Byron Reed collection at the Durham Museum

EagleEye

Back at the ANA Summer Seminar I won a behind-the-scenes vault tour of the Byron Reed collection.

Today I took that tour. I was joined by Mitch Ernst (coinhusker) and Ryan, a local collector.





The curator, Carrie Weiners donated the tour to the ANA. We got there at 9:00 and Carrie gave us a quick tour of their revolving exhibit on George Washington Carver. Here is an image of his guitar:



She then led us into the exhibit hall where the Byron Reed collection is exhibited:




Here is Carrie by the exhibit with the 1804 dollar and some other coins.




Then we were able to see the the vault. Here are a few of the cool things we saw:



1792 Disme in copper.




1860 Clark Gruber $20 in copper






1878 $10 gold pattern struck in gold!




1838 Half dollar pattern in copper (Mr.Eueka will want to see this since I sold him an engraving trial of this reverse.)





There were tray after tray of very impressive coins.

I'll post more a bit later.........

ricko

Very interesting.. what a great experience. Cheers, RickO

jmski52

Thanks for the reminder. My younger brother told me about this exhibit, and I hope to see it when I am in Omaha someday. In reading the placard in your picture, it talks about the collection being moved at one point due to security concerns. If I remember correctly, my brother mentioned that some of the coins had started disappearing from the collection and that is when they moved it.

STONE

All look AWESOME...jealous

EagleEye

From what I hear, the collection had many coins switched out in the 1950-1970 era when security was lax. Carrie is very protective of the collection now, so I don't think that will happen any more. She's also getting it digitized so it can be viewed on-line. The 1796 no stars Quarter eagle looked like t was switched out, sine the coin in the collection was a rim-damaged cleaned piece. It is disturbing to see. The silver coins ar uniformly dark-toned. The exception is the 1804 dollar:



There was a Dubosq $2-1/2 piece in copper, which I hadn't seen an example of before.

Here is a 1838 Gobrecht Dollar in copper, a stunning piece.




There was a spectacular collection of 1877 half dollar patters (Boiler78, eat your heart out!)

The colonials were outstanding too. Some mint condition Connecticut coppers. There was a silver Immune Columbia piece.


Here is the vault:

MedalCollector

Wow! What an experience! I bet that was fun.

EagleEye

There were a lot of Civil War Token too. One was struck over a 1854 Quarter. (Lakesamman, ea your heart out too.)

We saw a huge 1853 large cent die cap error, as well as some Indian Cent die caps.

Afterwards, we had a wonderful lunch. The weather was beautiful today, so we sat outside and had pizza and beer.



Beautiful day, beautiful coins, beautiful host...what could be better.

Oh, and I am going to sponsor Carrie to come out to the Summer Seminar as a student next year. So, make your plans

Walkerguy21D

It looks more like you rubbed a lamp, and the genie took you to Ali Babba's Cave of Wonders!
Mind boggling pieces!

Lakesammman

Rick:

Looks like a great time - sure would have loved to be there rather than at work!

Aegis3

Amazing coins. Now, can we see some of his assay medals?

ColonialCoinUnion

Very interesting Rick!

Justacommeman

Holy Simoley! That is SICK..............MJ

coindeuce

Whatever you paid at the Summer Seminar auction for that tour, you got a deal of a lifetime!

blu62vette

That looks like a great day!!!

mrearlygold

Great! Thanks for posting

jhdfla

Great stuff, thanks for posting!

melvin289

Great post. Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

Ron

CoinHusker

We have certainly enjoyed having Rick here in Omaha with us the past few days and his visit ended with a once in a lifetime experience. The memory I'm going to take away from this is hearing Rick on the other side of the room, say again and again, "Wow" as he took coin after coin out of a tray and examined it. It definately was a "wow" experience for all of us. Here's some pictures I took.

Here's Rick and Ryan Pravecek, a local error collector/expert in the Grand Hall of Omaha's Union Station, now the Durham Museum.


Rick and Carrie Wieners discuss the George Washington Carver Exhibit.


Inside the Byron Reed Collection Vault


Now some coins...

Rick mentioned in his OP

<< <i>There was a Dubosq $2-1/2 piece in copper, which I hadn't seen an example of before. >>

here are a couple pictures of it.


As I mentioned Ryan is into errors and there were some cool ones in the Reed collection. Here are a few pictures I took for him.




This large cent error was exceptionally cool in hand.


It was a great weekend in many ways and as I mentioned earlier, if anyone asks me how it went I'll simply say, "Wow".

Broadstruck

<< <i>This large cent error was exceptionally cool in hand.
>>





Great thread... Thanks for posting!

ModCrewman

How many more days would you have liked to spend in the vault Rick? Or do you think you were able to see "enough"?

garrynot

This is a landmark thread. Carrie has the job of a lifetime. Thanks for sharing.

notlogical

It sure looked like a lot of fun. I wish I had been able to go. A few day previous Carrie Wieners had mentioned to me that the Durham had some internships available once I get into college. I think that that would be pretty cool, to be close to all of that history.

WoodenJefferson

~Super story~

The US Coin Forum needs more information such as this instead of someone on e-Bay called me names.

If you look at the history of Byron Reed, he was a huge conservator of US history...the part that got to me was the selling off of some of the collection that he had donated by politicians. Ugly.

Great job!

CoinHusker

<< <i>~Super story~

The US Coin Forum needs more information such as this instead of someone on e-Bay called me names.

If you look at the history of Byron Reed, he was a huge conservator of US history...the part that got to me was the selling off of some of the collection that he had donated by politicians. Ugly.

Great job! >>




You're correct. Coins are just a small part of the Reed Collection with books, manuscripts, maps and documents making up the majority. Hopefully everyone here in Omaha learned from the bad experience of selling off part of the collection.

EagleEye

The October Numismatist has an article about Longacre's hand-engraved gold dollar patterns. The Durham Museum has one, yet the author didn't include an image. Carrie said that eventually the collection will be available on-line so that future authors can web-browse their research instead of having to call her to get an image.

Carrie will be coming to the next Summer Seminar at the ANA and I hope she gets to meet many people who can help her in getting the Reed collection available to all.

ThePennyLady

Rick, as everyone has already said, what a "once in a lifetime" experience! I especially love seeing those deep die cap errors - and I very much look forward to meeting Carrie at the Summer Seminar!! Thanks for sharing this with us, Rick.