Heritage Blog

Coin Monday: To Be Continued?

2010-08-10T08:48:00.004-05:00

Aug. 10, 2010
Written by John Dale

(As you will read below, which I will let JDB explain in more detail, the Heritage blog is going to be taking a sabbatical. It is only fitting that John be the one to sign off, for the time being at least, as he's held down the majority of the writing for the better part of the last year. For that, and for his continuing good work and insight in all the aspects of his work, he has my thanks, as do those of you who have read this blog over the last two years. Best, Noah.)

This will be the last time you see me in this space for a while.

The Heritage Auctions blog is going into mothballs, to be re-evaluated in a year. I’d love to see it come back, but since there are no guarantees and I’ll be waiting a year in the best case, I want to send this incarnation of the blog out in style.

One of my regrets is that in a year and a half of blogging for Heritage, I haven’t been able to make a decent Viking reference. Thus, today’s topic is this Norse-American Centennial medal, part of the Dr. and Mrs. Claude Davis Collection in Heritage’s ready-to-launch August 2010 Official ANA Auction in Boston. http://www.HA.com/1143

The Norse medal, as it is usually abbreviated, has an unusual place in U.S. numismatics. Unlike many medals of its time, it is fairly well-established as an object for mainstream coin collecting. I have described it as an “honorary commemorative” in Heritage catalogs, and the history of the Norse medal is closely knotted with the silver commemoratives of the same era.

In fact, those other commemoratives are the reason the Norse medal is a medal and not a coin.
Several different commemorative coin issues were being struck or authorized in 1925; coins dated 1925 include the Lexington-Concord, the Stone Mountain (Georgia), the California Diamond Jubilee, and the Fort Vancouver (Washington) Centennial, and the 1927 Vermont (or Battle of Bennington) commemorative was authorized the same year. Many more commemorative bills were filed, only to die in committee.

The 1925 Minnesota State Fair featured the Norse-American Centennial, a celebration of early Norwegian immigrants’ arrival to the U.S. in 1825 and subsequent Norwegian contributions to American life and culture. The sponsor of the bill that created the Norse medal was Ole Juulson Kvale, a U.S. Representative from Minnesota of Norwegian descent, who was elected to the House in 1923.

Kvale was well-placed to influence the business of commemorative coinage bills, as he served on the responsible House committee. Through his service, however, he must have been aware of the logjam of commemorative coin bills. To win passage, he made the Norse commemorative a medal instead of a coin. Kvale’s bill passed out of the House and eventually became law.

Norse medals are eight-sided with a Leif-Eriksson-before-longboat motif on the obverse and a longboat on the reverse. The design was by James Earle Fraser, who is better known as the creator of the Buffalo nickel. Medals were made on thin and thick planchets, the vast majority in silver like the present piece, but also 100 struck in gold, like this September 2002 offering.

To be continued...

Coin Tuesday: The Mule

2010-08-03T11:12:00.004-05:00

Aug. 3, 2010
Written by John Dale

The Mule, or, A Mildly Embellished Slice of Life:

"Coin question.”

I looked up. It was one of the photographers. Young guy.

“Coin question? What’s up?” I asked.

“What’s a mule?”

I filed my first response — too much Captain Obvious — away for later. He did say “coin question,” after all. I owed him a Serious Professional answer.

“It’s a coin with two sides that don’t match. Like if a Washington quarter obverse was put together with a Sacagawea dollar reverse.”

I wondered to myself: which coin brought this on?

I started checking through the coins in the Boston ANA Auction in my head. Mules, mules… there was that one pattern with the three dollar gold obverse and the Shield five cent obverse on the same nickel planchet, Judd-531A, by the numbers, and unique by the book… that thing was cool, but weird - seriously weird even by pattern coin standards. New nickname for the Judd-531A: the Lady Gaga.

Maybe it was something else. Another Shield nickel pattern, perhaps?

There was the one dated 1865 with a reverse that has no rays between the stars, the Judd-418. Shield nickels weren’t made for circulation until 1866, and the No Rays reverse didn’t come out to play until 1867, so the two sides didn’t go together. Was there a little Mint hanky-panky at work? Almost certainly, just like with the Lady Gaga.

Two possibilities. I had to ask:

“So which coin is it?”

“This Gobrecht dollar. I was working on the video and it was in the script.”

Gobrecht dollar? I checked the script. Oh, right. Lot 3284, the Judd-65. It pairs the no-stars obverse used on Judd-60 Gobrecht dollars with the no-stars reverse used on Judd-84 Gobrechts. Subtle, but definitely a mule.

I explained what made the Gobrecht dollar a mule. He got the general idea, if not the terminology.

“All right. I still don’t get why they call it a mule, though.”

City kid. It was time to break out the Captain Obvious. I smirked a bit as I slipped into the voice I usually reserve for non-precocious three-year-olds.

“Well, you see, when a horse and a donkey love each other very much…” […and the horse is a male and the donkey is a female, you get a hinny. – Noah]

“Oh, I gotcha.” He cracked up. Point for me.

He got in a parting shot, though. As he walked away, he muttered under his breath, just loud enough for me to hear, in true non-collector fashion:

“Coin weenies," he said. "What’ll they think of next?”

Coin Monday: The Quantum Pedigree

2010-07-26T15:36:00.004-05:00

July 26, 2010

Written by John Dale

Schrödinger’s cat is dead. Schrödinger’s cat is not dead. Schrödinger’s cat is replaced by Schrödinger himself whenever I consider his thought experiment, because I could never do that to a kitty. (I skipped the AP Biology course in high school because I would have had to dissect a cat. To do that and then go home to Bootsie, Callie, and Tribble... it wasn’t happening.)

Quantum states, probability and uncertainty, the idea that the top card of a shuffled deck is 1/52 an ace of spades and just as much a deuce of clubs until the moment you turn it over… it’s rare that such concepts can be applied to numismatics. Most coin information is either treated as established fact or considered unknowable, lost in myriad possibilities. We know whether Schrödinger is dead or not dead… or we will never be able to open the box.

Yet I came across an instance recently with two well-defined and discrete possibilities, served up with a large side of uncertainty. There were two Plain Edge, Wire Rim Saint-Gaudens ten dollar pattern coins made in 1907. Heritage has one of them, the only one known to have survived, in its upcoming Official ANA U.S. Coin auction in Boston.

The known history of this particular coin goes back only a few years. Yet recent numismatic research has revealed what happened to the two Plain Edge, Wire Rim tens immediately after they were struck:

In mid-July 1907, one was sent to then-Secretary of the Treasury George B. Cortelyou, who forwarded the coin to President Theodore Roosevelt. The other was sent to the coins’ designer, the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

One coin, two possible destinations… Roosevelt or Saint-Gaudens, president or artist… a quantum pedigree.

If the coin went to President Roosevelt, then it was seen by the man who made coin design reform his “pet crime,” whose drive and determination had brought the project this far and would see it through after the death of Saint-Gaudens. Impressive history, and yet this coin could be even more important.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens died on August 3, 1907. He did not live to see his designs on circulating coinage. In fact, he only ever saw his work in coin form once, just weeks before his death, when he was sent the Plain Edge, Wire Rim ten in mid-July. If this is the Saint-Gaudens coin, then it is the only Saint-Gaudens gold coin that the artist himself ever saw. The possibility is historically important and emotionally resonant.

