Fifth REVIVAL! Pics on Page 4 .There were five of us in two cabs rushing to the SMITHSONIAN!!!
saintguru
Posts: 7,727 ✭✭✭
I loved this forum, it was a place to share, to comment, to philosophize, to hold a few VERY epic battles and to spread good cheer. And I had well over 100 "forum friends" who I personally befriended with over the years. So here...MEMORY LANE.
The pics that are no longer here are reposted near the end.
We were 10 minutes late to meet Jeff Garrett who must not have realized that CNBC was screaming about how the market would be down 1200 points once the market opened and one of us was a little late. In one cab was myself, Steve Duckor and Ray Moore (a high end Saint collector). In the other cab was John Albanese and Bob B., a lover of collectables and a very successful hedge fund manager but who cares about business because he's got a spectacular collection of superb 19th century rare coins. Finally after looking for THE entrance under construction, (among maybe SIX?) we found the right entrance under construction and there we were. We walked about 100 feet in the underground garage, signed our names in the visitor's book by the guard station and were greeted by two Smithsonian employees who proceeded to walk us through a short maze of halls to the coin vault. We got in an elevator and coincidentally there was the Director of the Smithsonian, looking very Senatorial and welcomed us to the place.
Through a few more doors and there we were...room one, the Library of the greatest assemblage of coins in the world. Jeff walked in with a black box...not just any black box, but an exquisitely made coin box with six drawers with 15 coin compartments each lined with black velvet. The hardware was all polished brass and we were informed that this was how the Lilly (pharmaceutical fame)collection arrived at the Smithsonian years ago to settle a tax obligation. Hundreds of these boxes!! It is to this day one of the quitest pedigrees among the greatest of the greats and what we were about to see from one tiny portion of it was going to kick our butts back in our seats so hard we needed seat belts.
This was the first phase of the viewing of the best of the Smithsonian's coins and the 20th Century Gold Club with John and Jeff were about to see marvels. The room was far from optimum for viewing coins. There were big institutional flourescent lights in the 12' ceilinged rooms, somewhat similar to a well light factory. And then the box opened.......
(Allow me to write a disclaimer. With the described lighting and an iPhone being the only camera in the room you'll have to let your imagination fill in what these looked like where the pictures fall short. It's almost impossible to get good shots with a phone in one hand, coins in another and no macro anything...so it's an "impressionist"trip....ok...)
The first coin out was the UHR Double Eagle on the thick $10 planchet...
...oh....THERE ARE TWO OF THEM. THE ONLY TWO!! Grade? I looked at John A, and he just said "they're perfect". That's MS69 or MS70 but the hell with technicalities, They were MS100's.
Mindblowing. What more could we want? Well, there was a lot more. Another Ultra High Relief came out of the box, the "regular" size and this one was as nice as the MS69 that sold earlier this year. Not as cute as the "mini's" but what a monster.
OK...so we're seeing some real killer Saints (we ARE 20th C. gold, so no backtalk). There's a supremely rare 1921 that is a wonderful MS65 by consensus...there's a 1926-D MS67, a 1927-S MS66++...better of equal than the finest graded.
Oh...here come three together. I hold them all only to realize that they are all 1927-D's!!! Grades...one MS66/2 MS65's. Again, none are TPG graded, merely in protective NGC type holders but there's no debate among us.
NOW THAT IS A HANDFUL OF SATINY, GOLDEN RARITY!!
I spy a 1930-S, one of the rarest dates of the entire series. It's almost an MS68!! The highest graded coin is a MS66. It's got to be worth somewhere in the $750K range. This one is so thick with frost and velvety luminescence that it's among the best Saints I've ever seen. The picture shows nothing but it's better than no pic at all.
Finally, the political piece de resistance! The 1933 Saint, definately a MS65. Looks just like a legal coin but not this one. And it's just another P date.
We saw the finest $5 1909-O that exists, I'll take Steve Duckor and David Akers word...both graded it a MS65+, Akers insinuated in 1987 that it's probably a 66, something very unusual for David. he's TOUGH! Jeff pulled out the finest $10 Indian in any date that anyone had ever seen! Again, "perfect" was the only word that coud be used. It was ever bit of a MS69.
