KOLBE & FANNING 2016 REVIEW OF PRIVATE SALES

PREV ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE FULL ISSUE PREV FULL ISSUE

V19 2016 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 19, Number 52, December 25, 2016, Article 2

David Fanning submitted this summary of Kolbe & Fanning private sales of important numismatic literature in 2016. Thanks! -Editor

With another year coming to a close, we wanted to draw some attention to a lesser-known area of our business: private sales. While our various public auctions, mail-bid sales and other well-publicized activities are widely known, we often have the opportunity to handle some wonderful volumes that never receive full treatment in print. Here are a few highlights from 2016:

One of the most extraordinary items we handled this year consisted of two nicely bound volumes from the library of Peter Mougey, a name familiar to collectors of U.S. large cents and aficionados of the Tom Elder sale catalogues. One of the volumes included several sale catalogues issued by George Cogan, including both of his extremely rare photographically plated sales: those of the J. Wily Aulick collection and the Charles Britton collection, both sold in 1883. Our records located only three plated copies of the Aulick sale, which isn’t even listed as existing in some of the major bibliographies covering U.S. coin sales. But the Aulick sale pales in comparison to the Britton sale, for which we found only a single auction record in the modern era. Indeed, it was the first copy we had handled. That both of these legendary rarities were bound together in the same volume, and were from the library of a famous collector, made these very memorable indeed.

Another memorable item was a typewritten letter, signed in ink, dated May 10, 1916, from artist A.A. Weinman to George F. Kunz of Tiffany & Co. Weinman is most famous for his Walking Liberty Half Dollar and Liberty Head (“Mercury”) Dime. In this letter, Weinman wrote, “I have but today finished the two obverses, of the Half Dollar and the Dime and am now finishing the reverse for the latter.” Weinman letters are uncommon, and such a highly detailed letter with significant content, written in his most prolific year of numismatic activity, was a real treat for us to handle.

Another letter sold during 2016 was a remarkable handwritten note by James Earle Fraser (designed of the Buffalo nickel, among other numismatic items) discussing the design of the Harriman Memorial Medal, held by some to be his finest work. In this note, written in pencil in 1913 (his best-known year for numismatic activity), Fraser discusses the medal, which portrays a railroad brakeman, and elegantly expresses his realistic approach to iconography: “I wanted some design that would pertain to railroading and not a mythical figure that would have but little interest for people of today.” The letter is a most interesting and detailed examination of a famous medal by the artist himself.

It was a year for letters, and a group of six handwritten, signed letters from 1856 by Thomas Wyatt, the notorious forger of early American coins, was a real contender for the most fascinating item we sold in 2016. These got a fair amount of non-print publicity, and have since been written up in one of David Fanning’s Asylum columns, but they never made it into a catalogue.

A rare early American article by John Allan on coins and medals, unlisted by Attinelli, was another wonderful piece of history we were privileged to handle. Published in the American Journal of Science and Arts in 1839, the article consists of a general overview of the subject of numismatics, with a focus on the development of the medallic art in Europe and the United States since the Renaissance. It is of considerable importance as one of the very few numismatic works published in this country in the 1830s and as perhaps the only numismatic work authored by Allan.

Finally, our firm brokered the sale of a remarkable collection of foreign numismatic auction catalogues including significant offerings of American coins. This is an area of the hobby that is finally receiving some attention, though most collectors remain unaware of just how many important U.S. coins were sold in European auctions in the nineteenth century. It is an area of U.S. numismatics that deserves substantially more research attention than it has received, and we suspect activity in this area to increase considerably.

Most of the above items were sold privately for the simple reason that we knew we had a particular customer for them. The more we know about our clients’ collecting interests or research needs, the better we’re able to assist them. Send us your want list. We can’t promise to fill it, and we can’t promise that you’ll be the only client to ask for a particular item, but the odds are in your favor if we know what you are looking for! Want lists can be placed through our website at numislit.com or directly to David Fanning at df@numislit.com.

Finally, we are always interested in purchasing outstanding individual works or libraries at amounts fully commensurate with their significance. All such transactions are entirely confidential if so desired.