Little is known about either coin in the time after distribution. The Saint-Gaudens coin fell completely off the radar, while archived Mint materials indicate that the Roosevelt specimen was sent back to the Mint. Just as there is no record of the Saint-Gaudens piece in the artist’s estate, there is no record of the Roosevelt piece in the National Numismatic Collection, successor to the Mint cabinet.

Assuming only one of the Plain Edge, Wire Rim tens survived, which environment would be more likely to produce a single coin in private hands: the Mint, where many patterns were saved for the Mint cabinet but many more were melted; or the estate of Saint-Gaudens, where family members and relations-in-art were grieving over his death?

The latter environment, with its reverence for all things Saint-Gaudens, seems far more likely to have preserved its Plain Edge, Wire Rim ten; thus, it gets the nod from Heritage’s perspective as the pattern’s more likely origin.

For now, uncertainty reigns… though not only uncertainty, but also probability and hope. Beyond the known lies the possible, and someday, a future researcher poring through Mint correspondence or the Saint-Gaudens archives may find the answer, the one key clue that opens the box and reveals the truth, attaching a single story to this singular pattern.

Until then, we can savor the possibilities.

To leave a comment, click on the title of the post.

-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday (Written on a Friday): Two Minus One

2010-07-19T14:10:00.005-05:00

July 19, 2010

Written by John Dale

Writing this on a Friday, because I’m going to have a busy Monday, and today’s topic is one of the reasons…

“Boys lie. So do statistics.” – anonymous math student

I’m not that student; I’m more “Numbers don’t lie; people do.”

I don’t know if that makes me an idealist about numbers or a cynic about humans.

Maybe numbers don’t lie, but they can be wrong. In the case of certified coin populations, such as the NGC Census Report, there are a couple of ways the numbers can be wrong. Clerical errors are easily corrected, but another source is more insidious: the re-submission.

Imagine a coin in an AU55 NGC holder.

For whatever reason, the owner thinks it’s undergraded. A relatively common practice (best left to professionals) is to remove the coin from its sealed holder, voiding the service’s guarantee (also known as a “break-out” or a “crack-out”), and then submit the coin to NGC again. Resubmissions can be costly, but when a difference of one grade point can mean tens of thousands of dollars in added value, there is plenty of incentive to try.

A negative to re-submissions is that each one is logged in the grading service’s records, and one AU55 coin, for example, could be resubmitted a dozen or more times in the hopes of getting that better grade. The result? One coin, one person, but a dozen extra AU55-graded coins in the Census. Bad times.

The antidote is a system wherein the paper labels (or tags) from inside the holders can be sent to NGC later. A label without a holder means that the holder must be broken. The coin may still exist, but the whole package — that is, the NGC-certified coin in that particular holder with that particular serial number on the label — no longer does.

The system works most of the time, but even it has its glitches…which brings me to one of the most beautiful coins of the upcoming August 2010 Official ANA U.S. Coin Auction in Boston. It is an 1883 half eagle, graded MS67 by NGC with the Star designation for exceptional eye appeal.

We had offered the coin before, in November 2004. It was in a different holder then, the finest example of the issue by two points with a Star designation on top, absolutely a killer coin, the best imaginable. How could any other 1883 half eagle match it?

It came around again for Boston, with a new owner…and a new holder. The coin had been re-submitted, and there were two MS67 Star coins in the Census. The two coins were the same; the cataloger was sure of it. Everything matched, from the color to the small flaw below the eagle’s left wing. The Census, couldn’t be ignored, though. There’s a world of difference between one coin and two. He had to acknowledge the two entries.

I got good news today, though. The second entry in the Census was still in there by mistake, and it’s going to be removed. The change should show up when the Census updates on Monday. I’m hoping that when I get in on Monday, the update will be in place, and I can change how the description looks online.

It’ll be yet another task on a busy Monday morning, but I’ll be happy to do it.

Sole finest, royalty among coins restored to its throne…that’s something to celebrate.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Harvey Pekar – a Splendid American

2010-07-14T09:11:00.005-05:00

July 14, 2010

Written by David Tosh

(It is with a heavy heart that the Heritage blog is posted today, some three days after the demise of Harvey Pekar, he of American Splendor fame. The post below is more than ably written by my fellow Heritage employee David Tosh, well known to any one that knows comics... David writes eloquently and movingly about Pekar's passing earlier this week. Needless to say, it is a bitter pill to swallow. Pekar was a singular talent, a man of peculiar brilliance and refracted insight, whose brilliant writing made the everyday epic. American Splendor was one of my favorite comics through my 20s, and I can remember being barely 12 when he was on Letterman, and watching his appearances, not knowing how much of an inspriation he would be to me in my own attempt at a writing career so many years later. Believe it or not, I used to write plays and have them produced in New York City, and I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that Harvey's terse, scathingly funny dialogue didn't influence my own attempts at drama. Harvey, btw, did it much much better... - Noah Fleisher)

In the middle of scrambling through the business of the day, I got stopped in my tracks by a bit of news this morning. The message made its way to me by email: “Harvey Pekar (PEE’-kahr), whose American Splendor was made into a 2003 film starring Paul Giamatti, has been found dead in his Cleveland, Ohio home.”

Wow. I knew this guy.

In fact, I’ve known of him for many, many years.

I first became aware of this most unusual name back in the early 1970s. It was in the pages of an underground comic book that I read one of Pekar’s first published comic strips, which was about his love of junk food like Hostess Fruit Pies and corn chips, and how everyone gave him a hard time for not eating more healthy fare. Harvey didn’t care – he liked what he liked, and that was good enough for him. Later, he started publishing his own comic, American Splendor, with artistic help from his old Cleveland buddy, Robert Crumb.

The comic was entirely self-published, as a professionally produced magazine with a slick, four-color cover and crisply printed black and white interior pages, featuring artwork by Crumb and others. Harvey himself didn’t draw beyond the “stick figure” layouts he provided his artists.

What Harvey did do was write – not about superheroes, or exaggerated fantasies, but about what happened at work last week (he was a file clerk for many years), breaking up with a wife or girlfriend, dealing with a car that wouldn’t run, or even about the best place to grab a good cheap taco. It was “slice of life” all the way, and often the stories seemed pretty mundane, but they tended to stick in your mind. His stories were about ordinary people doing things we could all identify with, told in a matter-of-fact style, and he wasn’t afraid to tell it like it really was, even if it meant exposing his own personal flaws.

His “slice of life” stories greatly inspired me, back when I wanted to be a comic book artist myself, so much so that I named my first little home-made comics company Slice O’ Life Press. Pekar managed to publish about one issue of American Splendor a year back in the late 1970s/early 1980s, and I kept up with most of them (whenever I could find them). A couple of years later, I got the chance to see R. Crumb at a rare comic book convention appearance. I attended Crumb’s panel, and talk turned to Pekar and Crumb’s work illustrating stories for American Splendor.

It quickly became apparent that the majority of the people in attendance that day knew little or nothing about Harvey or his comics. That would soon change.

While Harvey’s fans may have been few and far between in those days, his work made it all the way to David Letterman, who was impressed enough to invite him on his “Late Night” show. That was quite an accomplishment for Harvey, but rather than seeing this as the opportunity to turn on millions to his comics, he preferred to turn the table on his host by being deliberately obstinate, obnoxious, unruly, and downright ugly. It was all a game to Harvey, but the novelty quickly wore thin with Letterman, who banned Pekar after only a few appearances.

