The next Eliasberg?
Gazes
Posts: 2,315 ✭✭✭✭✭
In Legend's market report today, she states that a "mega collector out there who loves the idea (and is attempting) to be the next Louis Eliasberg." Does anyone know anything more about who this collector is and his collection?
1
Comments
I wonder what date he intends to collect through? If it's 2017, there are going to be a lot bulky recent coins in the set.
I'd much rather be known as the next Harry Bass, If I was contemplating being the "next" big name collector. Just MHO.
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
Most people flame out
Latin American Collection
Even Louis Eliasberg needed a John Clapp to come along.
Laura stated "There is even one mega collector out there who loves the idea (and is attempting) to be the next Louis Eliasberg (he has spent at least $45 MILLION on coins since July).
spending $45 million in 8 months sounds like a lot of money to flame out on
I believe that such person was at the ANA in Anaheim
last August - had his own plane, pilot, etc.
Spent a small fortune, and apparently wants to spend a
good amount more in the future. Mostly gold, from
what I heard from someone who sold him such,
although other coins have caught his interest.
for PCGS. A 49+-Year PNG Member...A full numismatist since 1972, retired in 2022
Please invite him to Long Beach.
I think the airport is too small there.
.......just kiddin'
for PCGS. A 49+-Year PNG Member...A full numismatist since 1972, retired in 2022
That's more PCGS CAC coins than CAC can keep up with....lol. If he wants to be the next Eliasberg, he should have started out by buying TDN's dollar sets, and the best of the Pogue, Gardner, and Newman collections.
Check out the set! WOW!
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/u-s-coins/master-sets/u-s-coins-complete-set-major-varieties-circulation-strikes-proof-1792-1964/alltimeset/150011
Sunshine Rare Coins
sunshinecoins.com/store/c1/Featured_Products.html
If it becomes true, he/she is not within my circle of friends
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
I assumed this was the D.L. Hansen sets. Quite impressive.
It would be pretty hard.
YN Member of the ANA, ANS, NBS, EAC, C4, MCA, PNNA, CSNS, ILNA, TEC, and more!
Always buying numismatic literature and sample slabs.
It's me.
I'm up over 100 coins now. Another fifteen or twenty lifetimes & I should be there....
I have MOST of the Dimes, but can't imagine doing ALL the other Denominations.
Hellos. I am look for someone who trust to help me transfer funds of Nigeria.
Please to send a Sperber and contact information.
Thanks you.
I had a customer in the first shop who collected the WORLD...
By denomination
and date.
Never saw any of his stuff except what he bought from the foreign "junk box."
He did know every coin he had though.
Acckkk!
The Gardner set was done in 20 years. It realized something like $55M. Missed a couple mega-rarities but across the board was higher quality than Eliasberg for the silver pieces. So if this collector is in for $45 million already they have a heckuva start.
A more interesting question - given unlimited funds (like a billion dollars), would it be better to build this set quietly, or to announce to the whole world so as to bring out certain coins from hiding.
I have not seen what he has, but to equal Eliasberg he is going to have to be in the right place at the right time. He'll have be there when the unique 1870-S Three Dollar Gold Piece and only 1822 half eagle that is not in the Smithsonian. I don't think that anyone will be able to do what Eliasberg, and to top it off, Eliasberg bought it all for less than 500 thousand dollars.
I admire what he's trying to do, but getting there is a very long road.
50 million is the new 500k
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
And don't forget the CC no arrows rarities such as the 1873 dime. One stop shop.
A great challenge and pursuit, but with all due respect, how about the Eliasberg UNITED STATES Philippine coins from 1903-47? I did not even see slots for those coins in the registry set? Eliasberg had a wonderful collection of those United States coins. Do they "not count" now? Those slots should also be added to the United States complete collection in my opinion. And, then there is the question of patterns. Not count those either? And, did Eliasberg stop in 1964? I did not realize that. Food for thought. Again, I tip my hat to a collector with such vision.
Just my two cents.
Wondercoin
He's 40.17% of the way on the list of 4461 coins (1792-1964).
It is viewable if you wait about 10 seconds for the initial page to load, and then change View from 50 to 500 per page.
A large number of those are proofs, which are numbered separately from the business strikes.
It looks like he has purchased quite a few proofs, so that likely explains much of the $45m.
