The 1794 Dutch West Indies 3 Gulden - Acquisition and the census
Boosibri
Posts: 11,882 ✭✭✭✭✭
The 1794 Dutch West Indies 3 Gulden is a rare and important crown minted for circulation in the New World. The Dutch West Indies Company, similar to the Dutch East India company, petitioned the government for circulating coinage in support of the trading operations in the new world. Unlike the expansive East India venture, the West Indies venture was more geared towards disrupting the influence of competing countries, namely the French. As such the commercial viability of the enterprise was short lived and the scant 1226 3 Guldens struck was the sum of the full mintage for what became a one year type.
Today, roughly 20 exist, 4 noted in museums, placing this coin on par with other notable rarities of the new world.
I recently acquired the Lissner coin, graded MS63 from the Schulman auction with the help of @MrEureka. Prior to Lissner this coin was in the (Freeman) Craig Family Crown Collection before selling directly to Lissner.
I endeavored prior to purchasing the coin to create an updated census of the issue. When roughly 20 coins exist, and its rarity has been documented for generations, completing a census is possible. In doing so I learned a few valuable thigns prior to acquiring the coin which helped me to establishing my bidding.
1. The vast majority of these coins are poorly struck, giving the appearance of an AU coin. A full head is incredibly rare and I find only 2 which I would deem "full head", this coin being one.
2. There are two 64's graded, one is clearly over-graded, which the other may be on par to the Lissner coin.
3. There was a coin in Stacks 2001, prior Schulman 1975, which may be the best extant. It is currently not graded to my knowledge and may be in the Rudman collection, to be confirmed shortly.
4. The Ray Byrne coin was incorrectly attributed to the wrong coin. I was able to clear that up with the grading companies and the owner.
In the next post I will share the census
Comments
1794 Dutch West Indies 3 Gulden Census in progress.
Top Tier Coins
1. Schulman 1975, Stacks 2001, called MS61 in Stacks
NGC MS64, private collection in Arizona
Lissner coin, ex. Craig N63
Ray Byrne coin, now N64
Schulman 11/15 , Noonans 9/2011 P63
Heritage 2022 P62
Glendening June 1975, Irving Goodman, Millennia, Stacks 1/2011, HA 1/17 Unsold, Schulman 5/2019 AU58
Wayte Raymond plate
Delmonte Plate
Scholten Dutch West Indies plate
Elizondo Plate
Harald Salvesen Spink-Zurich 1988, Hal Walls Paul Bosco 1997, Heritage Jan 4 2010
Heritage 1/2005
Superior 12/1990
Jesse Peters 3/1972 lot 573, 6/1973 Lot 2399
ANS Museum
Latin American Collection
Excellent purchase and well researched. I owned the IG of this type and sold afew years back thinking I should use the money for something higher in my priorities... sadly we just don't always execute the best strategy. Trying hard to think of what I bought so it could not have been all that important.
Congrats- well done.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Interesting to see what these coins actually look like with comparable pictures or in a direct inspection. An example, I like #5 better than #4. Seems to be more original looking.
Your a true numismatist !
Congratulations on your purchase
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
Thank you Dan!
Latin American Collection
A great acquisition - congratulations!
I very much appreciate the approach taken here. It is an excellent example of how utility of a thoroughly researched census can be leveraged to inform acquisition decisions.
What caught my attention in the census was that this crown seems to trade rarely. For many, the most recent image appears to be a black-and-white catalogue or book plate.
Am I right to assume to these coins are typically held in collections for several decades? Or is it that these coins are trading hands through private sale rather than public auction?
This type isn’t “sexy,” hence I wouldn’t expect them to trade often (especially with <20 known to exist).
This is a serious numismatic coin which I’d expect to be locked up for decades, especially on the higher end of the grading scale.
Supposedly Lissner waited decades to buy this coin.
I would expect most of these trade via auction, present specimen excluded of course.
Sometimes that can hurt pricing because for prices to increase (generally speaking), the coin needs to trade.
It isn’t sexy, and it certainly is esoteric. For the early years the coin was more cataloged as a Dutch Colonial and it wasn’t until the 60’s-70’s with the collectors like Ray Byrne that it was rebranded as a West Indies piece primarily. Regardless, it’s a coin that was appreciated for its rarity going back for over a hundred years based on the treatment by firms like Jacques Schulman.
These do trade quite infrequently. If you are a high end Dutch collector, you need it. If you collect West Indies (Rudman), you need it. New World Crowns, you need it. With 20 to choose from and 3-5 nice, they can be locked up easily for a generation, which is why I went aggressively after this coin for my New World Crown set.
Latin American Collection
Paul Bosco in his 1997 sale of the Hal Walls / Salvesen coin has a nice write-up as per usual. The last line shows that even in 1997 the coin was straddling two worlds.
Latin American Collection
With Brian's posts, i enjoy the research aspect as much as I enjoy appreciating the coin itself.
8 Reales Madness Collection
The Hal Walls Bosco sale catalog is amazing to look back on now, seeing how the market has finally appreciated so much of the material that was in that sale.
Justin Meunier
Boardwalk Numismatics
I love the theme of Wall and Salvesen’s collection.
Waiting for Salvesens 1777 Greenland dollar to show up again!
Latin American Collection
Very interesting and well-done research project and writeup. I went from knowing nothing about this item, to wishing I had one!
Great write up and research. Congrats on the newp!
My current "Box of 20"