Is it possible to reassemble the Sultan of Muscat Set?
Zoins
Posts: 34,291 ✭✭✭✭✭
Here's the King of Siam set in its original holder. Given that these coins are now in individual slabs, the holder doesn't matter as much any more for presentation.
Some questions:
- When was the Sultan of Muscat set broken up?
- How many of the Sultan of Muscat coins are known?
- Is it possible to reassemble the set?
The Eagle
The Dollar
The Quarter
This coin is speculated to be the quarter:
- Cert: https://www.pcgs.com/cert/31385749
- Sale: https://auctions.stacksbowers.com/lots/view/1-1DOLH/1834-capped-bust-quarter-browning-2-rarity-7-as-a-proof-proof-67-cam-pcgs
- Article: https://www.coinworld.com/news/precious-metals/finest-known-eightnteen-thirty-four-capped-bust-quarter-hits-big-at-pogue-auction.html
The provenance goes back to Colonel Green:
Stack's Bowers wrote:
Provenance: Col. E.H.R. Green Collection; partnership of Eric P. Newman and Burdette G. Johnson; Eric P. Newman, by trade; Washington University of St. Louis, by gift, ca. 1952-54; Mrs. Emery May Norweb Collection, via New Netherlands Coin Company, by sale, November 5, 1954; Bowers and Merena’s sale of the Norweb Collection, Part II, March 1988, lot 1554; Heritage’s sale of the Andre Dawson Collection, September 1998, lot 6650; Bowers and Merena’s Rarities Sale of August 1999, lot 134; Superior Galleries’ sale of February 2001, lot 5430; Heritage’s sale of November 2002, lot 11487.
Comments
Have you become so incognizant of history that you think the long-famous "yellow morocco presentation case" is the equivalent of a TPG holder?
Wake up and change this load-of-crap characterization before more people are mislead by your statement.
Please re-read what I wrote:
the holder doesn't matter as much any more for presentation.
I didn't say they are equivalent, but the fact is that the coins are no longer in the original holder and cannot be viewed that way. Do you disagree?
Of course, it's nice to have the old holder image with the coins in them, but that's an image from the past. The holder is also nice on it's own, empty of course.
@messydesk posted some photos of the King of Siam set from ANA. This is what the dollar looks like today. Note that it's not in the original holder
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1061899/the-expensive-exhibits-of-the-ana-show#latest
It's NOT a holder. It's never been a holder. Your inability to make that discrimination is sad. It will always be an integral part of the set. The slabs are at best semi-relevant; good for storage
What you wrote was foolishness.
Your insistence on rejecting this correction is one of the reasons I care less and less about participating here.
Thank you for your contribution
“Is it possible to reassemble the Sultan of Muscat Set?”
No, it’s not.
I got goosebumps, reading the last paragraph.
“...Glendining and Co., a London auction house, was selected to sell “the property of C.A. Watters, Esq, Liverpool” in two sales. The first, held in May 1917, focused on Watters’ extensive and well-known collection of English coins. The second sale, held on June 14 and 15 of the same year, included Watters’ collection of coins of the Isle of Man, which incorporated scholar Philip Nelson’s entire collection of Manx coins, along with coins from other British possessions, and some Greek and Roman pieces. The second day’s sale offered mostly American coins and medals, beginning with a 1652 New England shilling that had come from the famous Nelson cabinet. The following 138 lots ranged widely in quality and rarity, a hodgepodge that included an 1855 $50 Wass, Molitor gold piece, an 1836 Gobrecht dollar, and a lot of 22 circulated three-cent silvers. Watters was a collector of substantial means, dying in 1932 with an estate worth in excess of £13,000, but his American cabinet was a miscellany, formed with neither completion nor condition in mind. The announcement of the sale made at the 60th annual meeting of the American Numismatic Society in January 1918 detailed many of Watters’ numismatic specialties but didn’t even mention that any American coins were sold.
Lot 227 stood out, earning more description over its three and a half lines of text than any other lot sold that day.
AR Dollar, 1804, excessively rare, in perfect condition, considered one of the finest specimens known. See plate. Shows the same slight flaw in die at the top of the letters in Liberty as the Parmelee specimen.
On its own, such a coin would stick out prominently in a collection like Watters’. But in the next few dozen lots, among the holed 1807 quarter, the Proof coins of the 1880s and 1890s, and the large lot of circulated nickels, were coins that arranged like a constellation around the Watters 1804 dollar, forming something together that was greater than the sum of their parts. Lot 240 included eight half dollars, all of which were graded “fine,” dated from 1836 to 1846, but for one: “1834, proof.” Lot 246 offered 10 quarter dollars, an assortment from 1836 to 1856 that included a single New Orleans Mint issue and all graded “very fine” but one: “1834, proof.” Lot 254 was an unspectacular dozen half dimes, including a 1795 called “good,” 10 pieces from 1829 to 1834, including several duplicates, called “very fine,” and another half dime that seemed not to belong: “1834, a proof.” While the gold was nowhere to be seen, clearly Watters owned most of an 1834 Proof set. If he owned the dime, cent, and half cent that went with it, they were unappreciated and mixed into other lots, namely lot 250 (nine dimes, including an 1834), lot 278 (23 cents from 1821 to 1839) and lot 283 (20 half cents from 1809 to 1857). What Watters had acquired, probably in London about 1867, was the remains of a set of United States coins distributed in 1834 by the United States Department of State. Watters had purchased what was left of the set given to the Sultan of Muscat on October 1, 1835...”