Harvey knew what he was doing, though. There’s something about being banned that made people sit up and take notice. Soon, American Splendor started selling, and in time Harvey himself was a guest at one of the Dallas Fantasy Fair comic book conventions that I attended regularly. It was at this first Dallas appearance that I got to meet and hang out with Harvey and his new wife, Joyce. Knowing what a voracious reader he was, I would up taking Harvey to a big Half Price Books store, and we spent several hours digging through musty old tomes. Harvey walked out with a big stack of books, and I made a new friend.

American Splendor continued to make a bigger and bigger splash, and back issues were soon reprinted in trade paperback anthologies. Other publishers rushed in to finance Pekar’s comics, and a small but dedicated cult audience followed every issue. Eventually Hollywood called, and a well-received feature film was the result. It was a little strange to sit and watch this movie, especially the scenes with Paul Giamatti as Harvey and James Urbaniak as Crumb, having lunch together.

“I know these guys in real life!” I would say to whoever was within earshot.

“Big deal! Shut up and watch the movie!” I can hear them say in return.

It’s been many years now since I last talked to Pekar, way before the movie made him better known. Back when I did know him, he seemed upbeat, not a curmudgeon as he’s usually described. I remember asking him to write an introduction to a book of my comic strips that I was trying to get published. I gave him a copy of the prototype, and figured if I was lucky, he’d send me a few words. In pretty short order, he called me, reading off what he had written. It was a wonderful introduction – too bad the book was never published.

I’ve heard Harvey was depressed a lot in later years, and dealt with a variety of health problems, including prostate cancer. It seems obtaining something one strives for all their life, like the fame and recognition Pekar finally got for his work after many long, lean years, can mean little when your health starts slipping.

Maybe Harvey should have listened to his mother and well-meaning pals back when they tried to get him to eat right. Nah – that just wouldn’t be Harvey. He was his own man, and he insisted on playing the game as best he could on his own terms.

Now Harvey has passed away. I’m floored by learning this, and my first instinct was to pick up the phone and call Crumb, whom I’ve managed to get to know pretty well in the past few years (I can’t help but think it was because my first contact with Crumb was to talk about Pekar – that must have made an impression). We spent a few moments reflecting on our fallen friend.

At least now the rest of the world managed to catch up with this fascinating, creative man, who did something many others have tried to do without success: make ordinary, day-to-day life seem much more interesting. In that regard, Harvey Pekar did a splendid job. He will be missed.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-David Tosh

Coin Monday: A Shield Her Only Armor

2010-07-12T14:40:00.006-05:00

July 12, 2010

Written by John Dale

The Boston ANA U.S. Coin Auction is complete, at least on the cataloging end.

The work was a bit rough — worked three consecutive weekends, and the catalogs themselves are going to be workout-gear heavy — but we pulled through. Cataloging isn’t all I’ll be doing for the auction, though. There will be proofreading and a trip out to the printer before the auction is truly over for me. I’d like to give myself a pat on the back, but I don’t want to get overconfident.

About the time I get up and shout “I am invincible!” like Boris Grishenko is about the time the vats of liquid nitrogen rupture and freeze me in my victory pose. I’ve had that happen to me plenty of times... part of growing up, I guess, like the moment when I saw a picture of the latest teen starlet and, instead of thinking “She’s cute,” it was “Honey, who DRESSED you? Put some clothes on!”

Plenty of collectors have had similar thoughts about one of my favorite U.S. coinage designs, the “Type One” Standing Liberty quarter, struck in 1916 and earlier in 1917. (A gorgeous 1917-D Type One is part of the Boston auction’s Platinum Night.) Hermon MacNeil might not win any praise from abstract art fanatics, but as an academic and public-art sculptor he was more than capable.

MacNeil’s semi-nude concept of Liberty standing with an invincible shield of the Republic was one of the winners of a closed competition. (More on this point later.) A majority of 1917 Standing Liberty quarters are not the Type One, however, but Type Two.

The most immediately visible modification on the Type Two coins is a chainmail cover-up on Liberty. Personally, I think it looks rather ridiculous compared to the Type One. Whenever I think of chainmail gowns, I think of Tina Turner in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, and the train of thought gets more ridiculous from there, usually ending with a spotlight on Miss Liberty as she trades her shield for a microphone and delivers a stirring rendition of “We Don’t Need Another Hero.”

Why the change? The classic story, told and retold, is that certain segments of society were scandalized by Miss Liberty’s partial nudity. It was easy to believe in the 1960s, perhaps even more so in this post-Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction era. It might be a good story, but as Roger W. Burdette lays out in his Renaissance of American Coinage 1916 - 1921 (unsolicited book recommendation alert!), the “scandal” was a work of fiction. There was no widespread outrage in newspapers or letters sent to the Treasury Department; instead, it was MacNeil himself who wanted the change.

It was a question of art, not prurience. Mr. Burdette has plenty of documentary evidence to back up his position. The common-sense short version: semi-nudes had appeared on American currency before (see the 1896 $5 Educational note with Electricity vignette), and several months’ worth of oversight and artistic back-and-forth went on before the design was released.

If a semi-nude Liberty was going to be a problem, why didn’t any of a number of strongly opinionated people (Chief Engraver Charles Barber, Secretary of the Treasury William McAdoo) speak up about it? In the end, there was no real public scandal, no broad outcry for the change.

So how did the story about “covering up” Liberty take root? Maybe it was the most convenient explanation in the absence of research, and thus easy to believe; maybe we wanted to believe it.
Liberty, however, is not some starlet who needs better advice on how to dress; she is the personification of one of our noblest ideals, and she has rarely been so beautiful as when she stood before the world on the eve of the Great War, a shield her only armor.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday on a Tuesday: Finding the Willow Tree

2010-07-06T12:11:00.003-05:00

July 6, 2010

Written by John Dale

(Thanks to the long weekend, Tuesday is this week’s Monday at Heritage. Enjoy! – Noah)

Before talking coins, I have to share something that caught my wandering eye: Bruce Lee’s jumpsuit from Game of Death. Yes, that jumpsuit, the one Quentin Tarantino cribbed from to outfit the Bride in Kill Bill; the one that’s had so many imitators in arcade-style fighting games; the one that has its own section on Game of Death’s Wikipedia page. Yes, it’s that awesome. Look. Drool. If you have Tarantino-level money, bid.

Today’s coin feature is of a much older vintage than Bruce Lee’s jumpsuit…more than three centuries older. The piece was scheduled to go in the July Summer FUN Auction (friendly reminder: bidding ends this week!), but it was moved back to the Boston ANA Auction. Believe me, it’s worth the wait.

I had the coin on my desk. Massachusetts silver. The holder said “Oak Tree Shilling, Good Details.” It wasn’t much to look at, or rather, there wasn’t much to look at on it, as worn as it was. Even so, I figured I would be able to match it to a die pair and give it an attribution.

I couldn’t attribute it. Nothing matched. It showed parts of designs from at least two strikes, so I was expecting the attribution to be complicated, but still…

Two runs through reference books later and about thirty seconds after I went from frustrated to flat-out vexed with the coin, I admitted defeat and showed it to Senior Cataloger Mark Borckardt.

