Interesting read

jt88

I found this article is pretty interesting to read.

https://www.inquirer.com/arts/dennis-rodman-former-agent-dwight-manley-buyer-philadelphia-pa-historical-society-baker-collection-medals-20200228.html?from=singlemessage&isappinstalled=0

coinsarefun

Hey @DCW Your famous
.
One bidder, DCW, writing on an internet message board, commented that “I watched ... one guy just ... buy ... everything! .... Pretty much the whole collection auctioned piece by piece to THE SAME GUY! 3975.”

Justacommeman

Dwight Manley is generally the brightest bulb in any room. He’s like a wizard

m

ricko

Wow... What an amazing acquisition.... almost the entire collection...The Declaration of Independence medal is really nice....having been to Independence Hall several times, I would like to get one of those...Google here I come Cheers, RickO

MedalCollector

Cool article for sure...

Dwight has an eclectic taste in exonumia...and chairs

DCW

@coinsarefun said:
Hey @DCW Your famous
.
One bidder, DCW, writing on an internet message board, commented that “I watched ... one guy just ... buy ... everything! .... Pretty much the whole collection auctioned piece by piece to THE SAME GUY! 3975.”

Hahahaha! I knew my time would come.
Well, he didnt get these three beauties by Merriam...(available at 10xs my purchase price if you are reading, Mr. Manley, sir.)



In all seriousness, it is great he will be displaying them for the public. I just knew something was up as soon as the auction started. I pushed for the 3 lots above, and exceeded my comfort zone for many more. Glad I didnt bankrupt myself competing with the rich and famous.

DCW

@Zoins
Bidder 3975 is finally revealed!

Nic

Thanks for posting that JT.

Zoins

@DCW said:
@Zoins
Bidder 3975 is finally revealed!

Great to finally read about this! The medals in this set are truly amazing and I agree with Dwight that this sale really shouldn't have happened. If I had his funds, I would have tried to do what he did! Here's the photo of Dwight with his winnings from the article:

Here are a few of my pickups from the sale. The condition of Baker's collection is through the roof and I wish I could have picked up more.

What caught my eye was how much Dwight liked the following Emancipation Day piece which I follow:

“It’s telling a story of perseverance, of the rise of the U.S., of being honest.” said Manley. “You can see how important [Washington] was. He was revered and respected long after he died for what he did. Today, it’s all, aha, the TMZ moment. But then? The Civil War slave token —how historic is that? This is very moving.”

The Civil War token Manley referred to is an exceedingly rare medallion with Washington’s profile on the front and Henry Clarck’s name hand-stamped on the back. The token or tag was issued April 16, 1862 — eight months before Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863.

The token commemorates passage of the little-known Emancipation Act of 1862, which brought freedom to persons enslaved in Washington, D.C. Clarck is believed to be one of those released from bondage.

Manley bought it for $14,400.

Here’s some information on the D.C. Emancipation Act:

• https://emancipation.dc.gov/page/history-emancipation-day
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_Compensated_Emancipation_Act

Of course, I think this is super interesting because I own the counterstamping kit.

Zoins

Here's some info on Dwight from the LA Times:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-02-02-sp-31628-story.html

That, on the surface, would seem to be a rather dull one, considering Manley’s run-of-the-mill background.

He grew up in north Orange County, playing youth basketball. He graduated from Brea Olinda in 1984, where he was captain of the golf team. Standard stuff, except for one thing: coins.

Manley began collecting when he was 6. A year later, he went to a coin shop, but the owner refused to sell him anything until he read a book on the subject. The hobby became an obsession and, then, a career.

Manley, who never attended college, is so well respected in the field that the IRS has used him to estimate the value of coin collections. Three years ago, Manley was the high-bidder on the King of Siam, a collection of coins minted as a gift for the king in the 1830s.

His knowledge can also border on the eccentric.

The Abraham Lincoln penny was first minted in 1909, to honor the 100th anniversary of his birth. The George Washington quarter first appeared in 1932, honoring the 200th anniversary of his birth.

Yes, this is one of Dennis Rodman’s closest friends.

Zoins

By the way, Dwight commented on the article:

Dwight Manley wrote:
What a nicely written story Stephan. I wasn’t sure how or when to share my identity , and after seeing your piece Last Sunday on the museum selling the Baker collection , I knew you were the person that should tell this chapter of a 150 year saga .

Thank you

coinsarefun

This is an amazing collection and I'm super happy a few here were able to obtain some.
I hope this will bring the collecting tokens and medals more exposure. Exposure that is
very deserving!!
.
.
Maybe whenever I decide to sell I should make it the CoinsAreFun collection

Jimnight

WOW!!

Dwight_M

That die is really cool !!

