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Post a coin with a cool story or provenance behind it
FilamCoins
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I purchased this coin in 2004 in Manila from Paul De Jesus, an architect and former President of the Philippine Numismatic & Antiquarian Society. His grandfather, Pablo I. de Jesus, was a noted numismatic researcher in the Philippines and this coin was part of his collection. When purchased, it resided in an old-fashioned cardboard album with holes punched out for different size coins (no plastic, paper or other type of cover protecting the coins. This was one of the last coins minted for the Philippines under Spanish rule. A few years later in 1898, the USA took administrative control over the Philippines after the Battle of Manila Bay (an off-shoot of the Spanish-American War, which also ceded Cuba and Puerto Rico)
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Here are some farthings with different provenances.
1895 Young Head Farthing, ex-Amon G. Carter. Carter is known for his name being attached to TCU's football stadium, among other things. I purchased a few pieces of this pedigree from Paul J. Bosco, mostly farthings.
1869 Farthing, ex-Colin Cooke. Colin was the first name in farthings and a trusted dealer. He recently passed away sadly, and his entire premier farthing collection was auctioned off. I was able to secure two pieces (1873 and 1888), but this one eluded me until its prior owner, known to you all as Maccrimmon, sold his entire gem British collection.
Several years ago, when I was building that 20th century British type set in BU+, housed in two Whitman albums, I realized that 1901 was missing, and that was a real shame since they could have included yet another monarch in these albums by adding a single page in each.
Anyway, I ended up buying an already complete BU set, of which only the florin needed upgrading. I've started scouting ebay.co.uk and came across a dealer who was selling a 1901 shilling and a 1901 florin with reasonale starting prices, but terrible images, plus you all know how people avoid non $0.99 auctions like the plague. I've decided to bite and purchased the shilling and I couldn't believe it. It was such a toned beauty. Clearly the florin (still available on ebay) was from the same collection and just as good if not better. But the Scrooge Mac Duck in me, decided to wait for his florin to end its second round with no takers to make him an offer. In fact I already made it and he agreed to it, provided that the florin was not going to sell.
And then, kaboom, a sniper gets it at the end.
A few days later I received an email from this gentleman, that is the reason why I still have this florin and refused some crazy offers for it over the years (the rest of the set was sold years later to Auldfarte, in its cardboard case, but without the florin). The email said that if he had seen the new florin in advance, he wouldn't have accepted my offer. But he had given me his word, and from my side, I had already paid the seller and sent the slider florin that I wanted to replace, so YES, he'd send it to me!
And that's how in my joy, I've sent the initial shilling of the set as a gift to LM for his 1901 set, a nice white coin technically superior to the colorful new acquisition, (graded MS64 a decade later), but the two coins next to each other looked wonderful in my 1901 cardboard page (BTW, several times I thought of ordering a page with blanks in the right size to incorporate it to the rest, but it didn't work like this : each denomination was together, type after type, and also, that the albums were brand new Whitmans but out of stock for decades, and not Dansco that offered this possibility).
Anyway, for the thousandth time, here's the florin and here's the set.
myEbay
DPOTD 3
1897 60th Anniversary of Victorias reign BY F. BOWCHER
Diameter of 76 mm. References: BHM 3511; Eimer 1816 GOLD GILT MEDAL, OFFICIAL SPINK JUBILEE ISSUE
Came from the Christopher Eimer collection
1874 Albert Memorial Medal, by A.B. Wyon
British Historical Medals #2702 Rarity "R" RARE, White metal medal of Prince Albert, the Albert Memorial 1874 Exhibition original box.
Superb condition. 31 mm. Originally attributed by BHM as being minted in c.1872.
With this original box it gives it the much more accurate date of 1874.
