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So-Called Dollar Pedigrees
Zoins
Posts: 33,913 ✭✭✭✭✭
How many famous So-Called Dollar (SCD) collections and pedigrees are there?
I seen both Jeff Shevlin and Donald Ensley slabs. Are there more?
The Ensley pieces are slabbed by MMNS (Michigan Masters Numismatic Services), which was Robert Haire's company. It was renamed to MNS (Masters Numismatic Services) and is the one with the Halo 360 holder.
Pedigree List Updates
This is a running list of pedigrees identified in this thread and elsewhere:
I seen both Jeff Shevlin and Donald Ensley slabs. Are there more?
The Ensley pieces are slabbed by MMNS (Michigan Masters Numismatic Services), which was Robert Haire's company. It was renamed to MNS (Masters Numismatic Services) and is the one with the Halo 360 holder.
Pedigree List Updates
This is a running list of pedigrees identified in this thread and elsewhere:
- Victor Annaloro
- William Sphon Baker / Historical Society of PA
- D.C. Daniels
- Louis Edward Eliasberg, Sr.
- Dr. Calvert Emmons - sold collection in 1986
- Donald Ensley
- Salvatore Falcone
- John Jay Ford Jr.
- Barry Friedman - sold collection in 2001
- Tim Gabriele
- Marlee Gabriele
- Thomas Harrison Garrett
- Darryl Gomez
- Harold Hibler
- Bill Hyder
- Robert Jesinger
- Richard Jewell
- Jon Lerner / Scarsdale Coin
- Dwight Manley
- Rev. Dr. James G. K. McClure
- Eric Pfeiffer Newman
- Alfred James Ostheimer III
- Jacquenette (Jacque) Cummings Ostheimer
- W. David Perkins
- John Raymond
- Dr. Ruby
- Jeff Shevlin
- David Snider / Cosmique - sold by Goldbergs
- Tony Swicer - sold collection in mid-1990s.
- Bruce Thomas
- Bill Weber
- Louis S. Werner
- Farran Zerbe
Tagged:
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Comments
Calvert Emmons sold his collection in 1986.
Alfred Ostheimer extended Harold Hibler's original collection, sold in several pieces starting in 2010.
With respect to Jeff and Donald, there's a big difference between good and great.
I recently purchased some of Donald Ensley's MMNS slabbed So-Called Dollars directly from Donald. He allowed me to cherry pick his collection and I purchased around 15 medals from him. They have all been cracked out of the MMNS slabs and sent to NGC for grading as of this posting. MMNS had (2) medals that I purchased attributed wrong, which I caught prior to submitting to NGC and worked it out with Donald on pricing.
I personally know and very highly respect Jeff Shevlin, and have purchased and/or traded quite a few So-Called dollars with him in the past and will continue to do so in the future. He is a walking encyclopedia of knowledge on these medals. I met Jeff and his wife a few years ago at a show in Dallas, Texas, and we have been great friends ever since.
I do not want to "blow my own horn", but my Bruce Thomas Collection of So-Called Dollars and Other Medals was awarded as Best Custom Set by the NGC Registry Set voting for 2018. Many of my medals are pedigreed "Bruce Thomas Collection" and "Thomas Collection" (NGC for some reason changed my pedigree from Thomas to Bruce Thomas a few years ago without asking me). I am very proud of this award for my collection. Feel free to browse my entire collection at the NGC Registry website.
Do you have any photos of the So-Called Dollars in the MMNS slabs? If so, it would be great to see them as part of numismatic history. Will NGC keep the Ensley provenance on the inserts along with yours?
I like Jeff as well and have both conversed with him and picked up medals from him, the latest being a HK-356 gilt. The ones with his provenance on the insert seem to be higher quality than others he sells.
I'm glad to meet you here and learn of the accolades your set has attained. Thanks for posting your great So-Called Dollars here. It's been a treat to see them. Do you order NGC PhotoVision?
Another NGC Registry Set I've run across is Howard Hornreich's collection, which has previously won the Best Custom Set award. I've also had the pleasure of chatting with him and picking up one of his So-Called Dollars.
Establishing an auction provenance should be straight forward, but discovering who owned on of these souvenir pieces before then seems like a Herculean challenge.
Zoins,
I did indeed take pictures of the MMNS slabs before i cracked out the medals for grading. I did not ask NGC to include Donald's provenance. Since the medals were previously graded by MMNS, I was not sure if NGC would do that or not, since they did not have the original slabs or inserts with that information, but that information will be listed in my NGC Registry for each medal.