He went through the same stages I did, until he had a brain-wave: what if this “Oak Tree Shilling” wasn’t an Oak Tree at all?

“Maybe it’s a Willow Tree.”

I murmured something noncommittal. Willow Tree shillings are very rare, regardless of condition. Could his suggestion possibly be correct?

Then, in a flawless who’s-your-sensei moment, he showed me exactly how the remaining detail on the coin synced up with the 1-A variety in the Crosby and Noe systems. The multiple strikes that had annoyed me earlier suddenly took on new meaning; most Willow Tree shillings show multiple strikes, so that was one more piece of proof.

The coin came out of the Summer FUN auction and took a direct line back to NGC for re-attribution. It came back with two sweet words on the holder: “Willow Tree.”

With those words, the coin got a massive catalog upgrade, from a short text-only entry in the Summer FUN auction to a plush half-page hangout between the purple covers of the Platinum Night catalog for Boston. Massachusetts silver going home…what could be finer?

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: 1922 -- Into the Downtime

2010-06-28T11:21:00.005-05:00

June 28, 2010
Written by John Dale

Downtime is just a dream for me right now; the cataloging staff spent the weekend working on the upcoming Boston ANA Auction, and it looks like two more working weekends are on the way. As appealing as the thought of downtime might be, though, there’s always the potential for too much of a good thing. In 1922, the U.S. Mint saw plenty of downtime, and as a result, only a few types of coins were struck that year.

In the wake of World War I, the United States went through a recession that lasted about half a year. The start of 1920 saw another economic downturn that lasted for 18months. During the downturn, the Mint struck a variety of denominations, but with less commerce came less demand for the instruments of commerce, coins among them.

Only one denomination was struck at all three of the active mints: the silver dollar. The 1922 silver dollars bore the then-novel Peace design; though first struck in 1921, the Peace dollars were not released for distribution until 1922. The Boston auction will have examples from Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco.

While double eagles effectively did not circulate in the U.S. by 1922, there was still demand for them in international trade, demand that was increasing as Europe recovered. The gold coins were struck on the two coasts: Philadelphia (represented in the upcoming July Summer FUN Auction) and San Francisco (in Boston). Most of today’s survivors were shipped overseas and spent upwards of 50 years in Europe; they were later repatriated in the 1970s and beyond, after restrictions on American citizens’ private ownership of gold were relaxed.

Across most of the U.S. there was little demand for small change, so no nickels, dimes, quarters, or halves were made. There was unexpected demand for one-cent coins, though, and the Denver Mint pushed through a batch of slightly more than 7 million pieces. While it was Denver alone that struck cents in 1922, certain pieces show no mintmark due to production errors, and these have become more famous than their regular 1922-D counterparts.

Beyond the regular U.S. coinage, the Philadelphia Mint also worked on a handful of other small-scale projects. For the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ulysses S. Grant, the famous Civil War general and later president, the Mint made commemorative coins in two denominations, a half dollar and a gold dollar. Philadelphia also kept up its trade in making coins for foreign countries. In 1922, it struck pieces for circulation in Colombia; Costa Rica; French Indochina (which covered modern-day Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and a small part of China); Nicaragua; and Venezuela.

It would be nice to contemplate downtime some more, but the Boston catalog calls. Back to it!

Coin Monday: The Business of the 1882 Double Eagle

2010-06-21T09:14:00.004-05:00

June 21, 2010

Written by John Dale

One of the most important coins in the upcoming July Summer FUN U.S. Coin auction is an 1882 double eagle graded AU53 by PCGS. The issue has a mintage of just 571 business strikes, the lowest for any regular-issue double eagle with the James B. Longacre-designed reverse. (The Paquet reverse is another story, as there are just two Philadelphia 1861 Paquet coins. Heritage has sold one of them.)

Beyond the obvious rarity-by-mintage, there is another twist to just how elusive the 1882 double eagle business strikes are: the Smithsonian Institution doesn’t have one. The reason the Smithsonian lacks an example actually ties in to why the coins are so rare overall.

Now, it certainly seems like the Smithsonian, more specifically the National Numismatic Collection in the National Museum of American History, has one of everything, including a number of unique items. (If you dream of owning a Class II 1804 dollar or an 1849 pattern double eagle, well, dreams are all you’ll ever have.)

The NNC began with the United States Mint’s official cabinet, built up through its transfer to the Smithsonian in 1923, and it was later built up through private donations and transfers; the most famous of these, the gold coin cabinet of Josiah K. Lilly, Jr., arrived in 1973.

(Deeply personal aside: a love of coins is not the only connection I have to Mr. Lilly. Along with his father and brother, he established the Lilly Endowment, a philanthropic foundation that focuses on my home state of Indiana. Thanks to its Community Scholarship Program, I was able to attend my college of choice. I am eternally grateful.)

The Mint and Lilly collections shared an important trait: neither of them collected both proofs and business strikes when proofs were available. The two were seen as part of the same issue, with proofs preferable to the “ordinary” coins. Thus, the NNC has two proof 1882 double eagles (mintage 59 specimens) but no business strike examples.

Collector perspectives today are generally different, however, and proofs and business strikes are treated as two distinct issues. This is highlighted in the great Encyclopedia of U.S. Gold Coins by Jeff Garrett and Ron Guth, which used the NNC for images and research. (Unsolicited book recommendation: it’s one of the few that never leaves my cataloging desk.) On the entry for the 1882 business strikes, the caption that usually lists the condition of the best NNC specimen says instead, “No specimen in Smithsonian Institution.”

The 1882 business strike double eagle is an important enough coin on its own, but the idea of owning a coin that the Smithsonian doesn’t have is quite the bonus. Happy bidding!

-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: Flips and Trips

2010-06-14T11:06:00.005-05:00

June 14, 2010
Written by John Dale

Error coin enthusiasts are one of the great traditions of U.S. numismatics, if a relatively recent phenomenon compared to, say, collectors of large cents. The two specialties are not completely separate, but intersect on occasion; after all, if 21st century Mint technology wasn’t enough to keep this proof Ohio Statehood quarter from looking like a saucer, what are the chances that things would be error-free in the late 18th century?

A pair of dramatic errors in the July 2010 Summer FUN Auction tell the tale. Error-free? Not even close.

Both of these errors are large cents dated 1796. The first, graded VG10 by NGC, shows the last two digits of the date three times, indicating three distinct strikes (at least!), and the date only appears on the obverse once. The other two appearances are on the back, or reverse, with one of them on the interior of the coin, not at the rim. The progression must have gone as follows: the first strike was off-center, the second strike centered, the coin flipped over, and finally a third strike on-target. The result is a terribly wrong yet oh-so-right coin, somewhere between an attractive curiosity and a beautiful trainwreck.

The second one, given an NGC Details grade of VF with a “Scratches” caveat, has an even more outrageous appearance. It too is a flip-over triple strike, though it isn’t listed as such. Evidence of the “missing strike” is visible on Liberty’s cap on the main (final) strike, in the form of the letters ST which don’t match where the word STATES would be on the presumed “other” strike; hence, there must have been a third impression of the dies.

