The story of lot 403 - Sorry this set is not for sale. Post of the year 2007

And now for the rest of the story ...

Imagine my surprise when I read Tex's story about this set of coins since I was the person that handled the consignment of these coins along with the grading and lotting of all of the coins in this particular auction. I contacted Tex after seeing this post and told him that I would be giving an update to the story.

The owner of the coins was a gentleman that passed away earlier this year at age 77. I was contacted by an older brother of his whom I know well about liquidating his collection, of which the auction items were just a portion. After seeing Tex's post, I printed a copy for his brother who was obviously moved by it. I then asked if I could respond with a brief synopsis of his life as well.

Bobby was born in 1930 in Minnesota where he attended school through high school until joining the Navy. During his stint in the Navy, he fell off of the wing of a Corsair and suffered head trauma that affected him for the rest of his life. Later on, he ran delivery routes for a local food manufacturing plant until he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, which ended his days making deliveries. He moved into the plant and ended up as the head purchaser before retirement.

He and his wife lived in an apartment above a dairy that ended up burning down in 1974. (Several of the coin lots in the auction were fire-damaged coins.) His wife divorced him shortly after the fire and he never had any children. The MS eventually took its toll, and he spent many years in a wheelchair. He also had many heart problems and heart attacks over the years.

I had the pleasure of meeting Bobby, but never really got to know him. His coin collection was very ecclectic ranging from over 6,000 wheat cents to bags of common coins, silver & gold bullion, gifts that were given to him over the years, and other strange items that always seem to be found in collections. He was also taken advantage of by some very unscupulous dealers over the years as there was a large collection of key date coins that were all fake or altered dates/mintmarks. We have been unable to locate any sales records to determine where he got the coins from, unfortunately.

Of all the items in the collection, the collection of cents that Tex refers to was the only thing that I would describe as something that was worked on for a long time, so it was probably where he started and he continued over time, even when he could afford better items for his collection. The cent set was actually split into two parts - the one Tex has and another collection of proof-only cents from 1938-1990 which I bought out of the auction. It was in an old black binder that was falling apart, so I put both halves into two binders for the auction. If I kept the old binder, I'll send it to Tex if he wants to keep it all together.

By the way, there was no 55DD in the set (I suppose he kept the place holder just in case), but there was a 72DD #1 in there. It was sold as a separate lot in the auction. He did have two 55DD's but they were part of the counterfeit coins.

Hope this helps to put some perspective behind the story.

Jeff