The list is a little weird, as it does not have the 1870-s half dime, or the $4 Stellas.
Of course he is free to design his own set.
(I know, the 1870-s was not known to Eliasberg in 1950, but I don't think the 1829 curl base 2 10c was known to Eliasberg, either [it was discovered in 1973], and it's on the list).
The 1873-CC No Arrows 10c is NOT on the list. [Eliasberg famously got it after a wait]
The 1873-CC No Arrows 25c is on the list.
In my view, the set is not completable in a lifetime anymore, as the ultra rarities do not come to auction frequently enough.
But he could probably get 95-98% of the coins in a few decades and have some really good ones.
I get what Elisabeth did and I respect it for the great accomplishment it was...but I just don't see the appeal to doing it today. So many coins and so many of them are just like the other.
Personally I think it would be more interesting if someone did a true type set with every design but every coin was a key date or rarity in high grade.
I think it is an amazing goal and will be quite the adventure. I wish whoever it is the best of luck
$45 million in eight months... wow... sounds as if he (I assume it is a he) is one of the new billionaire's ... and if so, that is not significant money... Cheers, RickO
With that kind of money, I hope he stays out of my area of interest.
Only so much to go around
Dead Cat Waltz Exonumia
"Coin collecting for outcasts..."
As a type collector with wide ranging desire to "acquire examples of just about everything!", I understand the motivation.
But I think even I would get burned out with a task THAT comprehensive. (And that's completely ignoring the $$ involved).
Best of luck to him, though!
Anyone remember the Richmond Collection? It just doesn't get much attention but it was the last attempt to be Eliasberg.
A big set of circ and low tier unc coins just doesn't excite me much. I prefer a themed high grade collection.
Agreed.
The majority of the coins in most "complete sets" can be pretty boring in any grade except top-pops and extraordinary color coins.
And if you're going to be "the next Eliasberg" and do it that way,
better add a couple or three zeros before the decimal place of your budget.
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
Just out of curiosity, what would a top-tier complete set from 1792-1964, or even to date run financially?
$500 Mil?
Later, Paul.
Is this attempt that was mentioned in Laura's market report a high grade attempt ? I would think so with the money that is being spent
I think that he could get to 99%. Above that it gets really tough!
It may not take that long for him to get a majority of the coins.
In the areas that I follow $20 gold and pl/DMPL Morgan's, he purchased the #1 $20 gold set and the #2 DMPL Morgan set.
So if you own any complete sets that are near the top ranked, you might be contacted soon.
Look at his current list of sets
https://pcgs.com/SetRegistry/d/othersets/53895
I think the same and when I remember correctly Eliasberg was quite a high grade collection, gold, silver and copper as well.
e.g. I have seen many 1795 eagles, including quite a few PCGS and NGC 65 coins, but the Pogue 66+ coin is just completely different to everything else I saw. These are the kind of coins I love and sometimes you have to wait 30 years to be able to buy it and then in your life time never again.
its mixed, 10% high grades and the rest low grades or average. Cant really see a strategy behind.
As a type collector who has done all of the types on the NGC registry from the 1793 Half Cent to the $50 Pan PAC coins, I did get "collector fatigue" in a few spots. The 1873-4 With Arrows Dime, Quarter and Half Dollar come immediately to mind. Those coins are scarce, expensive and frequently over graded.
Having put together full sets of business strike Buffalos and Walkers that took me over ten years, I cannot imagine the scope of such a project. I give the collector credit for embarking on it -- for the coins that are of interest to me, he had a lot of second tier stuff but it looks like he has accumulated some very nice gold coins among others.
"Look up, old boy, and see what you get." -William Bonney.
Could be true. If 4461 is the true list, 99% would be short of this by 45 coins.
I can see getting all but 20 of the business strike coins, over many years.
Getting all but 20 of the proofs would be really hard, though.
The answer for a % depends a lot on what exactly the list is.
Is it the current list in the PCGS registry? Or something closer to what Eliasberg's collection was?
Also, the goal has been stated in the registry set description that the set would be higher grade than Eliasberg's:
"About This Set: The Eliasburg Challenge. The goal is to build as complete a set as is possible in a better grade than the legendary Eliasberg. A worthy challenge Let the work begin!!!"
