Baltimore June 2017: Day One (Thursday) and Two
EVillageProwler
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My morning did not start auspiciously. I hadn't been feeling well for a while, fighting a persistent cough. So, Wednesday night I went to bed without setting my own alarm, expecting that my wife would wake me before she left for work. She didn't, and I overslept enough to be behind schedule by 1 hour. This was a big deal for me since I had an appointment in the afternoon inside the convention center. I hurried through my morning routine and my packing, and flew down in my Mini with nary a traffic issue. Good.
Got to the convention center a bit after 2pm, dropped off a vegetable platter and a large bag of walnuts for a dealer who recently had a serious heart attack. Met up with my appointment to look over his stuff and ended up buying five pieces (more on them later). The price tag hurt, but was offset by another dealer's check for having sold a coin of mine. So far, net is a minor outlay of cash for me. (This should please my wife.)
I walk around a bit looking for my usual suspects. (For those who don't know, unlike others who walk the floor aisle by aisle and table by table, I only hit those few dealers I feel like hitting.) I hit one dealer from whom I never considered having I like, but I usually go see him anyway because I like him and just enjoy seeing his smile. (At the past couple of NYINC, I bring cheese and crackers to his wine at his table.) Today, the dealer who wrote me the check told me to go to his table to look at a specific coin. And, yes, it is a coin worth the look. It is in one of my main areas of collecting, in a lofty grade, with excellent eye appeal, and a rare type. It is also not cheap. (I will take another look in the morning.)
I walk some more. Next up is a dealer who usually carries raw stuff including nice circulated Austrian and German States silver pieces. This time, he has a nice Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel Death of Magdalena taler, probably ChAU to low MS but with a rim issue. (This type is hard to grade for me because BOTH sides are packed with inscriptions, so looking for high point wear or field scuffs is not possible.) He also has a (possibly) AU early 16th century German States guldiner that was very handsome, but with a modest amount of planchet stress. Other stuff worth looking at, but nothing that screamed my name. But, who knows what the next day will bring with this dealer -- he has modestly priced material that allows me to do impulse buying like in March when I bought from him a totally gorgeous early Baptismal taler.
Moving onto another usual suspect with a large inventory of slabbed choice material... This time, he didn't have as much for me at the show because the stuff I really wanted to see (again, having done so in March) was back in his office. Good, or bad depending one's perspective, news that he pulled from his show inventory three new German States pieces including one OH-MY-GOD gem piece that also was very PL as well as a low MS 1-1/2 taler from Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel. (The third piece was a high-grade and very attractive taler klippe.) The OH-MY-GOD piece was priced VERY high.
Decisions, decisions, decisions... Day two will be a struggle for me.
Came back to the hotel room to discuss the 5 newps with @Nap (yes, these are Anglo-Saxon pieces). Then went out to dinner with some light-side folks at Bo Brooks and got blue crabs with Chesapeake Bay seasoning and mallets. Tasty!!!
Onto my newps, which are five Anglo-Saxon sceattas. All grades are by the dealer. Images from my iPhone 6.
The first is a Primary Phase sceatt, Saroaldo (type 11), 1.19g, c. 700. SCBC 784. Stylized bust right; pseudo-legend around standard. EF and very rare with minor encrustation on reverse standard.
The second coin is a Secondary Phase sceatt, Series K type 32a, c. 725-740. SCBC 803C. Kingdom of Kent, Aethelberht II. Bust right with cross before, holding cup; wolf curled. EF, and extremely rare with some minor encrustation.
The third coin is a Secondary Phase sceatt, Series N type 41a, c. 725-740. SCBC 806. Kingdom of Kent, Aethelberht II. Two standing figures with cross between; crested monster left looking right. EF, and very rare.
The fourth coin is a Secondary Phase sceatt, Series V, type 7, c. 720. SCBC 817. Kingdom of Mercia, Aethelbald. Wolf and twins; bird in stalks. EF/GVF, and extremely rare. This coin looks so much nicer in hand, with good detail on both sides.
The fifth coin is a Primary Phase sceatt, Series A, type 3, c. 690. Unlisted in SCBC. Kingdom of Kent, Wihtred. Radiate bust right facing runes; standard, TOTII. EF, and extremely rare. This type has the obverse bust style as SCBC 775 but with runes in SCBC 779 instead of TIC.