I will work on getting those pictures posted here in the next few days. There are some very high quality and/or rare medals in this group. I am very excited and anxious to get these back from NGC.
I do not order NGC PhotoVision for my submissions. I photograph the medals when they are delivered to me and post those pictures on my NGC Registry listing.
Thank you for your kind words regarding my collection. This is my hobby, expensive as it is, but I love it as I am sure we all love our collections.
I've been cataloging the provenance for some Bolen pieces and I'm amazed by how much information there is in some of the auction records for past owners, including raw pieces. I've been assembling them into a Condition Census record like shown on CoinFacts and Heritage. My guess is that this should become easier with more online posting like Registry Sets for So-Called Dollars like Bruce mentioned he'll post above regarding Donald's former pieces.
I’m glad NGC will add the provenance for these without a top ranked set because I don’t think exonumia is mature enough for that yet, like coins may be. It’s good that the recently sold Pennsylvania Cabinet Collection has the provenance as many of the pieces are rare or even unique in the census.
That's good to hear. The more information, the better for all. "An informed collector is a better customer." {Apologies to Sy Sims}
Ostheimer Is a good scd pedigree also Cosmique pedigree is pretty solid .. Cosmique ie David is a NY dealer who bought many choice R6 and R7 scd pieces when he traveled show circuit and they were later sold off at a Goldberg auction several years back.
Jeff is not really a pedigree as it is more his company advertising. I’m Not knocking Jeff in the least I just put his name in the slab it in a different catagory.
Agreed. Hibler is a good pedigree as well. The Hibler-Ostheimer pedigree is especially nice.
Good info. I've seen a number of Cosmique slabs so it's good to know these are from David Snider's collection.
Jeff Shevlin does have some nice, rare pieces. I just picked up a MS64 HK-356 from him which is ATS pop 6/3/2 and PCGS pop 0. While there are 2 higher graded pieces, I'm not sure when I'll have the opportunity to pick them up. It's still nice to know this is pedigreed to Jeff.
Coins don't have pedigrees, people do.
According to PCGS and NGC, they do.
I'm willing to update the thread if anyone can get PCGS to change
Shows you what they know. I guess only antique and art sellers know the correct terminology.
Both Merriam-Webster and Oxford dictionaries indicate things can have pedigrees.
As I told Zoins previously, I will post pictures of the So-Called dollars in their original MMNS slabs that I purchased from Donald Ensley recently. See posts below.
This SCD is actually an HK-11E copper, not an HK-11A brass as listed on the MMNS holder. This is no doubt copper with the red and brown coloring of the medal.
This would be fabulous if it really was HK-72B silver proof, but it is not. I had this medal XRF tested, and it is 99.2% copper and .8% gold (Gilt Copper). This is an unknown metal type for this So-Called dollar type. My thoughts are that possibly a blank from the HK-69 Gilt Copper medals of the same 38mm size was used to make this possibly unique metal type HK-72. NGC said that they would grade it as HK-72 Gilt Copper once they do their testing to confirm my findings.
@THOMAS655 Wow! Those are some great So-Called Dollars from Donald Ensley's collection! I like the folowing:
Just ran across this HK-283 Trans-Mississippi Expo pedigreed to D.C. Daniels. Anyone know him? Is his collection notable?
I've added a running list of pedigrees I'm aware of in the top post, some added in this thread.
I don't know much about "Pedigree's" but there are some names on the list which are notable for the Provenance associated with some important questions. that actually brings to light a variety of questions which can be similar to the statement made by Jonathan. I can say that there are probably several "great" collections held by members here at the forum.
what constitutes a Great Collection of SC$'s?? is it defined by the sheer number of medals or closeness to a complete catalogue listing?? is it defined by the number of years collecting and the volume of medals?? if a collector obtains a large portion of their collection from buying other collections is it the same as acquiring medals independently and assembling a collection?? in todays Hobby environement, is forming a collection the same as it may have been 30 or more years ago?? is the value associated with a collection a determinent of its "greatness" in any ranking?? does the time a collection is held together affect its importance??
You can learn about pedigrees from the PCGS Glossary: https://www.pcgs.com/Lingo/P which says the following:
Pedigrees are also useful because they are listed on PCGS Cert Verification while provenance is not.
Here are some things for a great pedigree (or provenance) for me:
As for buying complete collections, that's been done often in the annals of collecting history. I think the question about the notability of the new collector is more whether the collections are extended by adding them to an existing collection or by adding new pieces after.
