bid in the Adams sale, but not the Libertas Americana medals, as the Collection already has an early die state and a late die state of the Libertas medals in both silver and bronze. I was going after the pre-production Libertas pieces, and was successful in getting the third piece.
Here are a few of my wins.
I'm a big George Bache Soley fan and have slowly built up a growing collection. When the Baker sale came along, the Soley pieces were my top priorities. The fact that Baker, Soley and the Centennial event were in Philadelphia is a great connection.
I collect medals that were struck at events and have text on them say so I wanted the following. I can imagine William Baker walking into the Centennial Buildings in 1876 and picking them up himself. The sharpness of the letters on this looks incredible and reminds me of medals from the era. I could see the white metal piece potentially being a special one off as there is no number counterstamped after "No" on the reverse as I've seen on others.
I also collect Soley's Lord's Prayer tokens and picked up a couple. Below is the only one in silver I've ever seen. I wonder if it had been a special commission by Baker to Soley?
I thought you would like the pre-production pieces and could see you taking a special liking to the 3rd piece which I liked as well. I was successful getting the first pre-production piece.
We have all seen crazy bidding action, if I had unlimited funds, trying to keep the Baker set together wouldn't be the dumbest thing I'd consider doing. I would have gone to the auctioneer and tried to get them to pull the sale (which has been done in the past).
@Zoins those Soley / star pieces are very, very tough. Fortunately, I have one that I'm pretty happy with. :-)
Here's a couple that you might not have seen before, struck on yellow and silvered cardboard:
The 1876 Centennial Celebration and Expositions would be a dream to visit with a time machine. Imagine all of the medals and tokens at sale for just pennies each??
Anyway, as a memento of the overall festivities, I picked this up a short time ago. Two 51mm medals undisturbed in the same unopened case, 144 years later:
The mention of John Kraljevich above is interesting as he's known for Washingtoniana. I wonder how active he was in this auction. Here's an ad from his website:
Here's the Stack's Bowers hero image for posterity.
@jonathanb All 3 of those Soley medals are great. I had only seen the first before on So-CalledDollars.com. The surfaces look amazing it. I'm also a big fan Soley's cardboard pieces but hadn't seen those particular ones before. I have a cardboard mule of his storecard (your first cardboard image) with the obverse of his 1885 U.S. Grant Savior of our Stars and Stripes medal which I picked up in the Pennsylvania Cabinet sale. I'll keep an eye out for them now!
This would be such a great treat. I love seeing period photos to imagine such a thing, especially photos with people in them. Here's a map and some information on the 1876 Centennial Exposition fairgrounds:
The only building to survive from the celebration is Memorial Hall which is now a museum. It housed the art gallery and is noted as such in the map above. The following photos are from Wikipedia:
Memorial Hall in 2010:
Memorial Hall nearing completion in 1876:
Great medals in their original cases. What a treasure to find.
Here's a booklet on William Sphon Baker for those interested. It made sense he would donate his collection to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and they would keep it so long as he was both a member and Vice President of the organization.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20085777
Thank you for these valuable posts. Here is one of my wins. I was only able to get about five items in this sale, but they were the five I wanted. @Zoins won items I went pretty high on and wanted.... sorry to bid you up. Glad you got them.
That's a great, rare pick up @rajesinger . It's nice to see this alternate design of the Washington Monument. These don’t come to market that often. I’d love to know what else you picked up.
No worries on bidding the others up. It would be great to know more about what you collect. Those were of particular interest to me because I collect George Soley, expo made medals that have words saying they were struck on site, and Lord’s Prayer medallets. They were exceptional specimens so I was happy to get them.
Here's the listing of the above group in the Bushnell auction (courtesy of the Newman Portal), and note the name Baker written next to Lot 1497:
And, here's the related portion of the prices realized:
Imagine it! To acquire those 4 medals, Baker paid 27 cents!!!
Wow @cardinal thanks so much for posting this. It is amazing he purchased them for 27 cents....lol
I guess modern tokens were are purchasing now for $.50-200 will be in the thousands I 140+ years!
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CoinsAreFun Toned Silver Eagle Proof Album
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Gallery Mint Museum, Ron Landis& Joe Rust, The beginnings of the Golden Dollar
.
More CoinsAreFun Pictorials NGC
Great history @cardinal . It’s amazing what these used to be worth when they were collected as moderns. Thanks for posting it
Baker was a great Washingtonia collector and collected all kinds of medals and tokens related to Washington, including Bolen medals, So-Called Dollars, Civil War Tokens, dealer store cards, game counters and others. The breadth is really amazing to me. How many other well-known Washingtonia collectors / collections are there?
Just glancing at the prices realized and wondering how to now price some Washingtonia pieces which are far nicer than in this sale?
It doesn’t hurt to try to get Baker sales prices. I’ve discussed this a few dealers and, as a buyer, I’m treating this as a one time thing and declined to pay Baker range prices elsewhere. We’ll see if there’s a new price norm not going forward. It will likely require 3975 to become a more well known player that sellers can sell to at fixed prices, potentially like Hansen, though he’s not known for overpaying.
There's some Washingtonia up for sale at other auction houses now trying to catch the tailwinds of Baker's sale.
The other reason is that I was also the underbidder on many pieces I wouldn’t bid that high on again so that should be taken in to account as with many moon price auction results.
You say that now
