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My Goldberg mystery lot - RESULTS ARE IN
desslok
Posts: 310 ✭✭✭
Apologies in advance for the long post ahead - I’m really excited, so please bear with me :-)
My field of collecting is Israeli error coins, a remote, desolate, and thinly-populated area of numismatics. There isn’t a lot of material on the market, and there aren’t a lot of collectors. Last month I introduced myself here and asked where might I find dealers of collectors with that kind of stuff for sale. I got some very nice responses and feedback but no real leads.
However, while browsing the various threads I happened to see a banner ad for the Ira and Larry Goldberg’s Pre-Long Beach Auction on the top of the page. Now, call me an unwashed barbarian, but I’ve never even heard of the Goldberg auction house before. So I click over to their website to take a look, and naturally I’m very impressed by the variety and quality of the items offered for sale. I shop around for some Israel-related stuff (of which there was quite a lot), and find this little item hiding in the shadows:
Lot 3343 - Israel. Lot of Mint Errors: Mainly minors, a few crowns and a couple of medal errors. Careful examination recommended. Sold as is, no returns. Lot of 120 coins. Very Fine To Uncirculated. Estimated Value $500-UP.
A Lot of 120 mint errors?
My entire collection is roughly 180 coins, and I’ve been searching high and low since 1996. I’ve always wanted to buy an intact collection to merge with my own. BUT -
* WHICH coins are they? Denominations? Dates? Error types? Conditions?
* HOW do I even bid? Goldberg website says you have to “establish credit” - it takes 4 days and you have to give recommendations or references. And the auction is a few days away. And to top it all up, this lot would be scheduled at around 3:00AM my local time, with no way of knowing the exact time.
* WHAT is it worth? How can I possibly estimate the real value of such a lot? Most of the coins in my collection were bought for $50 - $150. A few exceed $200, and perhaps the two most expensive ones were around $500. Goldberg’s estimate is ~$4 per coin (“and up”). The coins could be worthless (i.e. like filled letters or other minor error types no one cares about), but if they are even half-decent errors, let’s say off centers of common types, a 120 coin lot can easily be worth $6000 - $10000 retail. This could be Aladdin’s treasure (well, to me at least), or it could be a total bust.
So I panic and fire out an e-mail to Goldberg pleading to be allowed to bid and for some more information about the lot. Without waiting for response, I then print out their buyer credit forms in hard copy, fill them out and fax them. To their credit, Goldberg responded the very same day and cleared me to bid, without any issues. However, they did not provide any additional information about the lot. I now feel like I’m in a TV game show of sorts - “There is something behind curtain number 1 - what would you pay for it?”. In the game shows, the contestants could win a brand new car or a real live donkey. You just can’t tell until the curtain goes up.
I spend the next day reading through the entire Goldberg online archive, scanning the Israel section in all +70 past catalogs. There has never been a similar lot before. There have been a few individual Israeli error coins here and there and even a rare specimen coin (sold for $2300). I search the forums here and find that some people on some occasions experienced difficulties with the online bidding system, and one person recommended that if it’s something you have to have, it’s best to place your max bid as an absentee bid, ahead of time. Taking into account the time difference, I figured this would be a wise choice for me. I also figure that even if I can’t attend the viewing, there would be people that can. Whatever they are willing to bid on that lot, I’m willing too. Basically, all I have to do is offer more than the second-highest bidder, regardless of what that person’s bid is, and hope real hard that I’m the only lunatic around and that all the other guys know what they are doing.
So I place an absentee bid - an absurdly high, monster bid, 15x the estimate, my entire coin collecting budget for the next 5 years or so. I get an e-mail from Goldberg’s personnel asking me if I’ve made a mistake. I explain my case. They let the bid stay. I set my alarm clock to 2:00AM and go to sleep early that evening.
I wake up in time to see my bid win the lot for $800 plus commission (the online bidding website worked perfectly, despite my earlier concerns). That’s ~$8 per coin after commission, which could be the win of a lifetime, for me. And even if not, at this price even if only 6-7 coins out of the whole 120-coin lot are keepers for my collection, I’ve done well enough.
I’m really happy.
I still don’t know what I bought. Waiting for the shipment to arrive.
Aladdin’s cave, here I come.
My field of collecting is Israeli error coins, a remote, desolate, and thinly-populated area of numismatics. There isn’t a lot of material on the market, and there aren’t a lot of collectors. Last month I introduced myself here and asked where might I find dealers of collectors with that kind of stuff for sale. I got some very nice responses and feedback but no real leads.