Sonorandesertrat

@coinsarefun said:
This is an amazing collection and I'm super happy a few here were able to obtain some.
I hope this will bring the collecting tokens and medals more exposure. Exposure that is
very deserving!!
.
.
Maybe whenever I decide to sell I should make it the CoinsAreFun collection

I'm in for a few thou. Find another 700 buyers, and you'll be a bit past $2M too.

johnny9434

nice I like. that die is way cool, I like that best

Dwight_M

Some other pics ...

MedalCollector

@Dwight_M said:
Some other pics ...

Welcome aboard!

hchcoin

Awesome

Dwight_M

Better late than never lol.

hchcoin

For those who don't know, this is the same Dwight Manley who the ANA Library is named for:
https://money.org/dwight-n-manley

coinsarefun

Welcome and such beautiful tokens and medals you were able to obtain!
I think you need to show some true views off here @Dwight_M

Dwight_M

Thank you. I’m not sure how to share true view. Hopefully the ANA and Doug mudd can make as much as possible available on line to see and in the museum.

TheRegulator

Somewhere among the heaping pile of envelopes is the one lot on which I bid and was the underbidder.

But if you have to lose, it is very cool to see most of the collection stay intact. I still love the DCW quote!

Welcome to the boards, Dwight.

Zoins

Awesome accomplishment @Dwight_M ! Great idea and thanks for sharing. It must be amazing to go through so many pieces, piece by piece! I have some more pieces and should take a photo of all the slabs together, though I have much less!

I got most of the ones I tried for. In the end I wanted to save some budget for the following Internet sale which turned out to be a good idea.

Including Dwight, we now have 5 people who won items from the sale on these forums. I wonder if more will come out!

And thanks for the comments on the die @Dwight_M and @johnny9434 ! I had never seen one before but decided it was worth getting, researching and sharing. It really brings me back to how things worked back then and how much we don't know or have forgotten!

Zoins

@Dwight_M How many pieces did you pick up after the sale?

Did you get the following Baker / Historical Society piece which was offered on eBay for a little while and then withdrawn?

Dwight_M

I have not seen that. I am interested in any lots I didn’t get at a fair profit

GoBust

I bought one of the Baker treasures, Lot 20011 1790 Manley medal original dies. I had planned bids on three or four others that were outside my planned bid ranges.

Dwight when did you decide to buy most of the collection? Did that occur on auction day that you dared to make the dream come true? I think the collection is fabulous and wish you congratulations!!! So important historically what you've done.

I did a mini-version of what you did with the John Adam's Comitia Americana medals splashers. Of the cliches in white metal I landed all but two of them. I just thought they belonged together as a set. The original pieces are breathtaking when laid out together.

tokenpro

I am extremely happy that not only did Dwight step forward to keep this important reference collection mostly intact but also that it will not be stored away but will be used for education and research.

Interestingly, this bad news - good news piece came in a lot just last week and has some relation by omission to the wonderful items above. Concerning this GW-365, the bad news is the field disruption on the reverse of this otherwise decent token. The good news is that Neil Musante notes in his catalog: “No examples appeared in the Norweb sale of 2006, and no examples are found in the MHS, ANS, Baker (Historical Society Of Pennsylvania) or Smithsonian collections.” Neil lists it as U (unique) --whether that is correct or not, I do enjoy having an outlier on hand

.

Zoins

@GoBust said:
I bought one of the Baker treasures, Lot 20011 1790 Manley medal original dies.

Great pick up! Here's the TrueView for your medal:

Neil Musante comments:

The Manly medal, as it is called today, has the distinction of being the first medallic commemoration of Washington to be issued in America.

Alan V. Weinberg comments:

The earliest medallic portrait of George Washington. All prior medals were made in Europe based on imagined images often resembling Napoleon Bonaparte.

The following was posted in the Federal Gazette in Philadelphia on March 20, 1790:

We have the pleasure to inform our customers and the public in general, that a beautiful medal, with a fine profile of the venerated President of these states has lately been executed in this city by Mr. James Manly, an Irish artist, who resided a considerable time in London. Mr. Manly has had uncommon difficulties to contend with executing so capital a branch of the fine arts in a country where the auxiliary arts have not yet arrived at perfection.

Zoins

@Dwight_M said:
Thank you. I’m not sure how to share true view.

The easiest way to share is probably to click "Quote" on a post with a TrueView which will show you the formatting needed to get a TrueView to appear. After you see the URL, you can simply just copy and paste that text while changing the cert number.

Another way is to first download the image and then upload it via the image icon.

Hopefully the ANA and Doug mudd can make as much as possible available on line to see and in the museum.

This is exciting. Would love to see the display.

ParlousJoe

What an awesome collection of medals to acquire and thank you to a very generous man to then let them be displayed in a exhibition at the 2021 Money of Museum in Colorado Springs at the ANA. It is an awesome collection that the public will be able to see and learn from. I only wish that I could see the collection in person, I am sure that they are beautiful to see in person and something to learn a little history from since it seems that in our Country today, all of these States and Cities want to do nothing but tear down the history of our Country!