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
The King of Siam Proof set has always been a dream for me. The closest I might have come was when it was selling for about $1 million. It was still raw then. If I had bought it, I would have had a custom Capital Plastic holder made for it for safer storage.
If I had had the opportunity to exhibit the set, it would have been displayed like this.
So far as the Sultan's set, I imagine that the lesser coins in Proof would be the hard part. How would you know which exact pieces were in the set? Yes, they are rare and there are not that many 1834 Proof coins coins around, but was there ever a photo of the set when it was intact? I doubt it.
I made up this virtual set at one time. Unfortunately cracking these coins out to display them and then having them certified again gets to be very expensive.
Wow! Great find @MFeld!
What happened with the Sultan of Muscat set and the two coins from the King of Siam set are very sad and glaring reminders of the sometimes fragile and fleeting nature of coin provenances.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Agreed. Hopefully, good photo records and online auction records can assist these days.
At the same time, I note that a lot of provenance seems to be lost even today. In reviewing the Parkoff sale, I noted that Parkoff had a lot of provenance in his notes that did not get transferred to the auction lot descriptions this year.
It's a nice way to enjoy the set. It would have been amazing if you picked up the set at the time! Did you consider it at the time?
Agreed. I wonder if any other coins are associated with the set, even speculatively like the quarter.
The image looks really nice. Slabs are a fact of modern collecting. I've purchased multi coin holders like Capital Plastics for some of my coins, knowing I won't crack them out to populate the holder. It may be silly to want the holder in that event, but it's nice to think about doing it.
@Zoins -
Probably 99+% of all knowledgeable coin people would think your perspective has been warped by the TPG nomenclature. You could have corrected this at any time. Your insistence is, perhaps, based on your need to be right. When the initial premise in your opening paragraph is dead wrong, one tends to devalue the rest of the post.
And your point was completely irrelevant to the main thrust of the topic. Gratuitous misinformation about relevance and nomenclature.
Holder? 40+ years in the business and I've never, in all that that time, heard of the presentation case referred to as a holder. Your perspective is very unusual; one might say unique. Or solipsistic.
"Man who farts in church sits in his own poo".
Very nice @ColonelJessup .
Glad you're enjoying the thread.
If I had sold my entire collection and mortgaged my underwear, I might have come close, but it was nothing but a dream. I doubt that the auction houses would have raised my bidding limit to that level.
Thanks and understood. Probably not prudent but still fun to think about.
imagine holding that set in your hands. wow. beautiful coins.
Impressed with your humility.
Agreed. Both sets pictured are amazing, the King of Siam set and BIll's Pan Pac set!
since we are dreaming, if i owned the set, i would definitely take them out and have them encapsulated. i like bill's idea of a capital plastics holder, but personally, i would choose a tpg. i would keep the original presentation tray, of course.
because the original presentation requires one to use the pull tabs to remove a coin to examine it's reverse, in my mind, that is too risky. you want to be able to flip the presentation upside down to view the reverse without touching the coins...and the original presentation doesn't allow for this, based on the photo i am seeing here. i am not versed with this collection.
It's certainly very important to be careful with valuable coins when they are raw. Just viewing these raw items at these prices can be an event. Imagine a jeweler examining diamonds or something similar.
The nice thing about TPG slabs is that they are very secure and protective of the coins. You can handle a multi million dollar coin as you would a $50 coin.
By the way, for handling raw coins, check out this thread by @cardinal !
Specimen 1794 Dollar cracked out at the ANA!
I had a similar thought soon after I graduated from MBA school and had started a new job. One of the best 1792 half dismes came for auction. I thought it would sell for $100,000. I thought, “Now if I sold my whole collection…”
I was right about the $100,000, but there was a catch. I later learned that the coin was “bought in” so if I had sold my collection, I would been left with money and no collection.
In those days the auction houses were a lot loss open about bids that didn’t make the reserve.
Tip toeing around ColonelJessup?
Hmmm, I did that also……neat memory.
A: The year they spend more on their library than their coin collection.
A numismatist is judged more on the content of their library than the content of their cabinet.
i can't handle the truth
The gentleman protest to much.
Holder: a device or implement for holding something
The King of Siam set is also accompanied by the original, custom-made yellow leather and blue velvet case that housed the coins when Edmund Roberts, a presidential envoy from the U.S. State Department, presented it during an overseas trade mission on behalf of President Jackson to King Ph’ra Nang Klao (Rama III) of Siam in April 1836. The coins in the set were housed in a custom-made plush purple velvet lined Moroccan leather, wood box.
The presentation case, box or holder was used to hold/house the coins. It was always a "holder".
It's always a pleasure to observe those who insist on the least amount of intellectual rigor to make a point. Helps with my chimp count
There's simplicity of language and then there's the simplistic obfuscation of the numismatic history of the phrase "presentation case" that has always been used in numismatic literature.