We went through about 30 coins in that sitting. Now it's time to go in the vault. We walked through an aluminum door with metal slats that hardly said "vault" nor did the room. It looked like a big office supply room. There were rows and rows of 4' metal cabinets with long 1/2" flat drawers and two 6' safes, surrounded by clutter to the ceiling all around the walls of the room. Now Jeff did his thing. The best of the best is in the safes. We started passing around coins and I have to tell you that after a certain amount of viewing at this speed it's so overwhelmiing that it becomes a blur. I saw more classic "funny head" $2.5 and $5 gold pieces that were one of a kind it was daunting. The 1822 $5 was simply awesome. One thing we noticed was the the really high end UNC. coins looked as if they were modern in that they still were frosted, bright gold and almost flawless. I had never seen anything like these in any auction. The proofs were easily the highlight of the old gold. Every one was a tiny mirror and had they not been worth six to seven figures each one would think them to be common. And I'm sure a few were seven figure coins, certainly the $5 1822.
So now lets' see something special. The BIG GUYS!! There were TWO 1877 $50 gold coins that had to be 3" across and also magnificent! Like BIG mirrors. Now that's money!
Holding this was incredible. And next was perhaps the crown jewel of all the coins in the collection...ALL THE COINS...
THE ONLY 1849 DOUBLE EAGLE EVER MADE!!
I only wish I could have gotten a better picture but it took 5 shots to get one this crappy! I have NO IDEA what the vertical line is on the picture. It was not on the coin. The light sucked, the gold was so flashy and let's face it, you can't hold it still enough but this was it. Someone said it's gotta be worth $20 million. No one even blinked. Maybe more?? To think that this coin symbolized the incredible rush of humanity from all over the world to settle in California looking for riches and eventually becoming the main cause for the huge population flow to the West. And they even named a football team after it.. The gold rush of 1849 and there's only one coin to announce it.
So we see more stuff, and it's all going so fast and we see what's in the vault of the 100 Greatest Coins that Jeff and Ron Guth came up with for their book. So muuch stuff and they're passing hands so fast and the Smithsonian people are making interesting comments and I have to tell you that it became almost a blur by now.
But I had to get my hands on the $1 1804!! The fabled "mislabled" ultra-rarity that was minted thirty years later, one was given to the King Of Siam, (Yul Brynner?) yet is still amont the top of the top in coin lore. What a strange coin provenance.
There were THREE and they were amazing. Everyone of them had this incredible toning...very soft and seemingly coming from deep within the coin with subtle pastel colors, enough to create the same kind of Impressionist feel that a Monet does. Just lovely damn coins...and I did the best I could with the one Type I specimen. It was just impossible with those huge bare fluorescent lights above the whole room.
Well, time was running out and one of our guides who I had been chatting with says let me show you a piece of paper. Hell, it's the Smithsonian so I'll look at whatever he has. He goes into a drawer and puts this crisp baby in my palm.
HAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
So that was it...and there's an interesting perspective that I walked away wih that I think many of you will appreciate it of you think about it.
I think this thought will make us better and happier collectors. We all tend to look at our coins and mark them down from a point of perfection. This is absolutely wrong. I've seen most of the finest known examples of every series of coins and many of the finest known coins of the rarest of the rarities; the amazing truth is that none of them even approaches perfect!! There are NO MS70 coins in the classics so if you think your MS65 or 66 could be much nicer you're wrong! So chill out when you see hits on your best coin...because I've seen the best of the best and there's hits and stuff on all of them except a very small handful of amazing rarities. Old proof gold, the best and highest grades have marks. 18th C silver has marks rub and hairline scratches. DO NOT GRADE YOUR COINS FROM AN MS70 DOWN! It doesn't work that way.
I have a coin that I sometimes felt paranoid about as an MS65. I saw the Smithsonian specimen est. MS66 and realized that it's a 66 like the two graded by PCGS and mine is very much a 65; in fact it's noticeably nicer than their MS65!! Now I always loved this coin, especially because they are such rough coins in MS64 or lower, and virtually non-existant in MS65. The POPs say 5 but no one has seen more than 3 and one is grossly AT'd!! And seeing the best of the best convinced me that mine is indeed one of the finest of the top 4 or 5 that exist! That's a hell of a different perspective. I learned about perspective and we ALL do the same thing with our coins.
A great experience, humbling yet enriching beyond all these words! I'll never forget it. Less than 40 people have done so!
PS.. Many, many thanks To Jeff Garrett for arranging this for the 20th Century Gold Club. He is an extraodinary knowledgeable man and a fun guy to be around!
And regrets to those few members who had to cancel or couldn't make the trip.
The pics that are no longer here are reposted near the end.
