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Any Factual Hoards, Accumulations, or Significant Single Coins You Know About?
Walkerguy21D
Posts: 11,683 ✭✭✭✭✭
In a similar vain to the Urban Legends thread, I'm curious what our members may know to be more fact based interesting coin accumulations, that are not already accounted for in registry sets and population reports, etc, that may have some impact on the market if and when they see the light of day. We all here the phrase 'ya never know what's still out there' - old proof sets, single 'key date' hoards, bags, etc. Come on, spill the beans!
I'll start - back in Ohio in the mid-90's, my wife had an after school meeting one day, so I was relegated to picking up our eldest daughter from clarinet practice after work. She received lessons from an elderly retired music teacher at his home in the old part of town. He had a sign posted that requested visitors to wait upstairs while lessons were in progress, which were conducted in his basement. Once the 'racket' subsided, I came down to pick up my daughter. I was struck by the large quantity of exotic plants he had overwintering in his basement, commented on them, and he proceeded to give me a quick tour. It was then I noticed a large stack of Coin World newspaper heaped under a desk, and commented that was a real interest of mine. He said oh good, maybe sometime we will have a chance to talk coins (his next student had arrived and was preparing for her lesson).
Well next week I volunteered for pickup duty, and even brought along a few coins of my own for show and tell. He told me he had been collecting since the 1930's, and he had a complete set of high grade Morgans, a complete set of Indian cents (not all but mostly BU), and other things, but the real pride was his roll sets.
He said he had an aunt with ties to the Cleveland Federal Reserve, and that she had encouraged him at an early age to put away rolls of coins of the date of issue. He had a roll of every year, every denomination, every mint mark, dating back to 1938!
I made a cash offer on the spot, which he laughed at, and said they are not for sale, the 'kids' will get them.....I have kept tabs over the years, he still has them, and he now says that if he makes it to 90, he will sell them then (he is 88).
Your turn!
I'll start - back in Ohio in the mid-90's, my wife had an after school meeting one day, so I was relegated to picking up our eldest daughter from clarinet practice after work. She received lessons from an elderly retired music teacher at his home in the old part of town. He had a sign posted that requested visitors to wait upstairs while lessons were in progress, which were conducted in his basement. Once the 'racket' subsided, I came down to pick up my daughter. I was struck by the large quantity of exotic plants he had overwintering in his basement, commented on them, and he proceeded to give me a quick tour. It was then I noticed a large stack of Coin World newspaper heaped under a desk, and commented that was a real interest of mine. He said oh good, maybe sometime we will have a chance to talk coins (his next student had arrived and was preparing for her lesson).
Well next week I volunteered for pickup duty, and even brought along a few coins of my own for show and tell. He told me he had been collecting since the 1930's, and he had a complete set of high grade Morgans, a complete set of Indian cents (not all but mostly BU), and other things, but the real pride was his roll sets.
He said he had an aunt with ties to the Cleveland Federal Reserve, and that she had encouraged him at an early age to put away rolls of coins of the date of issue. He had a roll of every year, every denomination, every mint mark, dating back to 1938!
I made a cash offer on the spot, which he laughed at, and said they are not for sale, the 'kids' will get them.....I have kept tabs over the years, he still has them, and he now says that if he makes it to 90, he will sell them then (he is 88).
Your turn!
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I was told that this was a drop in the bucket for what the guy had, but he died before I found out if that was true. He supposedly had SDBs in more than 20 banks and I wonder if his aged parents ever found all of his stuff. He had a very small B&M, but had at least $2MM in inventory in 1988.
There was an old big time dealer here who supposedly had all the bank vault space he could lease in a 20 mile radius. As late as the 80's he supposedly had a bank vault stacked with Morgan bags hip-deep. My assumption is this all got dispersed in the early 2000's before his death a few years ago. Not only was he a coin dealer, but was a very wealthy person before he became a dealer AND was a hard-money guy...it would not have surprised anyone who knew him if he had multiple millions in face in gold and silver.
I lived in Cleveland in the 1970's and bought quite a few obw rolls from the 1950's and 1960's from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland from none other than Emory Mae Norweb as they was just junk to her. We had safe deposit vaults in the same bank and met each almost every week. She admitted that she got caught up in the roll collecting craze just like everyone else back in 1961 to 1963.
Stupidly, while her handwriting and/or initials were on some of the rolls, I never asked her to initial the other rolls! Who would ever have thought??????
I still have those rolls and they are NOT for sale. Mostly cent, through some quarter rolls, all from the FRB Cleveland.