However, while browsing the various threads I happened to see a banner ad for the Ira and Larry Goldberg’s Pre-Long Beach Auction on the top of the page. Now, call me an unwashed barbarian, but I’ve never even heard of the Goldberg auction house before. So I click over to their website to take a look, and naturally I’m very impressed by the variety and quality of the items offered for sale. I shop around for some Israel-related stuff (of which there was quite a lot), and find this little item hiding in the shadows:
Lot 3343 - Israel. Lot of Mint Errors: Mainly minors, a few crowns and a couple of medal errors. Careful examination recommended. Sold as is, no returns. Lot of 120 coins. Very Fine To Uncirculated. Estimated Value $500-UP.
A Lot of 120 mint errors?
My entire collection is roughly 180 coins, and I’ve been searching high and low since 1996. I’ve always wanted to buy an intact collection to merge with my own. BUT -
* WHICH coins are they? Denominations? Dates? Error types? Conditions?
* HOW do I even bid? Goldberg website says you have to “establish credit” - it takes 4 days and you have to give recommendations or references. And the auction is a few days away. And to top it all up, this lot would be scheduled at around 3:00AM my local time, with no way of knowing the exact time.
* WHAT is it worth? How can I possibly estimate the real value of such a lot? Most of the coins in my collection were bought for $50 - $150. A few exceed $200, and perhaps the two most expensive ones were around $500. Goldberg’s estimate is ~$4 per coin (“and up”). The coins could be worthless (i.e. like filled letters or other minor error types no one cares about), but if they are even half-decent errors, let’s say off centers of common types, a 120 coin lot can easily be worth $6000 - $10000 retail. This could be Aladdin’s treasure (well, to me at least), or it could be a total bust.
So I panic and fire out an e-mail to Goldberg pleading to be allowed to bid and for some more information about the lot. Without waiting for response, I then print out their buyer credit forms in hard copy, fill them out and fax them. To their credit, Goldberg responded the very same day and cleared me to bid, without any issues. However, they did not provide any additional information about the lot. I now feel like I’m in a TV game show of sorts - “There is something behind curtain number 1 - what would you pay for it?”. In the game shows, the contestants could win a brand new car or a real live donkey. You just can’t tell until the curtain goes up.
I spend the next day reading through the entire Goldberg online archive, scanning the Israel section in all +70 past catalogs. There has never been a similar lot before. There have been a few individual Israeli error coins here and there and even a rare specimen coin (sold for $2300). I search the forums here and find that some people on some occasions experienced difficulties with the online bidding system, and one person recommended that if it’s something you have to have, it’s best to place your max bid as an absentee bid, ahead of time. Taking into account the time difference, I figured this would be a wise choice for me. I also figure that even if I can’t attend the viewing, there would be people that can. Whatever they are willing to bid on that lot, I’m willing too. Basically, all I have to do is offer more than the second-highest bidder, regardless of what that person’s bid is, and hope real hard that I’m the only lunatic around and that all the other guys know what they are doing.
So I place an absentee bid - an absurdly high, monster bid, 15x the estimate, my entire coin collecting budget for the next 5 years or so. I get an e-mail from Goldberg’s personnel asking me if I’ve made a mistake. I explain my case. They let the bid stay. I set my alarm clock to 2:00AM and go to sleep early that evening.
I wake up in time to see my bid win the lot for $800 plus commission (the online bidding website worked perfectly, despite my earlier concerns). That’s ~$8 per coin after commission, which could be the win of a lifetime, for me. And even if not, at this price even if only 6-7 coins out of the whole 120-coin lot are keepers for my collection, I’ve done well enough.
I’m really happy.
I still don’t know what I bought. Waiting for the shipment to arrive.
Aladdin’s cave, here I come.
0
Comments
EVP
How does one get a hater to stop hating?
I can be reached at evillageprowler@gmail.com
I'd like to recommend a coin dealer for your collecting interests. His name is William Rosenblum. One area he specializes in is Israeli coinage. I've seen Israeli coin errors sold by him in the past.
Good luck.
Congratulations for the find!
Taler Custom Set
Ancient Custom Set
Decades ago I handled some of these.. a 1974 1 Lira struck in copper, and a 1978 1 Agora struck on 5 Agora planchet...also had a 1949 25 Mil lead pattern trial strike and a '61 10 Agora "Patcha" in BU if that's considered in the error field.....fun times but no longer in the field.
tonedSilver - I've known Bill Rosenblum for a long time, I purchased from him several times in the past and in fact I'm consigning a few duplicates for his next mailbid auction.