How does one get a hater to stop hating?
I can be reached at evillageprowler@gmail.com
Comments
I managed to get there today... I suppose this was just one of those shows where I did not look hard enough.
Congrats on the nice looking finds
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Day two did not start auspiciously either because day one finished very badly: I am sharing a room with two very close friends, and it's been a very long time that we shared a room together in Baltimore. One of us prefers the A/C to be at Arctic conditions, while the other two prefer the room temperate. One of us is a heavy snorer, one is a sound sleeper, and the third is a light sleeper. To make a long story short, I got very little sleep and woke up after 9am.
I make it to the dealer holding the previously mentioned coin from Thursday by around 10:20 and we discuss the coin. I offered him some coins in trade to try to ease the pain for me, but ultimately I end up buying the coin.
Italian States, Kingdom of Naples and Sicily. Carlo III. (25.49g, 12h) 120 Grana. Dated 1752. Beautiful original patina, and slightly PL. A rare 4-year type in a very lofty grade. MIR 337/2, Pannuti-Riccio 30, Davenport 1400.
Ex Aureo & Calicó 290 (16 March 2017), lot 262.
My funds deeply impaired because I paid for the 120 Grana coin in full (no trade in for one of my less loved pieces), I head over to the dealer with the OH-MY-GOD German States coin to tell him that I cannot do it.
Adrift, I make my way to the Legend Numismatics table to look at lots in their upcoming Regency auction. Great coins a-plenty, and made me really miss light-side collecting even more.
Ate lunch and went back to the hotel room to sleep a bit. Feeling refreshed, I head back to the show and make my rounds again to chat up people. Ended up buying a really sweet German States "wildman" taler for a shockingly hard-to-pass price. More details on this story...
This dealer is someone I am quite fond of. I like his sense of humor, his eye for coins, and his professional integrity. At this show, his team consisted of him and his wife. A very pleasant lady. He runs an errand, so I chat with her a bit. I look at some coins and she remarks that a certain coin in the inventory is her favorite. It's a "wildman" taler, one of a few in the case. So I mention to her the irony despite the prettiness of the design it's actually a memorial of all the negative aspects of European colonialism. Dealer returns and somehow the conversation turns to his wife's favorite coin's value. I casually ask him how much he'd sell it for, to which he responded with a serious number below his list. So, I smile and nod and say nothing. He asks me what I am thinking, and I told him that I don't want to answer him because my number for the coin is very far apart from his. He asks me for my number anyway, so I tell him and he says "is that a real number or are you just playing with me"? I told him that if he offered it to me at that price, I'd write a check now. And so I did. I showed a light-side friend the coin later and he now wants to buy it from me. At my cost. The friend price. Normally I won't mind but in this case I actually want the coin because it is so pretty.
German States, Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel. Rudolf August & Anton Ulrich. Taler. Dated 1704. A super-choice, all-original, large scale Wildman Taler toned in pretty shades of blue with a dash of rose. KM-A637, Davenport 2112.
Currently housed in a large-size PCGS holder, but that will change when I get home so I can weigh it and slip it in a PVC-free flip.
Unsure what my plans are for later, but will update if noteworthy. Saturday morning is my travel day; no final trip to the convention show for two hours...
How does one get a hater to stop hating?
I can be reached at evillageprowler@gmail.com
Depends on what you were looking for and when you got there. This show is generally light on cool world stuff. My Anglo-Saxon stuff came from a dealer who doesn't have a table and we pre-arranged the meet. Otherwise, there is Atlas, Andy Lustig, CRO and James Beach. The summer show, being too close to Long Beach, was missing several of the west coast dealers like Teller, Karl Stephens, etc.
How does one get a hater to stop hating?
I can be reached at evillageprowler@gmail.com
I noticed there were some folks MIA.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
I disagree. You may come to this idea from your modern point of view but the wildman motif was present in medieval European art and literature and can be linked to characters such as Enkidu from the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh.
Those are great pieces, thanks for sharing!
Thank you for the interesting show report and pictures of your newps.