Fairmont Kronen Set

Wahoo554

Looks like another Fairmont auction is set for mid-November. Currently none of the 403 coins have CAC stickers. I assume that this is because they simply don’t have CAC results yet, but I don’t know. Anybody think it’s possible they may elect not to send to CAC at all to see how that impacts sales (similar to the Toro collection)?

coinbuf

If I was the consigner, I would not want my coins to be the experiment on if a CAC bean helps or hurts the auction results.

alaura22

A slippery slope for sure.
If, say out of the 403 coins 200 show up with CAC stickers. Can one assume that the other 203 coins didn't pass CAC?
Just thinking out loud......Catch 22

skier07

Just what we need, another Fairmont sale. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Everything in all previous sales was sent to CAC so I see no reason why this would be any different.

pcgscacgold

I assume the quality of this one is not there and none received CAC stickers. Best of luck to those that bid.

Pedzola

In past sales the coins all showed up first with no beans, and eventually the pictures and descriptions were updated for those that got a sticker.

I wonder if for this sale they would elect to use their own brand new griffin stickers instead of (or in addition to?) CAC!

We'll see shortly I'm sure.

lilolme

How many more years will this keep going? I did a forum search and the earliest I found was June 2018, so working on 6 years. I wonder if any or how many have been and/or will be distributed by another method (not auction). I don't know but it is sort of interesting to watch from the sidelines.

PeakRarities

@lilolme said:
How many more years will this keep going? I did a forum search and the earliest I found was June 2018, so working on 6 years. I wonder if any or how many have been and/or will be distributed by another method (not auction). I don't know but it is sort of interesting to watch from the sidelines.

Some have indeed been distributed through other channels. I have seen several fairmont pedigrees that I’ve tried to trace back to an auction with no success. As to how many, I have no idea.

PeakRarities

@Pedzola said:
In past sales the coins all showed up first with no beans, and eventually the pictures and descriptions were updated for those that got a sticker.

I wonder if for this sale they would elect to use their own brand new griffin stickers instead of (or in addition to?) CAC!

We'll see shortly I'm sure.

Correct, this is the way they’ve been doing it with the previous fairmont auctions. I would assume they will apply the Griff some of these, I don’t see why they wouldn’t.

Interestingly enough, I have seen one $5 gold piece that subsequently received a CAC sticker after it went through auction. This was about a $1000 coin at most, so perhaps they don’t send every coin in the auction.

Wahoo554

Looks like CAC results on the set are now beginning to post. That answers a few questions.

RYK

I bought my first Fairmont coin from the auction yesterday, and yes, of course, it was CAC stickered.

All I can say is that I am fortunate that this hoard did not hit the market 10 years earlier. I would likely have been broke…and have gone mad. In my heyday, it would have consumed me.

HillbillyCollector

Wow, for what I was interested in, I was totally blown out! And some of those NOLA DEs went to the moon!
Glad I wasn’t looking for any of them!😂

fathom

I thought the pricing was spotty. Some of the CAC went a little soft.

Not a higher quality offering in a softer market.

breakdown

I have a quite a few Fairmont half eagles at this point, but I did not get a chance to look the Kronen set over and there were not many I would have bid on anyway. If you were building a mid-AU set, there were some opportunities.

Wahoo554

@RYK said:
I bought my first Fairmont coin from the auction yesterday, and yes, of course, it was CAC stickered.

All I can say is that I am fortunate that this hoard did not hit the market 10 years earlier. I would likely have been broke…and have gone mad. In my heyday, it would have consumed me.

Care to share images of the Fairmont coin that finally sucked you in?

Boosibri

@RYK said:
I bought my first Fairmont coin from the auction yesterday, and yes, of course, it was CAC stickered.

All I can say is that I am fortunate that this hoard did not hit the market 10 years earlier. I would likely have been broke…and have gone mad. In my heyday, it would have consumed me.

Im curious how you think you would have felt about the hoard if they were distributed in your hey day? You collected an area that was under appreciated both in type and in quality with the the hunt being so challenging. Now there are waves of high quality, original coins which for make makes the collecting area much less interesting.