This could be defined in different ways.
A strict definition would be that the grade of every coin has to be at least as high as Eliasberg's specimen, and some of the coins are graded higher.
That will be very hard to do for some of the extreme rarities.
It will be hard enough just to get one of those in close to the same grade.
So it could be defined a little less strictly by having a (weighted) "average grade" higher than Eliasberg's.
This could be abused if the weighting is manipulated, for example if a 1964-D Lincoln cent got the same weight
as a 1793 Chain cent.
Part of the work/fun would be in figuring out exactly what the current grade of each Eliasberg specimen is. Many of the specimens have been traced, but doing all 4400 or so is a sizable task. I don't see Eliasberg's full set listed in the registry at present, although some of his smaller sets are listed under All Time Finest (All Eras).
Here is one example, gold dollars. 3 of the coins were traced to current PCGS grades in 2011:
https://pcgs.com/SetRegistry/alltimeset/4183
Gold dollars are quite small, so they might be among the most challenging to trace forward to current slabs.
I read some where that a guy bought a set of $20 type one double eagles. I wonder if it is the same guy that just bought the 1794 Bust Dollar for around $10MM. All it takes is lots of money and the coins will come looking for you when you can toss around that much money. That excludes the 1933 and 1849 Double Eagles.
A few posts up in this thread, @10000lakes posted that D.L. Hansen bought the #1 registry set of $20s.
More info from the person who sold him the $20 set, in a January 21 thread:
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/comment/11628186
No, D.L. Hansen is not that person. That person is "tradedollarnut", who posted higher up in this thread.
Having money will get you partway on the quest. But some people will no doubt "test the waters" with very high asking prices, so $$ won't get you everything so easily.
People who think it just takes money really have no clue. I waited 15 years to acquire two coins that I was willing to overpay for from day one...
Well he has to complete a much larger set of 4461 coins. I don't think that every coin is going to be a top pop.
Maybe he will be in the market for your hand me downs
I'm not really familiar with the exact grade level of the Eliasberg collection.
I know he had most of the major rarities, but what grade level were the coins that made up most of the set?
Eliasberg had a lot of proofs in place of business strikes. It was just the way coins were collected then. Apples to oranges
Choice Proofs are of cheaper and easier to find that Mint State coins for some series.
I found the set comparison.
The set without the varieties has 2822 coins.
https://pcgs.com/SetRegistry/complete-sets/master-sets/u-s-coins-complete-basic-set-circulation-strikes-1792-1964/3406
Yes. But, Eliasberg also had all the mint marked pieces, many in astounding condition. That's not easy to do. CC, S, O, D and D, and C in all the metals that applied. Just the 19th century alone is ridiculous. I'll give the "poor guy" a pass on having used some Philly Proofs in place of business strikes.
........and many of those proofs were to die for.
Good point.
So a better match to this in terms of item count might be the "Basic" Set, which does not count the Proof coins separately:
https://pcgs.com/SetRegistry/complete-sets/master-sets/u-s-coins-complete-basic-set-circulation-strikes-1792-1964/3406
It has 2822 items, and D.L. Hansen has 49.15% completion at present.
Eliasberg's set is listed in this category, with some traced grades and many estimated grades.
However, only the business strike coin grades are used in the set lists.
[1000lakes beat me to this; I didn't see his post until after I was writing mine]
Ambitious goal, and I wish him luck.
Hopefully this person is not just going to be throwing money around, but will become an active member of the collecting community and perhaps even this forum.
He added this to his set just today. Absolutely amazing...
Set published.
126 items added.
16 items swapped.
Tie breaker revision.
Later, Paul.
I'd think the best way to do this would be to enlist a small network of people who are capable but can keep things confidential. In that way purchases can be made over time without arousing suspicion about the goal.
As soon as the goal becomes known, in order to obtain any of the really hard coins (which would command high prices under any circumstances) extortion payments would be required.
I don't understand the value in going public at the outset?
Then again, it sure isn't me assembling this monster!!!
Link to bio on Dell Loy Hansen:
http://www.utahbusiness.com/dell-loy-hansen-helm-modern-business-empire/
He is about to displace me as #2 on my registry collection of IHC proofs. Like mine, his set is predominately colored IHC proofs and all of very high grade.
For those of you that might be interested.
OINK