While both coins have something clearly “off” about them on close inspection, this second example makes it obvious from the start with the left side of a wreath stretching down over the tip of Liberty’s bust on the obverse. The reverse, too, shows the error in all its flip-over glory as the top and right sides of a Liberty impression wrap themselves around the main wreath.

One place where the error and large cent specialties diverge is attitude. While errors give us valuable information about the minting process, much of their appeal comes from their inherent “freak factor” and their status as the Mint’s pratfalls. (An old-school way to refer to errors is “FIDOs,” or “Freaks, Imperfections, Defects, and Oddities.”) To a large cent collector, however, even an outrageous error like one of these two is not treated as a freak, but as an artifact to be treasured. In its early struggle-filled years, the Mint made many errors both on and off the coinage floor, but it persevered in the end. Because of that, collectors have more than 200 years of U.S. coinage history, a source of information and wonder—and yes, the occasional laugh.

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Coin Monday: Cents of Steel

2010-06-07T10:52:00.003-05:00

June 7, 2010

Written by John Dale

While the Man of Steel dates to 1938, America’s “cents of steel” date to 1943—the vast majority of them, anyway. Comic book superheroes, Superman included, were influenced by World War II, and so too was America’s coinage. The steel cents of 1943, such as this 1943-D/D variety cent in the upcoming July Summer FUN Auction, came about this way, with bronze (and its scarce component copper) taken out and more plentiful steel substituted.

The switch didn’t work out so well; circulated steel cents became dull quickly and were easily confused with dimes. In 1944, the coinage metal for cents reverted to a copper-based alloy, not strictly bronze but similar.

The two transition periods, copper to steel and then the reverse, created two distinct classes of off-metal errors. The first type, the 1943-dated cent made out of bronze instead of steel, has been covered on this blog before. The flip side of the 1943 bronze cent is the steel cent struck in 1944, after the steel planchets should have been retired; hence “the vast majority” above, since there are a relative handful of error coins that serve as exceptions.

The 1944-dated steel cents show up only occasionally at Heritage, though Heritage will be auctioning a pair of them in back-to-back auctions. Lot 170 in the just-completed June Long Beach Auction was a 1944-D steel cent graded AU55 by NGC.

Bidders who missed out on that coin will get a second chance in July, when another 1944-D steel cent, this one graded AU53 by PCGS, will be a standout of Summer FUN. Incredibly, both coins are pedigreed to The Brenda John Collection, a fact which gave me a rare case of collector envy when I heard it. Just imagine me shaking my head and muttering to myself, “Two 1944-D steel cents? You have to be joking…”

The two coins are plenty serious, though, just as serious as the collectors who bid on the first and will chase after the second. If the 1944-D steel cent is a bit too much for your budget, the auction also has a number of 1943-D steel cents to go around, including this Superb Gem.

Happy bidding!

Coin (Friday and) Monday: World Cup Commemoration

2010-05-28T12:34:00.005-05:00

May 28,2010

Written by John Dale

(With Memorial Day on Monday, next week's Coin Monday is appearing here early. -- The Heritage Blog)

It’s just about World Cup time, when the greatest footballers from around the globe put on the national uniforms to seek out glory. Like just about every other World Cup tournament, this go-round has had its controversies. The host country! The Thierry Henry handball incident! The anthem! (Though you’d never hear me complaining about the opportunity to see...I mean, listen to Shakira.)

All of these seem pretty trivial, though, compared to the controversy when the United States was chosen to host the World Cup in 1994. At the end of the 1980s, when the selection was made, there was no prominent professional “football” league (as the rest of the world understood it) in the United States, and the country hadn’t qualified for the World Cup since 1950.

The U.S. national team qualified for the 1990 World Cup, however, starting a streak of World Cup appearances that will continue in South Africa. Major League Soccer, which had its roots in the 1994 World Cup bid, is going strong and expanding. And the 1994 World Cup left a numismatic legacy for U.S. collectors as well: a trio of commemoratives.

The middle coin of the set is a silver dollar, a proof example of which appears in the June Long Beach U.S. Coin Auction. On the obverse, two players are pursuing a ball; no word on whether the player wearing number 7 is going to flop and get the player wearing number 10 stuck with a spurious red card. The reverse is a shared reverse among all three coins, with the official logo of the 1994 World Cup squarely in the middle.

The silver dollar proved extremely popular, with more than half a million proofs sold. The less expensive clad half dollar did even better, with a slightly greater number of proofs and more than twice as many uncirculated-finish coins in the final tally. Even the gold half eagle, notable for showing the World Cup trophy almost alone on its obverse, sold better in proof format than any commemorative half eagle issue had in the previous four years.

While the Dallas experience has evolved from World Cup action in the Cotton Bowl to Major League Soccer in Pizza Hut Park, the 1994 World Cup commemorative coins offer reminders of how “the beautiful game” was reborn in the United States. If the World Cup ever returns to the United States (2018? 2022?), perhaps commemorative coins will come again; if so, I hope the designs are worthy of celebration.

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Coin Monday: Pikes Peak Gold

2010-05-24T12:09:00.005-05:00

May 24, 2010
Written by John Dale

The ANA Summer Seminar, held at the Colorado College in Colorado Springs, which was the site of some of my fondest Young Numismatist memories.

When a gathering of coin enthusiasts reaches critical mass, learning and silliness ensue, and this is especially true when said coin enthusiasts are in high school or college. By the end of the week, several (usually harmless) pranks have been sprung on various seminar-goers staying in the dorms.

One year, I was a designated target of the dress-as-a-ghost-and-jump-out-of-the-closet trick. Unfortunately for the pranksters, my voice hadn’t cracked yet.

BOO! EEK! ARRGH! as the “ghost” in front went down, clutching his hands to his ears.

Other moments were plenty serious, and plenty awesome, like the trip up Pikes Peak. (No apostrophe, no joke. Supposedly there’s even a law about it in Colorado.) I’d heard about Katharine Lee Bates writing America the Beautiful after visiting Pikes Peak, and after looking out at the same views, I could understand why.

Pikes Peak isn’t all that close to present-day Denver, but when gold was discovered in the area (and the earliest version of Denver founded), Pikes Peak was the most visible landmark in the region, and “Pikes Peak or Bust!” became a famous slogan for the Colorado gold rush.

The three most prominent issuers of Territorial gold coins in Colorado all referenced “Pikes Peak” on their coins. John Parsons & Company and J.J. Conway & Co. were short-term operations, and their coins are rarities today, but Clark, Gruber & Co. was better-established and struck numerous pieces in denominations that mirrored the Federal coinage. (All coins from the upcoming June Long Beach U.S. Coin Auction.)

Not only were the denominations the same, but the smaller coins looked suspiciously similar to U.S. quarter eagles and half eagles, too. The government eventually bought out the firm, and Clark, Gurber & Co. is actually the ancestor of the Denver Mint that still operates today.

While Clark, Gruber & Co. did its assaying work in present-day Colorado, the dies used to strike the firm’s coins were not made on-site, but rather shipped in. This is most obvious on the $10 coins, like lot 1978 or 1979.

Clearly the artist had never been to Colorado. Pikes Peak doesn’t look like that. Not even close. (Art directors of the world, you have a new case study!)

Today, however, the peak-that-is-not-Pikes is all part of the quaint charm of the ten dollar pieces. The Territorial coinage enthusiasts are sure to be out in force when the Clark, Gruber & Co. sequence sells. Why not join them for this golden opportunity?