And then there is the person that can't see the forest for the trees. Relative to the coins themselves the box, housing, holder is of little importance. As far as "numismatic history" is concerned, how many of those coins are still in the original box? Your answer to that question will tell you how much value numismatic history assigned to the "box"
Actually, the box is a lot more important than say... the un-original half-dime and Jackson medalet. It has, from its discovery, been an integral part of the collectable.
Why take my word? Stay clueless.
Dave Bowers personally handed me that open presentation case with the raw coins in it. The coins were NOT in flips. The grades were not promoted. It was the Set in its original case. QDB could not think of a more appropriate presentation; just as it would have appeared to the King when first presented.
@pmh1nic said:
MY answer? Take it up with QDB
If you look at the ownership history of this set, the grades assigned are really secondary. It's the history of the set, which includes Anna Leonowens, made famous by the play "Anna and the King of Siam" and more famous by the Rogers and Hammerstein musical, "The King and I."
I recall one point where each of the coins had the graded increased by one point when the set was crossed to another grading service.
Frankly, the first paragraph means more to me than the second.
I don’t see how the coins being out of the presentation case tells anyone how much
value numismatic history has assigned to it. In fact, I don’t think the former has anything, whatsoever, to do with the latter.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Typical defection. QDB is not on the forum ranting about a box. I asked a simple question and rather than answer the question, knowing the answer renders your protest nothing more than a meaningless rant, you twist in the wind with "take it up with QDB". No one said the "box" had no value and yet you put on a dog and pony show because the OP dared to say "the holder doesn't matter as much any more for presentation". Well guess what, the numismatic community seems to have agreed with that sentiment.
Mark, are the coins in the "box"? Value and importance can be determined by the actions taken. It was considered much more important to protect the coins versus trying to preserve them in the "box". Again, no one said the "box" had no value. The statement made by the OP was the holder doesn't matter "as much" since the coins are now preserved in slabs. It's a contrast between preserving the coins in the slabs versus having them remain in the "box".
I think you’re doing fine, other than your quote below.
“As far as "numismatic history" is concerned, how many of those coins are still in the original box? Your answer to that question will tell you how much value numismatic history assigned to the "box"
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
O.k., so maybe I was a little over the top to make a point. On the flipside the rant by the Colonel was over the top and then some. The point is relative to the coins the "box" is of little value. When the coins were presented to the King I doubt he did a five minute rant on how exquisite the "box" was. I watched a video on this collection where the "box" was slowly open to reveal that it was an empty "box". Very unimpressive.
Would you agree to an edit from “a little over the top” to “through the roof”? 😉
Regardless, I believe that the presentation case’s historical value has long been permanently cemented. And that it has virtually nothing to do with whether the coins are in the case or in a grading company’s holders. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the coins could somehow be as well preserved in the presentation case as they can in their present holders?!!
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Only if you'd assign "to infinity and beyond" to the Colonel's rant
If it was possible to separate the "box" from the coins how much do you think the empty "box" would realize at auction?
$50-100k. The 1913 Liberty head nickel case fetched $15k a while back and is not nearly as elaborate or historical
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Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
That sounds reasonable to me. Before I read that post, $50k and $100k were the two numbers that first came to mind. Of course, if for some reason, the owner of the set didn’t also have the presentation case, I think the number could be much higher.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Buy the coins, not the holder (presentation box).
Successful BST with BustDMs , Pnies20, lkeigwin, pursuitofliberty, Bullsitter, felinfoel, SPalladino (CBH's - 37 Die Marriage's)
$5 Type Set https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/u-s-coins/type-sets/half-eagle-type-set-circulation-strikes-1795-1929/album/344192
CBH Set https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/everyman-collections/everyman-half-dollars/everyman-capped-bust-half-dollars-1807-1839/album/345572
Wow, the Colonel lost for words. When does the asteroid strike?
TDN & Mark, I don't doubt the "box" has value but $50K ~ $100K leaves $8.4 million on the table for the coins (probably more today). So even by your recognition the "box" is valued at about 1% of the coins. I'm sure someone could come up with a gilded presentation box to permanently house the slabbed coins and the original "box" would become an afterthought.
As I mentioned, I believe that the value to the owner of the set could be much higher. And whatever the dollar number placed upon it, to some of us, the “value” is far greater than monetary. I don’t think anything would ever make it an “afterthought”.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Not an afterthought. Let’s not forget that the box changed the whole perception of the Class I 1804 dollar. Even the great Eric Newman had to eat some crow because of it.
Now it's a Box?
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NLH
End Systemic Elitism - It Takes All Of Us
i think he meant pew.
You and TDN put the $50K ~ $100K price tag on it. The math does the rest (1%). When you say the value is "far greater" you contradict the value you asigned to the "box". We always talk about the value being whatever someone is willing to pay for something. In your expert opinion that number was $50K ~ 100K.
But here is another way to ask the question. Do you think the set would have sold for substantially less had the "box" not been included? Was the "box" given more than a sentence in the last auction listing? I doubt it.
Put the coin in that box for a few years and the value will go up dramatically. Nice work.