Why the $20 St Gaudens sold for $7,6 milion??

mihaiinforcoins

Why this coin sold for that much money??

nwcs

You mean the 1933 one? It's effectively unique. Same question can be asked about $10+ million for a Monet or Van Gogh.

jonesy

It was the only one in existance. Go to the U.S. mint for a complete story.
Glenn

mihaiinforcoins

Yes,the superb 1933 St Gaudens ,$20 of GOLD!!
I saw the story in Coins Magazine,the February 2003 issue!

If it was 1 of her kind ,then i can see why it sold for that much!!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3022329818&ssPageName=ADME:B:LC:US:1
Here is my lin with nickels,hehehehhe!!!!!

barberlover

What percentage of the worlds poulation has assests high enough so they can spend 7 figures on a single piece of fine art or a coin ?

In my opionion the 33 saint is over rated and certainly not worth over 7 million dollars, i won't call spending 7 million on a coin foolish though because whoever did it makes more money in a year then i will see in my lifetime, but i can tell you if i were in that persons financial shoes, i wouldn't spend 7 million on a coin, ANY COIN!!!

My god, maybe a mansion but not a coin! Les

ohbaby

More than likely it is not a "collector" but a businessman or corporation who will use it for promo purposes. Sort of like Okuda{?} Fire & Life of Japan did with the VanGough Sun Flowers painting. As the painting toured it got their name out. I believe that painting was worth tens of millions. Irony is they sold it for a huge loss but I guess they wrote that off.

coinguy1

The 1933 $20 is reportedly, not unique. But, it is the only one that is legal to own, at least, as of now.

docday2003

On the other hand what's $7 million if you happen to have inherited a billion for example. Then, why not buy everything you want. If it was a choice between a mansion and the coin, then they would likely have chosen the mansion. However, chances are it was someone with ten mansions already AND a few hundred million in the bank.

nwcs

The coin was worth $7 million. That's what someone paid for it. No price guides are available for effectively unique coinage. The coin will be worth something different on the next round. But if I had the resources, I'd pay $7 million for it. No problem.

Neil

Coinosaurus

The coin sold that for that much dough because it is one of the best story coins out there. 1913 nickels are nice, etc. but in the end it was just some guy sneaking around the mint (plus Max Mehl hyping the coin for years). The 1933 evokes the depression, the desperation that the country felt at the time (trust me, we haven't come close since), gold being taken away from the public, shenanigans by multiple parties in the mint, the Secret Service, and on it goes. David Tripp is working on an entire BOOK about this whole affair, and I anticipate it will be a most excellent read!

CaptainRon

Wasn't it owned by the King or President of Egypt for many years. For some reason I thought I read that somewhere.

Conder101

Yes, it was owned by King Farouk.

tradedollarnut

There is some question if this actually is the specimen owned by King Farouk. There are two other specimens in the Smithsonian and several more in hidden existence.

The value of the coin really hinges on Treasury's guarantee that it will be the only monetized specimen. Things change...........

jonesy

Yeah, Right.

glassman

My guess is that this coin was Not the king Farouk speciman. If I remember correctly, his coins were notorious for being cleaned; something like the royal coin cleaner working all the time. The speciman hyped was a solid MS coin, examined by many, hmmmm... doesn't sound like the same coin to me.

Conder101

While the Farouk coins have a reputation for having been horribly cleaned, reports for people who actually attended the sale are that while a lot of the coins were cleaned this was not true of all of them. For example the 1913 V nickels that Farouk owned were not cleaned. In the columns that Abe Kosoff wrote for Coin World in the 80's he reports on the contents, grades, and condition of many of the lots in the sale. While he does mention that some of the coins were badly cleaned these reports seem to be in the minority. We also know that John J Pitman was a major buyer in the Farouk sale and with his standards for quality I doubt if he would have been buying a lot if all of the coins were badly cleaned. Unfortunately the only real way to know if this is really the Farouk coin would be to have it identified by someone who actually saw it at the 1954 sale and most of those people are dead now.

topstuf

You're an idiot, Mr. Gates.

glassman

Condor 101- thanx for the education on the cleaning issues; guess I have heard and read only a few of the facts of the kings' collection.

Gates? interesting??, didn't he pay well into 10 figures for the daVinci Codex manuscript? (Sorry, don't want top stear off target, just unique manuscript and unique{?} coin, it fits a pattern).