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-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: 1916/1916

2010-05-17T13:40:00.004-05:00

May 17, 2010
Posted by John Dale

Heritage has had at least one Featured Collection in each U.S. Coin auction since I started cataloging here, and the June Long Beach Auction is no exception. There are three Featured Collections this go-round, the most prominent of which is The Brenda John Collection. If you haven’t seen this collection already, it’s chock-full of top-quality Lincoln cents and Buffalo nickels.

Need some further convincing? Try this: there’s a 1916 Doubled Die Obverse nickel in MS64. No, you aren’t seeing double…the doubling is that strong! That huge spread between the two dates is completely real. It’s not hard to imagine production of a die being bungled this badly—accidents do happen, after all—but for such a die to then be put into use is rather baffling.

Also rather baffling is how doubling this blatant went basically undiscovered for two decades. Once you know where to look, the doubling is obvious and unforgettable, yet collectors seem to have missed the variety at the time of release. By the time it was discovered and publicized, an unknown number of examples had been lost forever to circulation, and many others were well-worn. A survivor in MS64 is a precious treasure indeed.

Also early on, collectors didn’t really understand what they were seeing. Overdates, where one date was punched over another, were familiar to them; so were repunched dates, where the same date was punched in twice, not perfectly in sync. So collectors of the time, seeing the obvious doubling on the date, naturally called it the “1916/1916,” to signal a repunched date, only it wasn’t a repunched date at all.

Take a closer look at the coin, and look away from the date. The feathers at the back of the portrait’s head are doubled, too. Also doubled are his neck and his profile, particularly the chin and lips. As collectors increased their knowledge of doubled dies, fueled by interest in the now-famous 1955 Doubled Die Obverse cent, earlier varieties were re-examined, and the more subtle signs of the 1916 Doubled Die Obverse nickel were recognized. The “Doubled Die” usage became much more prevalent after this.

Every once in a while, though, the “1916/1916” term pops up, often in old catalogs or coin albums. It may not be considered strictly right by most numismatists nowadays, but there’s still room for the old term. Then there’s a rule of collecting that I picked up from a member of my local coin club when I was still a boy: you own the coin, you can call it whatever you like! So, who wants the naming rights?

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Frank Frazetta (1928-2010): "Worldbeater."

2010-05-11T08:48:00.007-05:00

May 11, 2010

Written by Don Mangus

(It is both a pleasure and a sad duty today to give the reins of the blog to Don Mangus, one of our comics and illustration art experts, and a fine gentleman who has graced these digital pages before. A pleasure because, well, Don is that good a writer, and a sad duty because of the task he has been asked to undertake: Eulogizing Frank Frazetta, who passed away yesterday at the age of 82. He was indeed the greatest living sci-fi and fantasy artist and one of the world's great talents, period. The forces of good are mourning the passing of a great talent. He is pictured there, to the right, scarce three weeks ago, holding The Frank Collection Catalog, of which his Warrior With Ball And Chain was the centerpiece. Surely we will never look on his like again. - Noah Fleisher)

Sadly, the passing of Frank Frazetta marks the end of a modern fantasy era.

Frazetta's iconic cover images for Lancer's paperback reissues of Robert E. Howard's immortal Conan series marked a sea-change for fantasy art. The athletic and movie-idol-handsome artist's work has inspired and influenced every fantasy artist since the 1960s, and spawned scores of bald-faced "art pirates," often dubbed "Faux-zettas" by fandom's sardonic wits.

Without doubt, Frazetta was a one-of-a-kind artistic prodigy. Though justly celebrated for his barbaric fantasy paintings, he was a master of every cartoon and illustration genre -- action-adventure, caricature, costumed hero, crime, funny animal, jungle, romance, horror, humor, satire, science fiction, Western, and everything in between.

To measure the scope of Frazetta's legacy, it's worth taking note of both the fickle nature and short memories of the publishing industry and the reading public. All too often "today's super-star" becomes tomorrow's forgotten creator. For most, "Glory days – well, they'll pass you by..."
It's sobering to ponder how close to this fate even the supremely talented Frazetta came.

In 1954, after creating a superb (and highly collectible) body of early comic book work for Standard, Eastern Color, DC, ME, Toby, ACG, and EC, Frazetta found himself in need of a steady paycheck, and began anonymously assisting Al Capp on the syndicated Li'l Abner comic strip. In 1961, after being refused a raise, Frazetta quit the Abner job, put together his latest and greatest portfolio, and hit the streets looking high and low for work from the few comic book companies that had survived the huge implosion following the industry-stifling 1954 U. S. Senate Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency.

Despite a no-doubt superlative portfolio, the now-forgotten Frazetta came away with only a few comic book jobs, thanks almost entirely to the good graces of his old EC stable mate and friend, George Evans.

To the discerning eye, the Frazetta touch can be found submerged in the panels of Dell Comics' The Frogmen #1-3 (1962). These last-gasp comic book jobs helped keep Frazetta going during a turbulent transitional period.

The breakthrough in Frazetta's fortunes came thanks to another caring friend, fantasy legend Roy G. Krenkel, who had scored a series of Edgar Rice Burroughs illustration assignments from Ace books, and was largely carrying on a tradition pioneered by J. Allen St. John.

At first, Frazetta helped the perpetually procrastinating Krenkel fulfill a few of these assignments. Then because of the wildly enthusiastic Krenkel's urging, he struck out on his own. Not content to merely knock at the door of opportunity, Frazetta savagely kicked it off its hinges with his visceral Conan covers. A bunch of enchanting fantasy paperback cover assignments followed, as well as spine-tingling horror magazine covers for Warren Publishing, and other strikingly successful commercial art assignments -- all of which ended up crowning Frazetta the "king of living fantasy artists."

Always mindful of getting his originals back from the publishers, Frank and his wife Ellie purposefully built the Frazetta legacy. Starting in the mid-60s, the Frazetta legend grew and grew among creative art directors, fans, and collectors alike, thanks to a wealth of posters, fanzines, portfolios, calendars, record album covers and books.

Among the important career milestones were a series of five Frank Frazetta books from Bantam Books, the triumphant appearance of the Death Dealer on the cover of the May 1976 issue of American Artist, Ralph Bakshi's 1983 animated Fire and Ice movie, based on Frazetta's paintings and co-directed by Frazetta himself, the 2003 feature documentary Frank Frazetta: Painting with Fire, and perhaps most importantly – the opening of the Frank Frazetta Museum in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania in 2001.

As Jim Halperin, Co-Chairman of Heritage Auction Galleries, aptly notes, "Frazetta was, quite simply, the greatest comic book artist of the 20th Century. Amazingly, he was also a modest soul, and a true gentleman in every way. He will be missed, but never forgotten."

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Don Mangus

Coin Monday: 1873, Open and Close

2010-05-10T11:10:00.006-05:00

May 10, 2001
Written by John Dale

It’s not uncommon to have guests in the cataloging department, important customers or potential customers who visit our humble wing as part of a grand tour of Heritage world headquarters. Last week was one such occasion, and I had the opportunity to show off a coin I was cataloging.

“Do you like gold?” I asked.

They did.

“Ever seen a three dollar gold coin before?”

They hadn’t. I passed one to them.

