Auction Prices Provide Historical Perspective(Con't)
The announcement by
Goldberg was a watershed, for it marked the true beginning of consideration
of numismatic items as genuine investment vehicles worthy of consideration
by Wall Street types, and others. Barely five years later, the Federal
Reserve Bank of Boston used its prestigious New England Economic
Review to quote from the Salomon Brothers Survey of tangible assets
to show that coins were indeed more than a collectible.
Of course, that's
not the final story for 1794 dollars.
Q.
David Bowers, in his definitive Complete Encyclopedia of US. Dollars (1993),
traces some of the subsequent history. It eventually wound up in the 1975
Bowers & Ruddy Newport Collection sale (Lot 371) where it realized
$75,000; from there, it went to the block in heated competition. By that
time, the Dow was at 857 and the CPI was 53.80 (again, 1982=100).
By 1984, the
Amon Carter specimen (originally purchased at the 1947 Will W. Neil collection
sale conducted by B. Max Mehl for $1,250) hit the block in uncirculated
condition (described as proof-like
by cataloger Norman Stack). It was a significant event for the numismatic
community.
Ed
Milas, of RARCOA, was in attendance and told me at the time that he "had
$150,000 to bid and I thought that would take it." He estimated its pre-sale
value at $120,000 and seemed very confident. Bidder 187, Huge Sconyers,
instead took top honors at $240,000 ($264,000 with the buyer's premium).
By this time the Dow had moved to 1,212
and the CPI had
started its inflationary march to 103.90.
The coin next
showed up in the collection of Jimmy Hayes, which he sold through Stack's
in October 1985 as he prepared to run for Congress. Hayes was known for
his discerning eye for high-quality, better-graded material - and in this
coin he had hit a true mark.
David W. Akers
attended that sale and spoke with me prior to the auction. He graded the
coin MS-63+ and said that he had come to the sale expecting to buy the
coin. It opened at a respectable $75,000 from a mail bidder, and moved
rapidly in $5,000 increments to $80,000, $85,000, then $90,000. Kevin Lipton
jumped in with a bid of $ 100,000, and it was off to the races.
When the smoke
cleared minutes later, Akers had the bid at $200,000 (a $220,000 total
price with buyer's fee). The market for the coin was stabilizing, but not
moving steadily upward. The Dow had advanced to the 1,547 mark and the
CPI was at 107.60; gold was at $318 an ounce - a long way from the $35
an ounce it had been in 1968 and prior going back to the 1930s.
Another MS-63 specimen was the Amon Carter piece that showed up in a Superior
Sale of the Hoagie Carmichael collection in January 1986. That brought
$209,000 and traced its pedigree to the Mehl sale of the Will W. Neil collection
of 1947, and by extension, the earlier Carter coin at $264,000 - a net
decline over the two-year period. (The Dow was at 1,896 and the CPI was
at 109.60, gold was at $368 an ounce.)
The companion Lord
St. Oswald piece, sold to A.H. Baldwin and Lester Merkin on behalf of Ambassador
and Mrs. R. Henry Norweb, was sold by Bowers & Merena in 1988. The price
then: $242,000. Bowers said that which of the two coins is better (at MS63) remains
a "toss-up".