We were 10 minutes late to meet Jeff Garrett who must not have realized that CNBC was screaming about how the market would be down 1200 points once the market opened and one of us was a little late. In one cab was myself, Steve Duckor and Ray Moore (a high end Saint collector). In the other cab was John Albanese and Bob B., a lover of collectables and a very successful hedge fund manager but who cares about business because he's got a spectacular collection of superb 19th century rare coins. Finally after looking for THE entrance under construction, (among maybe SIX?) we found the right entrance under construction and there we were. We walked about 100 feet in the underground garage, signed our names in the visitor's book by the guard station and were greeted by two Smithsonian employees who proceeded to walk us through a short maze of halls to the coin vault. We got in an elevator and coincidentally there was the Director of the Smithsonian, looking very Senatorial and welcomed us to the place.
Through a few more doors and there we were...room one, the Library of the greatest assemblage of coins in the world. Jeff walked in with a black box...not just any black box, but an exquisitely made coin box with six drawers with 15 coin compartments each lined with black velvet. The hardware was all polished brass and we were informed that this was how the Lilly (pharmaceutical fame)collection arrived at the Smithsonian years ago to settle a tax obligation. Hundreds of these boxes!! It is to this day one of the quitest pedigrees among the greatest of the greats and what we were about to see from one tiny portion of it was going to kick our butts back in our seats so hard we needed seat belts.
This was the first phase of the viewing of the best of the Smithsonian's coins and the 20th Century Gold Club with John and Jeff were about to see marvels. The room was far from optimum for viewing coins. There were big institutional flourescent lights in the 12' ceilinged rooms, somewhat similar to a well light factory. And then the box opened.......
(Allow me to write a disclaimer. With the described lighting and an iPhone being the only camera in the room you'll have to let your imagination fill in what these looked like where the pictures fall short. It's almost impossible to get good shots with a phone in one hand, coins in another and no macro anything...so it's an "impressionist"trip....ok...)
The first coin out was the UHR Double Eagle on the thick $10 planchet...
...oh....THERE ARE TWO OF THEM. THE ONLY TWO!! Grade? I looked at John A, and he just said "they're perfect". That's MS69 or MS70 but the hell with technicalities, They were MS100's.
Mindblowing. What more could we want? Well, there was a lot more. Another Ultra High Relief came out of the box, the "regular" size and this one was as nice as the MS69 that sold earlier this year. Not as cute as the "mini's" but what a monster.
OK...so we're seeing some real killer Saints (we ARE 20th C. gold, so no backtalk). There's a supremely rare 1921 that is a wonderful MS65 by consensus...there's a 1926-D MS67, a 1927-S MS66++...better of equal than the finest graded.
Oh...here come three together. I hold them all only to realize that they are all 1927-D's!!! Grades...one MS66/2 MS65's. Again, none are TPG graded, merely in protective NGC type holders but there's no debate among us.
NOW THAT IS A HANDFUL OF SATINY, GOLDEN RARITY!!
I spy a 1930-S, one of the rarest dates of the entire series. It's almost an MS68!! The highest graded coin is a MS66. It's got to be worth somewhere in the $750K range. This one is so thick with frost and velvety luminescence that it's among the best Saints I've ever seen. The picture shows nothing but it's better than no pic at all.
Finally, the political piece de resistance! The 1933 Saint, definately a MS65. Looks just like a legal coin but not this one. And it's just another P date.
We saw the finest $5 1909-O that exists, I'll take Steve Duckor and David Akers word...both graded it a MS65+, Akers insinuated in 1987 that it's probably a 66, something very unusual for David. he's TOUGH! Jeff pulled out the finest $10 Indian in any date that anyone had ever seen! Again, "perfect" was the only word that coud be used. It was ever bit of a MS69.
We went through about 30 coins in that sitting. Now it's time to go in the vault. We walked through an aluminum door with metal slats that hardly said "vault" nor did the room. It looked like a big office supply room. There were rows and rows of 4' metal cabinets with long 1/2" flat drawers and two 6' safes, surrounded by clutter to the ceiling all around the walls of the room. Now Jeff did his thing. The best of the best is in the safes. We started passing around coins and I have to tell you that after a certain amount of viewing at this speed it's so overwhelmiing that it becomes a blur. I saw more classic "funny head" $2.5 and $5 gold pieces that were one of a kind it was daunting. The 1822 $5 was simply awesome. One thing we noticed was the the really high end UNC. coins looked as if they were modern in that they still were frosted, bright gold and almost flawless. I had never seen anything like these in any auction. The proofs were easily the highlight of the old gold. Every one was a tiny mirror and had they not been worth six to seven figures each one would think them to be common.