The usual ooh-ing and ahh-ing ensued. Then one gentleman turned it over.

“When was this made? 1878?” He asked.

The question struck me as odd. I didn’t remember which three dollar gold coin I’d handed to the tour, but none of the threes on my desk had been dated 1878.

“Hmm, did you check the label?”

He turned the coin over. “Oh, it’s 1873.”

Then I understood why he’d been confused. He passed the coin back to me with a comment about needing to get his eyes checked. I reassured him that his eyes weren’t the problem, and he was far from the first to make the same mistake.

At the start of 1873, the U.S. Mint used a four-digit date punch, or logotype, that had the two ends of the 3 in 1873 nearly touching the center. The 3 looked like an 8 at first glance, and it didn’t take long for this to come to the attention of the then-Chief Coiner of the Mint.

A new logotype, this time with the ends of the "3" well apart, went into service and was used for most of the year. Two dimes in the upcoming June Long Beach U.S. Coin Auction show the difference between the two logotypes: the last digit goes from ambiguous on the Closed "3" coin to obvious on the Open "3" piece.

Now there’s a funny wrinkle to that 1873 three dollar coin I showed to the tour. According to official Mint records, it shouldn’t exist. There are no records of three dollar gold coins being struck for circulation in 1873. So what gives? There are multiple possibilities, none conclusively proven.

The coins could have been struck in 1874 but from dies dated 1873. For example, when demand for $3 gold coins spiked in 1874, Mint workers may have just used the dies that were on-hand, which has historical precedent.

Or the Mint records could simply be in error, a theory used to explain any number of other rarities.

Parts of both could be correct, or both could be completely off-the-mark. Regardless, the 1873 $3 is a coin to keep an eye on.

Happy bidding!

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday on a Tuesday: Collecting the Atlanta Commemoratives

2010-05-04T14:42:00.005-05:00

May 4, 2010
Written by John Dale

The Central States auction is in the books, though Post Auction Buys are still available for a limited time. The catalogers’ attention has been focused on the next auction, coming up in June at Long Beach.

One of the most interesting and unusual lots I have handled for Long Beach is of recent vintage: a complete set of U.S. commemorative coins struck for the Atlanta Olympics. (There aren’t any pictures yet for the set, but an example of the design—offered as a different lot in the same auction—illustrates this post.)

The Summer Olympics of 1996, held in Atlanta, Georgia, were the site of many personal and team successes, but from a numismatic perspective, they were also the inspiration for one of the most ambitious failures in recent U.S. Mint history: the Games’ commemorative coin program.

The modern era of commemorative coinage had begun in 1982. Before the 1980s, two separate eras had caused scandals that led to a suspension of commemorative coins. First, the 1930s saw some commemoratives struck on flimsy pretenses, and other designs were struck for several years, changing only the date. A change in law put a temporary stop to the latter abuse.

There were no commemoratives made from 1940 to 1945. From 1946 to 1954, a new sequence of commemorative issues came out. One, honoring the centennial of Iowa’s statehood, was a well-run success, but the other major program dragged out from 1946 to 1954, honoring first Booker T. Washington alone and then alongside George Washington Carver. That experience led to a 28-year moratorium on new issues.

U.S. commemoratives designed to honor the Olympic Games had tempted fate before: the Los Angeles Olympics were honored with three different designs in 13 different date, mintmark, and proof/Mint State combinations, and this profusion was puny compared to at least one of the original proposals! The Seoul and Barcelona Games were honored with more basic programs, but for Atlanta, the authorizing legislation pulled out all the stops.

Coins were struck in two years, 1995 and 1996; for each year, there were eight different designs, two of them in gold; and for each design, there were two different formats, proof and Mint State. Multiplied out, that makes 32 distinct coins to collect, and eight of them were gold!

Credit is due for ambition if nothing else, but the organizers’ sales projections were wildly off-target. Two coins—the 1996-W Flag Bearer and Cauldron five dollar gold coins in Mint State—had net mintages in the four-figure range, and other coins also had embarrassingly low mintages. What’s worse, the Atlanta Olympics coins affected collector purchases of other commemorative coins in 1995 and 1996, so that none of the campaigns was particularly successful.

In the wake of the Atlanta commemoratives, new rules were laid down to limit the number of commemorative programs and design types that could be struck in any one year, and the post-1996 commemoratives have been much easier to collect on a year-to-year basis.

For collectors looking to the past, the Atlanta coins offer an interesting challenge if collected one at a time. Then again, Long Beach will offer the opportunity to just buy the whole set at once. For potential bidders with deep pockets, it’s all a matter of ambition.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Heritage Auctions' Illustration art in Beverly Hills? Ready, set, Go!

2010-05-03T10:20:00.015-05:00

May 3, 2010
Posted by Noah

Before I get into today's post - and letting you know that Coin Monday with JDB will be Coin Tuesday this week - I implore you to take a look at these gorgeous images of the set-up this Thursday's (May 6) Illustration Art Auction in our Beverly Hills Office.

So many amazing paintings, and me so far away here in Dallas. I don't mind telling you that I wish I was there...

Done? Good. Now that you've had a little taste of what awaits you in Beverly Hills - and if you are in L.A., and you can get to our showroom at 3478 West. Olympic Boulevard in the next couple of days, then I do indeed implore you to go check it out! - I want those of you who tuned in for John Dale's regular Coin Monday post to read on today and to check back tomorrow for JDB's weekly insight into the mind of the coin cataloger...

This Thursday's Illustration Art auction, which I wrote about here a week or two ago, is indeed going to be stellar, and is our first bit of Martignette to happen outside the elegant confines of our Slocum Street Annex here in Dallas.

I feel a little like a parent separated from their child for the first time when their kid heads to Summer Camp - okay, so I tend to personalize things a bit too much. That's a good thing, right? - so closely have I followed Martignette, and so much do I love this art.

The good thing is, though, with this art there is very little worry in my heart. Unlike with my own kid (and so it must be with most parents) I don't worry that no one will take as good a care of the artwork as I would. In fact, I would daresay - and pray - that those good Heritage folks overseeing the auction in Beverly Hills would take ten times the care that I could. For that, I am grateful.

Check out the Illustration Art catalog online, mark your favorites, and check back with Heritage Live! on Thursday, starting around 1 p.m. Central, to see where these paintings end up. The prices up until this point have been nothing short of spectacular. There seems to be no reason to believe it will slow.

We're at about the halfway point of Martignette, give or take a few hundred paintings, and as everyone thought when this amazing journey started, the world of Illustration Art collecting will never be the same again.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Coin Monday: A Day in the Life of John Dale Beety, Hand Model

2010-04-26T13:37:00.002-05:00

Monday, April 26
Written by John Dale

“The job description doesn’t tell you half of what you’re going to do.”

It was just one of many sage pieces of job advice I received in college that I had to learn the hard way.

“Numismatic cataloger” sounds nice and tidy: write about coins and get paid for it! So simple! Eh-heh-heh… The business cards remain the same, but nowadays I’m a coin cataloger, editor, over-the-phone coin describer, blogger, implementer of consignor promises and a half-dozen other roles I’ve performed in the past few weeks and now forgotten.

Oh, I’ve also been a hand model.

If you’ve ever seen a picture of me or my hands, you just had a needlescratch moment in your brain. Hand model?!

