Your thoughts on the Paramount Collection?
TwoKopeiki
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I think I saw the number $40MM+ realized floating on IG. Some coins that have not seen the light of day in decades and some we will not see again in our lifetimes. There's a separate thread going on Edward VIII gold proof pattern 5 Pounds that alone realized $2.28MM. Magnentius 3 Solidi and Maxentius 4 Aurei realized $336K and $312K, respectively. It was neat to see the Pattern crowns, like the 1817 G3 and the 1663 CII Petition.
Some of us had a bet going about the final price of the 1732 Mo-F 8 Reales in NGC62...
All-in at $168K
Great to see some board members added to their collections. Congrats again @Zohar on adding a 3 Emperors Taler! I wondered if you were going after the "Butterfly" Taler, as well.
Speaking of Talers - so many multi-denominations in this sale! Lots in the $20-40K range, but one of the scarcer Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel Julius 5 Taler sold for $102K.
One of my personal favorites, a Philip IV 50 Reales (Cinquentin), looked almost like a bargain at $48K compared to a lot of other heavy hitters in the sale.
Nice crude type Coquimbo Peso brought in just over $38K.
Comments
British proof gold and all of the better 5G seemed to do really well. I'm less familiar with it (and some not at all) but all of the prices for the larger gold coins from elsewhere seemed strong too.
Surprised on the 1732 Mexico 8R. It's somewhat more than the Rudman MS-63 but a lot more than the MS-61 and AU-58 listed in the Heritage archives. It's a nicer coin than the two lower graded but don't think it's that much nicer.
Implies the MS-65 must be $500K or near it now.
The price of the 50R is typical of today's market for most coins where a noticeable to outsized proportion of the value is based upon the TPG holder label or estimated quality. My recollection is that this price is similar to the prior ones I have seen and since a noticeable proportion to majority of these coins were probably bought by US based collectors, there is less demand for a Spanish coin.
That 1732-Mo 8R pricing was ridiculous
Latin American Collection
Most of the ancients were absurdly expensive for what they were except, oddly, the Kimon dekadrachm which was a steal at $180K hammer (I didn't buy it but seriously considered a bid; I thought it would sell for $300K+).
Why do you think this ?
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
This piece seemed cleaned and retoned and inferior to the Rudman piece.
Paramount MS62 - $168k
Rudman MS63 - $153k
MS61 from 8/20 - $60k
Ridiculous was a bit extreme on my part but the price was strong.
Latin American Collection
Ridiculous was the correct word.
Inferior to Rudman and inferior to the August 2020 NGC MS61 example.
I was the immediate underbidder on the MS61 specimen and I researched and viewed it pretty thoroughly. It had previously sold for $40k as a PCGS AU58 in April 2018 (and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Heritage bought it because at that price, I think it fell through the cracks). While I didn't think it was strictly MS, the reverse was semi-PL and the coin was attractive despite the strike being a bit too off-center for my liking. The $60k that it sold for was fairly-valued.
In my opinion, that coin was more attractive than the Paramount "MS55" example.
Clearly the bidders on the Paramount specimen were basing their bidding decisions on the slab grade. The coin is rare, but certainly not unique. I suspect they were unsophisticated bidders who got caught up in the hype of the sale and the grade with little thought to the eye appeal of the coin. I see this quite often with some of the wealthy Latin American buyers who want a trophy but have little to no experience in numismatics. I expect that is where this coin went and needless to say the buyer will take a big loss upon resale.
This result drives home even more why I will very rarely bid aggressively on a NGC-graded coin unless I have viewed it in person.
Other random thoughts about the sale.
1) Kudos to Heritage for putting on a great sale. There wasn't anything for me to bid on, but Cris and team did a spectacular job all around and delivered great results for their consigner. It also proved that world coins can hold their own vs. US coins.
2) I assume the estimates were on the low side and I don't know what the consigner paid for them, so it's hard to determine how crazy the prices realized were. But from what I saw and heard, the coin market is on fire.
3) Coin investing can pay off very well given the right market timing.
4) I had to tune out of the sale after a while because I actually tired of how long each lot took to sell and the tedium of all that money being thrown around.
5) Is numismatics becoming a hobby of the 0.1%? I would hate to be starting a serious collection today. I know for a fact that I could never assemble my current collection if I started today.
Was only following the 1732 8 Reales from Mexico.
NFL: Buffalo Bills & Green Bay Packers
Didn't look at it closely to note your observation. Personally since it is by far the most common of the Mexico 1732 silver, I'd rather have one of the few high quality from the other denominations.
Want to buy this exceedingly rare key date / assayer I just got certified? Oh... wait....
8 Reales Madness Collection
I would say that if you have the money to be a serious collector of high end items, then this is a great time to be in the market because now the high end items are being auctioned.
Given your random thoughts maybe now is a great time for you to consign your collection to Cris B / Heritage and sell .
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
The collection was a FRESH as they come!
The auction showed again that when a fresh collection comes to the market the coins bring great prices.
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
>
How fresh does a coin need to be bring great prices? Consider a past auction appearance, how long until the coin is fresh again?
Latin American Collection
I have found when a collection as extensive as Paramount was that even certain individual coins you would have thought were not supposed to bring higher price levels often do anyway.
Why because they were part of the collection.
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
Strongly disagree to the infinite degree. The "Paramount" Collection is an overnight name. The guy who formed the collection bought the majority of his pieces from european auction houses in the early 2000s. He then had NGC slap on a colorful label overnight and people went crazy for their shot to own a "provenance." In my opinion there is no value in name here. This is no Eliasberg. The only thing I learned from this was the genius of the marketing ploy to assigning an arbitrary name to your collection and having it reslabbed with said name before sale.
This and the combination of a crazy world coin market made for high prices. I may well be wrong but something tells me the vast vast majority of "winners" in that auction won't see those funds again should they choose to sell.
Also yes the NGC gradeflation on the bulk of the coins is a joke. Calling a coin like this with blatant wear UNC is laughable
https://coins.ha.com/itm/italy/world-coins/italy-venice-francesco-loredan-gold-scudo-della-croce-of-12-zecchini-nd-1752-1762-gac-unc-details-obverse-scratched-ngc-/a/3096-30397.s?ic4=ListView-Thumbnail-071515
but PCGS isn't better by any stretch. AU55 is the new MS 64 in TPG Land
Totally agree. This wasn’t a collection. It was a portfolio.
Well said if I had to put it succinctly well that's my sentence
???
I would argue high end items are always offered for sale and that buying what at appears to be the top of the market where prices are sky high crazy seems a recipe for disaster down the line
disagree
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
Perhaps if you're a US collector. Availability of high-end material is not the case for a lot of World coin series.
8 Reales Madness Collection
I feel that's the case only if you solely specialize in one given area. It may well be with your 8 reales. I focus on world gold though and I don't think there's ever been a time every say 2 or 3 months during the standard heritage/stacks/goldberg/european auctions where I've glanced over the catalogs and haven't been able to find several pieces of quality/interest
Was the collection fully assembled in the early 2000s, or continuously since then?
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"Numismatic categorizations, if left unconstrained, will increase spontaneously over time." -me