And I'm sure a few were seven figure coins, certainly the $5 1822.So now lets' see something special. The BIG GUYS!! There were TWO 1877 $50 gold coins that had to be 3" across and also magnificent! Like BIG mirrors. Now that's money!
Holding this was incredible. And next was perhaps the crown jewel of all the coins in the collection...ALL THE COINS...
THE ONLY 1849 DOUBLE EAGLE EVER MADE!!
I only wish I could have gotten a better picture but it took 5 shots to get one this crappy! I have NO IDEA what the vertical line is on the picture. It was not on the coin. The light sucked, the gold was so flashy and let's face it, you can't hold it still enough but this was it. Someone said it's gotta be worth $20 million. No one even blinked. Maybe more?? To think that this coin symbolized the incredible rush of humanity from all over the world to settle in California looking for riches and eventually becoming the main cause for the huge population flow to the West. And they even named a football team after it..
The gold rush of 1849 and there's only one coin to announce it. So we see more stuff, and it's all going so fast and we see what's in the vault of the 100 Greatest Coins that Jeff and Ron Guth came up with for their book. So muuch stuff and they're passing hands so fast and the Smithsonian people are making interesting comments and I have to tell you that it became almost a blur by now.
But I had to get my hands on the $1 1804!! The fabled "mislabled" ultra-rarity that was minted thirty years later, one was given to the King Of Siam, (Yul Brynner?) yet is still amont the top of the top in coin lore. What a strange coin provenance.
There were THREE and they were amazing. Everyone of them had this incredible toning...very soft and seemingly coming from deep within the coin with subtle pastel colors, enough to create the same kind of Impressionist feel that a Monet does. Just lovely damn coins...and I did the best I could with the one Type I specimen. It was just impossible with those huge bare fluorescent lights above the whole room.
Well, time was running out and one of our guides who I had been chatting with says let me show you a piece of paper. Hell, it's the Smithsonian so I'll look at whatever he has. He goes into a drawer and puts this crisp baby in my palm.
HAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
So that was it...and there's an interesting perspective that I walked away wih that I think many of you will appreciate it of you think about it.
I think this thought will make us better and happier collectors. We all tend to look at our coins and mark them down from a point of perfection. This is absolutely wrong. I've seen most of the finest known examples of every series of coins and many of the finest known coins of the rarest of the rarities; the amazing truth is that none of them even approaches perfect!! There are NO MS70 coins in the classics so if you think your MS65 or 66 could be much nicer you're wrong! So chill out when you see hits on your best coin...because I've seen the best of the best and there's hits and stuff on all of them except a very small handful of amazing rarities. Old proof gold, the best and highest grades have marks. 18th C silver has marks rub and hairline scratches. DO NOT GRADE YOUR COINS FROM AN MS70 DOWN! It doesn't work that way.
I have a coin that I sometimes felt paranoid about as an MS65. I saw the Smithsonian specimen est. MS66 and realized that it's a 66 like the two graded by PCGS and mine is very much a 65; in fact it's noticeably nicer than their MS65!! Now I always loved this coin, especially because they are such rough coins in MS64 or lower, and virtually non-existant in MS65. The POPs say 5 but no one has seen more than 3 and one is grossly AT'd!! And seeing the best of the best convinced me that mine is indeed one of the finest of the top 4 or 5 that exist! That's a hell of a different perspective. I learned about perspective and we ALL do the same thing with our coins.
A great experience, humbling yet enriching beyond all these words! I'll never forget it. Less than 40 people have done so!
PS.. Many, many thanks To Jeff Garrett for arranging this for the 20th Century Gold Club. He is an extraodinary knowledgeable man and a fun guy to be around!
And regrets to those few members who had to cancel or couldn't make the trip.
2
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Quite the show and tell.
How was my old friend the Linderman 1804 Class 3 Dollar? I remember fondling it (by the edge!) in Ed Rochette's office while an FBI agent took our statements regarding its recovery. When I was fully sated I just slipped it into a polybag and then a fliip and stuck it in my shirt pocket.
A few minutes later the agent turned towards me and noticed that the coin was no longer in plain sight and absolutely freaked! I just took it out of my pocket and handed it to him.