The drum of Barbers reminded me of another hoard - a vest pocket dealer friend of mine back in OH had a brother who loved Barber halves, and had accumulated 3 complete roll sets of them - 60 of every date and mm - over the years. But from what I gathered, I believe they are mostly just avg circs, probably not too much to excite the MegaThread guys. Unless of course some '92 micro O's are in there
when silver to a hit last year all he sead was "ouch" and kept on buying
Thank You Papabear
About 14 years ago a good coin buddy of mine who had collected for over 30 years ran into a guy at his bank who was wearing a bolo tie. What caught his attention was it had a $10 Indian on the slide. On closer inspection it turned out to be something stupidly rare like a 1930-S. They struck up a conversation that continued over several more path-crossings at the bank. The short story was, the man's dad had been wealthy during the Depression and had rebelled in a big way when Roosevelt called in the gold coins in 1933. Instead, his dad went the other way and became a gold coin collector. This guy told my buddy he had inherited things that sounded like a gigantic load of B.S., which fit in with the guy's demeanor (I ran into him at a couple of Long Beach shows in subsequent years and couldn't wait to get away from him after just a few minutes).
The King Kong part of the guy's story was he claimed he had three 1927-D $20 Saints.
My buddy doesn't believe him and tells him why. So one day the guy takes my buddy into the safe deposit box area of the bank to prove it. Sure enough, in one of the boxes he takes out three pristine 1927-D $20 Saints. There was also a complete set of $2.5 Indians. Another box had a bunch of Morgans. My friend called me and told me this after he got home, while he was still in a state of shock and awe that was made worse by the condition of the coins: he didn't think any of the gold he saw was less than MS65.
So a year or two later the guy gets the $2.5 set graded at PCGS and most of it goes 66. He also decided to consign the "worst" of the 1927-D Saints to, I think, a Bowers auction. It graded MS66 at PCGS. (His 1884-S Morgan went MS64.)
As far as I know, the other two 1927-D Saints are still in his safe deposit box.
Many if not most of the hoarders will probably die with their hoards intact.
I'll post another interesting one. I ran into a neighbor fellow at our local monthly show a few years back. I had no idea he was a collector of any kind. I only knew him as I would see him out smoking on his front porch when my wife and I went for walks, and he always waved to us.
Anyway, I see him peddling some very nice currency to the various dealers at this show. We chat briefly and promise to talk longer next time I see him, as we were both preoccupied. So on a later walk I stop by and ask him about his currency. Apparently he had quite a collection he was slowly disposing of, rattles off various obsolete bank notes and first charters and national bank notes that are rare and near finest known, most of which was over my head. I said I do a little with currency, but coins are my thing. He says oh his too. He has various sets of Barbers etc he has been working on for years. Then he says his best thing is 'a BU roll of 1841O seated halves'.....I said what - a roll? I didn't think there were such things.....he explains that he was originally from NJ. He lucked into a bag of 1960 small date cents through a local Philly connection. The old timers here will remember that was one of the many 'hot items' back then......he takes it to a dealer, who just has to have it, but he's a little short on cash - would he take a trade? Someone had just brought in an original group of 20 choice unc 1841O halves that had been stored away intact for a very long time. My neighbor said Ok and then put them in a roll for safe keeping. So there's how you have a roll of unc 41O halves!
This collector didn't collect any other types of coins...or at least that is what he said and he didn't share anything else!
The two pieces which stuck out like a sore thumb were his AU+ 1792 Birch Cent, 1794 Dollar in EF+, and a smattering of other
coins which would floor ANY collector! ALL raw. ALL contained in cloth 2x2's. And ALL stored on premise! From what I recall he had
at least 1 complete sets of all FH/DB silver and at least one complete set of EF+ EAC (not all EAC pieces were completely problem free).
His colonial copper collection was much less organized in terms of grade equality, but there were A LOT of pieces in that portion of
his collection.
It AMAZES me what some people own. What coins aren't in TPG holders. Or what coins have NEVER seen an auction appearance...EVER!!!
Amazing coins are STILL OUT THERE. Just KEEP LOOKING!
Sean Reynolds
"Keep in mind that most of what passes as numismatic information is no more than tested opinion at best, and marketing blather at worst. However, I try to choose my words carefully, since I know that you guys are always watching." - Joe O'Connor
<< <i>A dealer friend of mine also likes 13S dimes, and had a fair sized stack of them a few years ago, to which I'm sure he has added a few more.
The drum of Barbers reminded me of another hoard - a vest pocket dealer friend of mine back in OH had a brother who loved Barber halves, and had accumulated 3 complete roll sets of them - 60 of every date and mm - over the years. But from what I gathered, I believe they are mostly just avg circs, probably not too much to excite the MegaThread guys. Unless of course some '92 micro O's are in there
Sounds like I know who this is... Is the dealer a retired teacher and the brother is a lawyer?
<< <i>
<< <i>A dealer friend of mine also likes 13S dimes, and had a fair sized stack of them a few years ago, to which I'm sure he has added a few more.
