"It was the mini-Super Bowl of coins!" exclaimed Anthony Terranova, veteran New York City dealer. What was he referring to? The just-completed sale of Part One of the John J. Ford collection that was auctioned by Stack's last week in the Big Apple. "The Garrett sale was the Super Bowl of coins, but this was the mini-Super Bowl."
The Ford collection (this was the first of many parts) realized $5.6 million as collectors vied for lots that many called "once-in-a-lifetime opportunities."
"There were new levels of value established for many of the coins," Terranova said. "Not only was the sale very strong, 95% of the coins were bought by collectors. This was not a sale where coins were selling to dealers on speculation. The dealers bought the Bank of New York Fugio cents and not much else."
The star of the show was the Confederate States of America half dollar that is believed to be pedigreed to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. "It was the worst of the four known examples but it's still the first one on the market in about a century so there was lots of excitement," Terranova said. The coin realized $632,500.
Two of the four known Continental dollars in silver were offered in the sale with one bringing $287,500 and the other $425,500.
New Silver Dollar Show is red-hot and lukewarm.
The New Silver Dollar Show took place last week in St. Louis, Missouri, with dealer action red-hot even though the public attendance was minimal. This was the second consecutive year that collectors have basically ignored the show.
"Last year we attributed the poor attendance to the bad weather," said Dale Larsen of Spectrum Numismatics in Irvine, California. "This year the weather was perfect and the public still didn't come, so there must be another reason. Even so, the dealer-to-dealer action was everything you could hope for, except that there was a supply problem in the hottest areas of the market."
And what were the hottest areas of the market? "Walking Liberty half dollars, gold and silver dollars," Larsen answered without hesitation. "Gold is up today, too, so the demand continues."
What about type coins? "We don't have many in stock, so the activity in that area isn't too great for us, but the dealers who are inventory-heavy in that market segment report excellent sales."
Bruce Amspacher has been a professional writer since the 1950s and a professional numismatist since the 1960s. He won the OIPA sportswriting award in 1958 and again in 1959, then spent eight years in college studying American Literature. This background somehow led him to become a professional numismatist in 1968. Since then he has published hundreds of articles on rare coins in dozens of publications as well as publishing his own newsletter, the “Bruce Amspacher Investment Report,” for more than a decade. His areas of expertise include Liberty Seated dollars, Morgan and Peace dollars, United States gold coins, sports trivia, Western history, modern literature and the poetry of Emily Dickinson. In 1986 he was a co-founder of the Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS).
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