He was stunned, and said "You'd put a coin like that in your pocket???" and I said "Of course. Safest place in the room. I know where it is." Until I got a receipt from him, it was MY responsibility.
TD
I never want to seem like I'm rubbing anyone's nose in opportunity and I saw this as an experience to share.
Do you have ANY IDEA how many typos I made and went back and edited and there's probably like still 10 left? This took a long time...for YOU!
<< <i>Sure would like to fondle the Class 2 to see the understrike! >>
You're getting wierder, Tom.
I recall that some of the folks saintguru mentions own coins pedigreed to the George Godard Collection which also originated with Comparette.
All of Comparette’s records were reported destroyed, so we have only tiny bits of what must have been an extensive catalog of coins and “insider” acquisitions.
(Wish I could have been there instead of a boring 3 hr meeting.)
get to experiencing those coins.
S
It would take a month to do it well.
It is good to know that the 1804 $1's are retoning. When I saw them on display when I was a kid, they were both (they had 2 on display at the time) white as ghosts!
I remember buying a postcard at the Smithsonian gift shop that had both 1804 dollars -- again, they were as white as snow in that color photo.
Time heals all wounds...
Coin Rarities Online
NGC registry V-Nickel proof #6!!!!
working on proof shield nickels # 8 with a bullet!!!!
RIP "BEAR"
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
<< <i>Great report, SG!
It is good to know that the 1804 $1's are retoning. When I saw them on display when I was a kid, they were both (they had 2 on display at the time) white as ghosts!
I remember buying a postcard at the Smithsonian gift shop that had both 1804 dollars -- again, they were as white as snow in that color photo.
Time heals all wounds... >>
The toning was simply Zen-like.
I don't know what goes on with silver but whatever is going on with these is special. The reverses were hypnotic. I would actually say that they were among the prettiest dollars I've seen. Is there magic in them orbs?
Jay
-Randy Newman
thanks Jay
can you estimate, and I know it's just a game,
the total value of the coins you saw?
PS were any stickers applied during the visit?
<< <i>You should have brought somebody who can take pictures with you....
Quite the show and tell. >>
myCCset
merse
I knew it would happen.
Hoard the keys.
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
But the history, man....the history...That's what made you feel so blown away...seeing coins 200 years old that have never aged! So eeing coins that are one of a kind, coins with amazing historic significance like the 1792 half disme and the 1849 $20. The amazing abundance of gem 1815-1834 gold. And like I said, the hundreds of thousands of coins that we didn't see! It's really too much to comprehend at the moment when you're seeing so much stuff in a short three hours.
Thanks again for sharing!!!!
how can someone do that kind of tour?
Most of those coins I saw - they were in the castle circa december 2006. So they are not there anymore, and are in storage?
Sunshine Rare Coins
sunshinecoins.com/store/c1/Featured_Products.html
There are hundreds of thousands of coins. those cabinets with the skinny drawers....perhaos 50-75 coins per drawer and 40 drawers per cabinet!
I wish I rememeber more than I do.
It's so much so fast. It was fantastic sitting next to John Albanese when looking at the Saints. His eye is soooo good. When we looked at the 19th C. stuff he was talking to Beckwitt more because they are friends and that's Bob's interests more. Duckor was in awe too.
The mini UHRs were the hit in show one!!
It is just a real shame though that all of these rare coins (owned by all of us) are stashed away in boxes and metal cabinets... would be nice if some funds were allocated or some donors made some endowments for a U.S. coin museum.
Michael Kittle Rare Coins --- 1908-S Indian Head Cent Grading Set --- No. 1 1909 Mint Set --- Kittlecoins on Facebook --- Long Beach Table 448
"Coins are the metallic footsteps of the history of nations."
--William H. Woodin, Secretary Of the Treasury 1933 and Rennaisance Man!
Awesome coins. I got a willy looking at those $20 lib proofs.
YOU SUCK.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Mucho gracias, Senor Sainty.....
Sunshine Rare Coins
sunshinecoins.com/store/c1/Featured_Products.html
<< <i>Oh...if ever the greatest coin quote of all time was appropriate it would have been there.
"Coins are the metallic footsteps of the history of nations."
--William H. Woodin, Secretary Of the Treasury 1933 and Rennaisance Man! >>
Love that quote, and the great report and pics, Oh great Sainty!!!!!!
Thanks for sharing with us mere mortals!!!
–John Adams, 1826
I'm surprised you can actually do anything after holding 3 27-D's at one time in one hand!
The name is LEE!