The drum of Barbers reminded me of another hoard - a vest pocket dealer friend of mine back in OH had a brother who loved Barber halves, and had accumulated 3 complete roll sets of them - 60 of every date and mm - over the years. But from what I gathered, I believe they are mostly just avg circs, probably not too much to excite the MegaThread guys. Unless of course some '92 micro O's are in there
Sounds like I know who this is... Is the dealer a retired teacher and the brother is a lawyer? >>
i wonder if he knows the word is spreading?
.
<< <i>Sounds like I know who this is... Is the dealer a retired teacher and the brother is a lawyer? >> >>
Yes, retired teacher and golf coach, from the Celina OH area, I recall.
And ALL those coins were actually pulled from pales for scrap.
I actually will be seeing this brother here in an hour or so. He'll get a kick out of this.
Many of those old machines were still full of silver coin (we would work on the empty ones!). And even some of them still had silver dimes or quarters stuck under the hopper.
Thank's all for sharing !!!
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<< <i>In a similar vain to the Urban Legends thread, I'm curious what our members may know to be more fact based interesting coin accumulations, that are not already accounted for in registry sets and population reports, etc, that may have some impact on the market if and when they see the light of day. We all here the phrase 'ya never know what's still out there' - old proof sets, single 'key date' hoards, bags, etc. Come on, spill the beans!
I'll start - back in Ohio in the mid-90's, my wife had an after school meeting one day, so I was relegated to picking up our eldest daughter from clarinet practice after work. She received lessons from an elderly retired music teacher at his home in the old part of town. He had a sign posted that requested visitors to wait upstairs while lessons were in progress, which were conducted in his basement. Once the 'racket' subsided, I came down to pick up my daughter. I was struck by the large quantity of exotic plants he had overwintering in his basement, commented on them, and he proceeded to give me a quick tour. It was then I noticed a large stack of Coin World newspaper heaped under a desk, and commented that was a real interest of mine. He said oh good, maybe sometime we will have a chance to talk coins (his next student had arrived and was preparing for her lesson).
Well next week I volunteered for pickup duty, and even brought along a few coins of my own for show and tell. He told me he had been collecting since the 1930's, and he had a complete set of high grade Morgans, a complete set of Indian cents (not all but mostly BU), and other things, but the real pride was his roll sets.
He said he had an aunt with ties to the Cleveland Federal Reserve, and that she had encouraged him at an early age to put away rolls of coins of the date of issue. He had a roll of every year, every denomination, every mint mark, dating back to 1938!
I made a cash offer on the spot, which he laughed at, and said they are not for sale, the 'kids' will get them.....I have kept tabs over the years, he still has them, and he now says that if he makes it to 90, he will sell them then (he is 88).
Your turn! >>
Hmmmm did I tell you i`m thinking of taking up clarinet lessons Walkerguy...
The second year me and my wife were married 1976 we purchased our first home... I remember scraping together for the deposit of the small 2 bed room house for the total purchase of $27,000 right on a lake on Long Island... The local realtor who had the house listed knew i collected coins and told me he would show me his collection one day...This guy was in real-estate just as a hobby as his old money literally grew on a tree...Great guy though! Anyway the day came around and off we went to his bank and in a nicely lite up room out came his SD boxes... Left to him from his grand mother were tons of currency in one of the boxes but in the next two they were literally filled with US gold denoms of everything imaginable...Lots of BU looking stuff! It was amazing as was the roll after roll of brandy new Peace Dollars... I have lost touch over the years not even sure if he`s still alive but that was an amazing collection to have the privilege of seeing...
PS... I knew better to not even ask...
AB
Even though Franklins are considered to be "Modern" coins, this particular coin is quiet valuable [selling in the four to five figure range depending on grade]. It has significant doubling that is visible to the eye [no need for a loupe]. The doubling on the half has been said to be similar to the doubling on the 1955 DDO cent. However, the number of these coins that have been discovered is exceedingly small (apparently around 160 have been graded) compared to the number of 1955 DDO cents (thousands of them).
Cameonut found some of these Franklin halves in OGP proof sets some years ago and thus has a mini hoard of same.
I lucked out and found one of these Franklin halves in an OGP proof set last December and thus have a "hoard of one"
I did finally cherry one of the 1857 Flying Eagle coins clashed on a wrong denomination die last year though - the commonest of the three known varieties, but I still got one!
Seem mom had Alzheimer's and per her living will, her house was to be sold and the assets split among the 5 children. As they start cleaning, they begin to find packets of coins, baggies of coins, and loose coins everywhere in the house. Hidden up in the ceiling around the light fixtures, under loose floorboards, lose baseboards, and inside the furniture. Under most of the drawers in the kitchen, they found stacks of bills still in the bank wrappers. Most of these dated to the 20s and 30s. They also found books and antiques worth a good deal of money. In one little closet that was behind a bookcase, they found a Stradivarius violin.
All told, they had 5 five gallon buckets of coins dating back to the 1830s and about $50k in cash hidden in the house.
Www.killermarbles.com
Www.suncitycoin.com
25th set DDO hoard
RAD#306
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