SUBSCRIBER PROFILE: LIANNA SPURRIER

I’ve called myself a coin collector for most of my life. As a kid, I got foreign coins from the Tooth Fairy instead of money, so I kept them in a little ceramic bank. That was my collection.

Fast forward a little. My grandmother’s brother was a hoarder, and when I was 11, she convinced him to move out of his house and my parents and I played a big part in cleaning it out. We found a little glass jar with probably about 50 wheat pennies in it, and I asked to keep it – after all, I already called myself a collector.

When I got it home I had to find out if any of them were valuable, so I started learning about mint marks and key dates, and pretty soon I had them all lined up by date. I got a Dansco album for them soon after and took off.

Through somewhere around 15 I collected avidly, but eventually school got in the way and I had to let it go. I hadn’t paid it much attention since then, but over this last summer (I’m now 21) I decided to catalog my collection and that got me back into it.

I discovered that there was actually a big community of collectors on Instagram, of all places – people buy, sell, and host giveaways, as well as just share their own collections and knowledge. I thought it seemed like fun, so I joined in.

A couple months ago, I entered a giveaway hosted by David McCarthy of Kagin's, for which the grand prize was a 2018/7 dated gold replica of the Plain Obverse Quint; only two were made, and were both struck over 18th century British guineas on an authentic screw press. It was all over Instagram for a month or so, and the winner was announced in the middle of September. Much to my shock, I won the gold replica!

At that point I had to know precisely what I had won, because I’d never heard of the Nova Constellatios before. I started doing some research, and found that there weren’t really any sources that answered all of my questions in one place. It was actually very surprising how poorly documented some aspects of the series were.

I’m a convergent media major at Morehead State University, which includes graphic design, journalism, and video production. In mid-October, I had to make a short documentary for a class, and I decided to cover the Nova Constellatios. We didn’t have very long to work on the project, so it absolutely consumed my life for a little under two weeks.

What most surprised me while working on it was how undocumented the third bit is. It took quite awhile to even confirm that it existed, much less find a picture of it – if you pay close attention, there’s only one photograph of it in the entire project. That’s the only one I could find! Many sources even incorrectly said that all three bits were found before 1900, which isn’t the case.

Overall, I really enjoyed working on this video, and have been astounded by the response – multiple numismatic news outlets have reached out, and David McCarthy himself saw it! It’s been really great to be able to share it with so many other collectors and spread the knowledge.

I graduate in May and intend to return to Louisville, KY, where I grew up. The plan was to go into graphic design, but the response from this project has made me start to consider some other options. Numismatic journalism, perhaps? Video production? Only time will tell.

To watch the complete video, see:
Lost And Found: The Nova Constellatio Set (https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/557666) or
Lost & Found: The Nova Constellatio Set (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bVMPYc17rc)

To visit Lianna's web site, see:
http://liannaspurrier.com/

To read the complete article, see:
The Puzzle of the Nova Constellatios (https://coinweek.com/us-coins/the-puzzle-of-the-nova-constellatios/)

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