From the Christopher Eimer collection
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Transcript of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution article from February 25, 1999:
<< <i>SPANISH COIN GIVES CLUE TO STATE'S PAST
St. Simons Island-- Robertson Shinnick has found a tiny piece of Georgia's past-- lost for more than 300 years. Searching the ground on this resort isle with a metal detector last fall, the 33-year-old coin collector dug a foot into the black soil and found an odd-shaped coin. "I had in my hand a small, squarish piece of copper with a strange design on it," Shinnick said. "I knew the Spanish colonial mints struck millions of silver coins, but this was obviously copper. "It was a mystery until I identified the design as the monogram of Philip IV of Spain, who reigned from 1621 to 1665." Turns out the four-maraved coin, a low-value sort of penny of its era, had been hand-forged in Spain about 1658. It isn't particularly dear to collectors-- it's worth about $65-- but it's valuable to Georgia historians. John Worth, director of programs for the Calhoun-based Coosawattee Foundation and one of the top experts on 17th century Spanish missions along the Georgia coast, calls the coin "quite a find." He says Shinnick's coin gives a clue about the long-lost mission of Santo Domingo de Asajo, built in 1595 to convert Native Americans to Christianity. It was destroyed by English-backed slave traders in 1661, rebuilt a year later, then burned by British pirates in 1684. "There were about 30 men, women and children, and friars, but no soldiers. A small garrison of soldiers was located on nearby St. Catherine's Island," Worth says. Other traces of the early Spanish period, such as olive jars and pottery shards, have been found on St. Simons, says Worth, who's done extensive studies on the island. But coins such as the one Shinnick found are rare along the Georgia coast. Shinnick's may be the first found on St. Simons. "Its significance is in our common state heritage," Worth says. "It is a bit of actual, concrete evidence of the Spanish missions, right here in Georgia." Shinnick, a bellman at the King and Prince Resort, found the coin on private land at Hampton Point, where million-dollar mansions are being built. One side of the time-blackened coin shows the royal monogram of Philip IV and a Roman numeral for the denomination. The other shows the letters "RX" _ for "rex," or "king," according to Worth. "Because the friars couldn't touch coins, my best guess is it was dropped by a passing soldier or an Indian," says Worth, whose Coosawattee Foundation aims to protect former Native American sites in the Southeast. "It's just a good history lesson from an era that's been lost." >>
This is a gold medal given by Napoleon I to Diedrich Uhlhorn in 1813 for his work with textiles. This was before Uhlhorn became known for inventing the toggle (or knuckle) coining press.
Matthew Boulton may have revolutionized the manufacture of coinage with his steam coining press, but it was Uhlhorn that made the high-speed press possible. Boulton's press was simply a screw press operated by steam power. Uhlhorn's press was an entirely new concept which could coin money much faster. A brief history of coining presses is here.
This medal had been in the Uhlhorn family 198 years, until 2011 when I acquired it in Germany. Napoleon actually gave many gold medals to artists and artisans, but most of them have since been melted (they aren't called starving artists for nothing). In later years, Napoleon and his successors stopped giving gold medals and just gave the cash instead. These medals have now become quite rare, but one with a numismatic provenance is quite a find.
From the R. Merlin Null Collection. In addition to being an advanced collector of Nepal and Bhutan, Null was extremely active in the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society and his memory is survived by many. The following is quoted from an e-mail conversation I had with one of his best friends, Marty Cantor:
"Bob was the most brilliant and most interesting person I have ever known ... the quintessential Renaissance man, a person who knew more about more things than most people. Example: a couple of weeks after he found out about my interest in Sixteenth Century music he started a discussion with me about the music of that time, showing more knowledge about it than I had. And he had known nothing of that music until he found out that I liked it ... The point is that I know of none of Bob's friends who even knew all of the areas of interest into which Bob delved ... Bob collected so many things that at times I wondered if there was any room for HIM in his apartment.
When Bob died ... [his] brothers called LASFS Bob's second family and lots of club members showed up at Bob's funeral, with six of the club members being the pall-bearers. (Bob had been club vice-president for 20 consecutive, 6-month terms. During that time he accreted to that job so many things which he could do better than anybody else, when his health precluded him running for that office again, it took five people to do all of the various things Bob had been doing as vice president.)
After Bob's brothers had finally gotten near the end of cleaning out [his] apartment, [his] brother Richard asked me about what he should do with Bob's coin collection. I knew of no current club members who were coin collectors who could advise him, so I told Richard that unless he could find a friend or relative with the requisite knowledge, he would probably have to go to a coin dealer to dispose of the collection as none of Bob's siblings collected coins."
Stephen Album handled Bob's collection after his passing in August 2010.
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