RYK

@Wahoo554 said:

@RYK said:
I bought my first Fairmont coin from the auction yesterday, and yes, of course, it was CAC stickered.

All I can say is that I am fortunate that this hoard did not hit the market 10 years earlier. I would likely have been broke…and have gone mad. In my heyday, it would have consumed me.

Care to share images of the Fairmont coin that finally sucked you in?

It is probably more about timing than anything else. My interests and discretionary funds were diverted to other projects over the last five years or so. The timing to engage in Fairmont coin auctions was perfect.

It is a very @Boosibri -esque coin:

https://d1htnxwo4o0jhw.cloudfront.net/pcgs/cert/45050114/large/271153890.jpg

RYK

@Boosibri said:

@RYK said:
I bought my first Fairmont coin from the auction yesterday, and yes, of course, it was CAC stickered.

All I can say is that I am fortunate that this hoard did not hit the market 10 years earlier. I would likely have been broke…and have gone mad. In my heyday, it would have consumed me.

Im curious how you think you would have felt about the hoard if they were distributed in your hey day? You collected an area that was under appreciated both in type and in quality with the the hunt being so challenging. Now there are waves of high quality, original coins which for make makes the collecting area much less interesting.

There is a coin adage, taught to be by DW and others, that flies in the face of classical economic theory. It is that supply begets demand. I have seen this over and over and over again in the coin market. As a result, I think that availability of original gold coins from the nineteenth century provided by the Fairmont hoard has created unprecedented demand for DOGs, and the auction results and price action speak to it. In other words, I would have ridden the wave.

Wahoo554

@RYK said:

There is a coin adage, taught to be by DW and others, that flies in the face of classical economic theory. It is that supply begets demand. I have seen this over and over and over again in the coin market. As a result, I think that availability of original gold coins from the nineteenth century provided by the Fairmont hoard has created unprecedented demand for DOGs, and the auction results and price action speak to it. In other words, I would have ridden the wave.

Congrats on the great pickup. I was watching that 1858 and thought it looked really nice. I think you make a good point that the increased supply of DOGs has contributed to overall increased demand. But I do think that higher grade condition rarities are vulnerable. I think the market is thin for those coins, and multiple high grade examples of a coin that previously was almost unheard of in such grades could have a chilling effect in that end of the market.

originalisbest

Agreed with you both. I would love to have more DOG in my collection and having literal waves of it becoming available is a blessing. On the other hand, not such a great feeling if you have a unique example of date X in XF-45 as the finest known, but all of a sudden 5-6 higher grade, beauty examples just as nice or nicer than yours suddenly appear on the market. Sad trombone!

fathom

Awesome blog article on Fairmont in Doug Winter site.

Massive hoard.

breakdown

There are some interesting points in that Doug Winter blog (guest written by Richard Radick). One of his conclusions is that there are a lot of Fairmont Hoard coins that have been graded and are not designated as "Fairmont" on the label. As well as many more possibly graded by NGC. I have certainly heard this from others for some time, but the author documents jumps in PCGS population of gold coins that are likely attributable to the Fairmont hoard.

One example he cites: the 1853 half eagle's PCGS population increased by 140 in one month in 2022 and he attributes it to the Fairmont hoard. As recently as yesterday, one dealer had 8 different 1853 HE's for sale graded NGC AU53-NGC AU58 (listed on Collector's Corner). Such mini-bursts of middle graded half eagles may be further evidence that there are non-pedigreed Fairmont hoard coins getting graded by NGC.

Wahoo554

That blog post is exceptional. Fantastic research that answers questions many of us have been asking for a while.

Here’s the article for those who haven’t read it: https://raregoldcoins.com/blog/2024/1/2/fairmont-gold-pieces-part-ii-the-non-pedigreed-fairmonts

Most fascinating highlight to me: $4.5 million FACE VALUE in gold coins. That number absolutely blew my mind. I knew it was big, but never guessed that big. That explains the presence of so many rarities.