Thank you @Dwight_M for acquiring this collection and then letting the ANA display the collection for the public that can make it there to see and learn from, that is very nice of you! Also welcome here to the forums neighbor, its better late than never!

Dwight_M

That’s beautiful. I had a silver manly medal and bronze. And bought one or two from Baker. I didn’t buy any funeral medals as I had those already too.
The thought was to buy the Getz and Perkins patterns and a few highlights...but after about 50-75 lots , it seemed there might be a chance to acquire the bulk of the collection .
I did not keep a running total , and was guessing where I stood expenditure wise over the 11 hours glued to my office computer. The next day Chris K sent an invoice and I saw where I was , and session two was another 5 hours of being glued to the office computer . Combined I got over 85% of the lots for roughly 70% of the sale price . I did not buy any seasons medals . And as I said , I already has some items he had , and some he did not. Those will be added to the exhibit and shown at the ANA

coinsarefun

I thought the Washington gaming tokens were spectacular.
This is one of yours that graded ms65. I happened to find a raw one and mine graded ms64+
.
.
Yours (c.1860) Token GW-408
.

.
.
Mine. (c.1860) Token GW-409
.

ParlousJoe

@Dwight_M said:
That’s beautiful. I had a silver manly medal and bronze. And bought one or two from Baker. I didn’t buy any funeral medals as I had those already too.
The thought was to buy the Getz and Perkins patterns and a few highlights...but after about 50-75 lots , it seemed there might be a chance to acquire the bulk of the collection .
I did not keep a running total , and was guessing where I stood expenditure wise over the 11 hours glued to my office computer. The next day Chris K sent an invoice and I saw where I was , and session two was another 5 hours of being glued to the office computer . Combined I got over 85% of the lots for roughly 70% of the sale price . I did not buy any seasons medals . And as I said , I already has some items he had , and some he did not. Those will be added to the exhibit and shown at the ANA

That's awesome Dwight! I bet it didn't seem like 11 hours the first day or maybe it did when you are bidding on that many items lol If you ever need any help with something like that again, I'm only a message and a couple of miles away lol

Again, its awesome that you put the time into it and was able to purchase pretty much the whole collection and then going to let it be displayed for the public to see and learn from it. I can only wish to be able to travel back to Colorado to see it, I'm sure its very impressive! Again, welcome here and look forward to learning more from you, others and you doing the same.

Joe

Dwight_M

Thank you again. It was pretty grueling for 11 hours. Had to pay attention the whole time. And internet seemed to lag . Could not hear or see it either. Just prompts.

Zoins

Great to hear your story Dwight. It was pretty exciting to watch those go by lot after lot. There were just so many great items. I wasn't following all the lots and was thankful for the mobile app which I used extensively throughout the day. The most memorable bidding of the day was when I was driving and when an important lot came up, I pulled to the side of the road to bid successfully before continuing on.

Dwight_M

In 1982 John Bergman loaned me 300$ towards a purchase at the Boston ana. Where I was a page. For the john Adams s-20 for 400$. It was pedigree to frossard. Garrett. Morley. Adams. Me. I built an exhibit “tracing an illustrious pedigree” and had it at nasc. Csna. Ana. The Baker collection takes me back to that. The pedigrees of the Baker collection are spectacular. Baker alone is amazing. But he bought from some of the best collections of the 1870s and 1880s. A true time capsule of a collection

ParlousJoe

@Dwight_M said:
In 1982 John Bergman loaned me 300$ towards a purchase at the Boston ana. Where I was a page. For the john Adams s-20 for 400$. It was pedigree to frossard. Garrett. Morley. Adams. Me. I built an exhibit “tracing an illustrious pedigree” and had it at nasc. Csna. Ana. The Baker collection takes me back to that. The pedigrees of the Baker collection are spectacular. Baker alone is amazing. But he bought from some of the best collections of the 1870s and 1880s. A true time capsule of a collection

Cool story because back then you were only around 16 yrs old and new at that time as a YN what to start a collection on. I can only imagine some of the stories you have over these past 40 yrs and one day I will see your collection and hear some more of the stories from you. Talk to you again later

Joe

GoBust

Thanks for sharing your process and your experience during the auction. I felt like I was there with you, feeling the passion and plan unfold!

TavernTreasures

Sad story with happy ending. The Historical Society of PA staff should all be ashamed of themselves. Baker wanted his collection to remain intact. It should have been donated by them (intact) to maybe the Smithsonian, the US Mint collection, Mount Vernon or some other museum that really wanted it. Thankfully this collector (Dwight Manley) saved the majority of this collection intact.