Marc - I've seen in person, and been offered to buy, a 25 Mil lead pattern trial strike. Maybe it was the same piece (I think there are a few of these out there, more than one for certain). The asking price was too much for me at that time. Maybe today I would have bought it. Such is life, I guess.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Are there individuals who can go to a lot viewing for you and take photos? How much would they charge for this service? Does the auction house allow it?
Bottom line:
I paid a total of $965 including commission and shipping. After careful examination, the total value of this collection in my opinion is about $1800. This is not too bad in itself, but I was hoping for more. Furthermore, all the good errors that were there, I already had in my collection, so there were almost no keepers for me. I was really hoping to complete a few series, or to obtain a new centerpiece for my collection, to find something really rare and desirable that I did not yet have. That didn't happen.
I managed to scrape together 6 items for my collection, which were comprised of two off center tokens, one late-state brockage coin that I didn't have and 3 off-center coin upgrades which are either in better condition or more prominent error type than the existing coin in my collection.
The collection in numbers:
- 126 coins in total
- Dates range from 1960s-1980s. This means no British Mandate, and no Pruta/Mil series coins.
- 56 of them are scalloped-aluminum 1-Agora. The rest are mostly from the Lira series, with some Old Shekels and just a few New Shekels.
- 46 of all coins are worthless or nearly so, tiny off-centers of common types, filled letters, reference coins with no errors, etc.
- 23 coins are the rotated reverse 1-Agora of 1963. I've seen these sell for as little as $1.50 on occasion.
- Some nice finds: two double-strikes, a few uniface coins, 2 struck on wrong planchets, 16 major off-center coins of varying denominations (some rare, but I already had in my collection)
- A large interesting medal with an error edge inscription: the medal is clearly bronze, but the edge reads ".935 Silver)
I can post some pictures tomorrow if anyone would like to see.
<< <i>I can post some pictures tomorrow if anyone would like to see. >>
I would certainly like to see some of the better errors. I love world errors, a particular collecting interest of mine.
And if a big collection/hoard such as the one you bought doesn't have much variety, it could indicate your collection is the best in existence, or darn close to it. That's a pretty impressive feat.
At least you got 6 coins you needed. If you were to miraculously find and buy those 6 coins retail, would they cost about $956? If so, the rest of the lot is gravy. Sell them, trade them, or just give them to others to get them interested.
Maybe you could put together a second set as complete as possible with all your duplicates and sell it to get someone started collecting these.
Had I gotten this Goldberg lot a few years ago I would have been ecstatic - there are coins there that I hunted for years, and ended up having to pay very handsomely for (some were in excess of $200 each). I was hoping that this collection would fill some gaps that I wasn't yet able to obtain, and it falls short on that count. On its own merits, the Goldberg lot is fine, I have no regrets. I will certainly sell, trade or give away some of the coins to other collectors, but I just don't think that I'll find many others who would be willing to pay quite the same amount of money that I did. My rough estimate of $1800 for the lot is a very conservative, realistic price that I'm sure I can get. To another person like me, it could be worth double that.
Of the ~120 coin lot, about 70 were a total bust. This means that the $965 price I paid is roughly divided to the remaining 50 coins, which means nearly $20 a coin. That's a really, really good price. But I'm sure glad the auction didn't end up costing thousands.
Here are some images.
First, some better off-center coins, obverse followed by reverse:
Note the two medals in the middle row. These are token issued by the Israel Government Coins and Medals Corp. to its subscribers every year, for free, and were not sold on the open market. The normal tokens are not rare, but an off-center error, on a token issued in small numbers only to collectors - this is highly unusual. They had to have some help from whoever was involved in the manufacturing or distribution. I have seen a few in the past, and in fact I had one in my collection (of a different year and design than those two), but these two are certainly keepers. A small error, but quite scarce.
Next are a mixed group, again both sides in two separate images:
The top row are coins struck on incorrect planchets.
The middle row are coins struck through capped die, with faint brockage image appearing (incuse mirror image)
The bottom two are double-struck coins
I didn't take the coins out of the 2x2 cardboard/mylar holders they came in, so the scans are not the greatest quality.
Did you ask the auction house where the coins came from?
If not ,do you have an opinion if it represents the entire collection of some collector that unfortunately passed away? Someone who had to sell for financial reasons , or just someone trimming their holdings?
If it belonged to someone that had to sell for financial reasons that would be a shame for them of course but they might appreciate knowing that their coins went to a passionate collector. If the owner has passed they left instructions on how to disperse their coins but perhaps they had books about coins or written notes etc. that might be valuable to you items that aren't easily monetized in an auction but valuable to another collector.
On the other hand if the source was an active collector, maybe an anti-desslock is out there bidding against you on the coins you want