Has anybody who bought pieces from my old Thomas Elder collection from the estate of Leon Hendrickson tried to match them up with images from my article?
TD
I was being facetious with most of my post, especially the pedigree/provenance part of it, a debate held here with regularity. to be honest, I cannot understand the reluctance of PCGS to change their word usage. Pedigree is primarily used in Geneology and Ancestry, Provenance is generally used with Art and Historical objects. it is a debate that rages on. I think it is interesting the way that a Provenance is decided to be important or relevant, that is part of why I posed the question(s) I posed. currently with the PCGS Set Registry concept all I have to do is spend a lot of money to reach Number One on a specific date and suddenly my collection is important and I am awarded a name.
just so you know, my collection has a Provenance.
I have this one single coin pedigreed to
John J. Ford.
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
Has anybody who bought pieces from my old Thomas Elder collection from the estate of Leon Hendrickson tried to match them up with images from my article?
Captain, I have owned/own a large number of D numbers and never thought to do that.
Why don’t you ask Heather or Brett? I suggested the same to Roger who asks a similar question.
Why copy others and why not have them change to what coins use? Who first made pedigree popular for coins?
Auction records and NGC have a nice way of tracking pedigrees. For auction records, coins don’t even have to be graded to have their pedigree tracked. PCGS has their requirements to foster Registry competition but I’m not sure it works well for exonumia.
Not at PCGS
the provenance-pedigree debate is real close to this one --- How do you pronounce Disme??
Yes, but there is an easy answer to your question on why PCGS uses pedigree, just ask them
That’s a great one! 👍
I added him to the list.
It’s good to see So-Called Dollars from generally notable collectors as well as specialists. I have one from Eric Newman.
Are Hendrickson’s prices attributed to him in any way, like in auction records or on TPG slabs?
Pedigree or Provenance? I don't really care. I call my NGC Registry set my Collection, and some of the medals that I now own have previous collector's ownership listed on the slabs from the original grading, and I am proud to have that history attached to them. I have no idea how many previous owners there were prior to NGC grading these medals, but I doubt that any of them are "one owner" medals.
NGC calls it Pedigree, that is the only reason that I use that word. If they called it Provenance or some other descriptor, I would not feel any differently about my Collection.
Nice. I saw this medal listed on ebay, but I could not pull the trigger on the price that they were asking for it. Congratulations.
Given the large quantities of these medals made and sold, and the time period, it seems that establishing anything more than one or two levels of past ownership wold be extremely difficult to do.
Given the large quantities of these medals made and sold, and the time period, it seems that establishing anything more than one or two levels of past ownership wold be extremely difficult to do.
assuming you're talking about higher grade medals, more scarce medals in the largest, most well known collections I might agree and add that it would be reasonable to expect that.
looking at the HK-308 above, consider that Hibler-Kappen 2nd Edition lists it as an R7(11-20 known). that means there weren't that many struck, probably on demand and more expensive. medals such as that were bought by "people of means" and almost certainly intended as a special memento of a trip to a special event. such things probably stayed in families for generations and wouldn't have been sold. the book by Hibler-Kappen wasn't very widely known so the owners of the scarce/rare medals similar to the HK-308 probably kept them hidden away without knowing what they were, just that they were special, maybe in a Cedar Chest like my Mom had from around 1948.
other members could speak more directly to this because they have reported buying medals as far back as the late 1980's/early 1990's from some of the Exonumia dealers. actually, since HK was published in the 1960's the timing of long held collections coming to market around 2000 makes sense. a 40 year old collector in 1960 would have been 80 in 2000.
I suspect that the bulk of all the SC$'s ever struck sat in limbo somewhere till the 1990's when they finally started to see the light of day.
For the older prices, I think the Hibler/Ostheimer and Ford pieces come up the most, though I've seen some Brand pieces as well.
The best way to keep tracking for new pieces is to get the pedigree on the insert and sell through Stack’s or Heritage.
There may be a marketing component but he also seems to be fairly selective about it. In Jeff's October 14 price list, there are 92 items, only 4 of which are noted as being from the "Jeff Shevlin Collection". There's 1 from the Ostheimer Collection and one from the Bill Weber Collection as well.
Here is an example that was originally owned by Harold Hibler, then by the Ostheimer Collection, is the plate for both examples of the So-Called Dollar reference book, and is now housed in my collection. HK-139 NGC MS 63.