Perhaps it wasn’t hand modeling in the traditional sense, but I was pressed into service for a nifty new HA.com feature: the “360 Degree View” for coins, videos taken to show off high-end coins in all their lustrous glory. I was part of a few dozen videos, and on coins like lot 2272 in the upcoming Central States auction in Milwaukee, those are my cuticles and half-moons framing the coin as it swirls around in the light.

The first time I tackled an Indian half eagle like the 1911-S in lot 2272, I actually had a bit of a panic, because the Indian half eagles (and the quarter eagles like them) are “built” nothing like a typical U.S. coin. Most U.S. coins have low “recessed” fields that are protected by a raised rim around the coin. The central device (a portrait, an eagle, a monument, or what-have-you) is also raised, but no higher than the rim, so the coins can stack.

The Indian half eagles and quarter eagles, designed by a now semi-obscure early 20th century artist named Bela Lyon Pratt, by contrast, turn the relationship on its head. There is no rim to speak of; the fields are raised instead of lowered; and the devices, rather than being sculpted in relief, are defined by lines sunk into the field.

The goal was to keep the coin’s devices legible as the surfaces wore down—all well and good, except that the Indian half eagles really didn’t circulate! On the other hand, with the fields exposed, they attracted all manner of marks and abrasions, which makes finding high-end examples challenging today. Even a near-Gem like lot 2272 is ahead of the curve.

I am unlikely to reprise my hand-modeling role anytime soon, unless the company calls. Still, it was enjoyable to get to review the Platinum Night session of the Central States auction, one coin and one 30-second video shoot at a time.

Who knows… maybe if they have me act as a hand model for the next auction, they might even pay for a manicure!

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Elvgren's 'Bear Facts,' Martignette's favorite, on the block in about two weeks at Heritage Beverly Hills

2010-04-21T09:40:00.007-05:00

April 21, 2010

Posted by Noah

The smile on the bear says it all...

Gil Elvgren's essential , magnificent 1962 pin-up, Bear Facts (A Modest Look; Bearback Rider), is going to find a new home in about two weeks when it occupies the centerpiece position of the May 7 Pin-Up & Glamour Art Auction taking place at Heritage Auctions Beverly Hills. It is estimated (quite conservatively, in my humble opinion) at $50,000-$75,000. It's already at $65,000, and we have a ways to go. 'Nuff said.

Perhaps of equal importance to the awesomeness of the piece itself is its enduring fame and its place in Charles Martignette's personal pantheon of Elvgren masterworks. In fact, Bear Facts was Martignette's favorite Elvgren of all. Period. It appeared as the dust jacket cover, and figure 414 of Martignette and Lou Meisel's book Gil Elvgren All His Glamorous American Pin-Ups and also as Figure 82 of The Great American Pin-up, again by the same pair.

I'll sum it up again: The single greatest Illustration Art Collector of all time, Charles Martignette, who assembled the single greatest collection of Illustration Art ever assembled, had a single favorite painting by Gil Elvgren, himself the greatest pin-up artist to ever live, and it was the one you see here, offered for the first time at public auction on May 7.

This painting is going to go big, obviously, and only the very most advanced collectors are going to be vying for this, though every single collector of the form, at every level, is going to be watching and wishing. If I had half a chance I'd buy it myself. I don't, however, have even a quarter of a chance, or an eighth. Or a sixteenth... I would, however, be more than willing to mow your lawn for a year if you buy this for me...

The truth is that, like every Illustration Art Auction here at Heritage in the last year that has featured Martignette's amazing (did I say amazing? I meant AMAZING!) collection, there is much to love and classics of the form all over the sale. There are many that I love, and many I would love to own, none of which I will be able to afford for a long time - but I will someday, and on that day the world will be mine!

Do yourself a favor and take a look through the Illustration Art catalog. Linger a little longer over the Elvgrens, the Vargas, the Armstrongs and the Morans, among the many. Choose one for yourself, one for your best friend, and one for your favorite regular Heritage Blogger whose initials are not JDB (Whoever that may be...).

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Coin Monday: One Cent, Two Cent, One Cent Planchet

2010-04-19T09:25:00.002-05:00

April 19, 2010
Written by John Dale

Before I get to the coin part of today’s post, a bit of timely fantasy artwork that caught my eye, Real Musgrave’s The Audit. Don’t let the glasses and the so-cute-it-hurts expression fool you; that little whelp of an auditor probably has a big, bad dragon for backup. I could imagine The Audit adding a touch of whimsy to an IRS agent’s office when it sells in May, but now that I think about it, a whimsical IRS agent might be even scarier than a giant red dragon!

From giant scaly winged monsters to other wrong things, Coin Monday is going back to errors. It’s a category that never lacks for variety at Heritage, and in the upcoming Central States U.S. Coin auction there are 77 different pieces in the Errors category. The coin that immediately caught my eye was lot 1585.

First things first: it’s a two cent coin dated 1864. Odd denominations are always a favorite of mine, and the two cent coin had a practical application when it was first struck in 1864, supplementing the new bronze cent as small change in the difficult Civil War economy. In the postwar period, though, it didn’t have much reason to go on. Along with several other coinage denominations, the two cent piece was abolished in a major “housekeeping” bill passed in 1873.

A two cent coin, in and of itself, is certainly interesting but not necessarily expensive. A two cent coin on a one cent planchet, though? That’s a lulu. Error coins from the 19th century are extraordinarily popular with collectors, since far fewer of them have survived compared to 20th century errors, and this wrong-denomination coin is a beauty. It has light wear, possibly from being kept as a pocket-piece, or else passing through a few hands before somebody looked at it closely and saved it as a curiosity.

The one cent planchet it’s struck on is compelling in its own right, since the bronze alloy was introduced in 1864, the same year this error was struck. One cent coinage had gone through several rapid transitions, from the bulky copper large cents to smaller copper-nickel small cents with two different designs. The bronze alloy stuck, however, and aside from a brief period in World War II, one cent coins were struck in bronze until 1962.

Two important firsts came together in 1864, and the result was this important error. Collectors of the category, especially pre-20th century specialists, will want to give it serious thought. As for the auditor or quality control types who prefer their two cent pieces non-erroneous, well, Heritage just might have you covered, too…

-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: If you’re a nut for Bust Halves, has Heritage got something for you

2010-04-12T10:29:00.002-05:00

April 12, 2010
Written by John Dale

Coin collecting humor isn’t likely to tear up the comedy club circuit anytime soon. Most of it consists of terrible puns, though there have been a handful of exceptions. (The best coin humor I’ve ever read is “Pearlman’s People,” written by public relations maestro Donn Pearlman, which used to grace the back page of The Numismatist.) [I can indeed vouch that Pearlmann is a virtuoso of PR, as I have had the chance to study at the feet of the master these last two years… - Noah Fleisher]

Even more disturbing than the generally poor quality of coin collecting humor is the number of people who repeat it, not because they know it’s bad, but because they believe it’s good. Self-awareness isn’t the most common trait among coin collectors. Then again, we do have the capacity for rare flashes of insight and self-understanding, as evidenced by the best coin club name of all time: the Bust Half Nut Club.

There has never been greater truth in numismatic advertising. Bust Half nutters are obsessed with Bust half dollars; they know they’re obsessed, and they’re at peace with it.

“To be considered as a candidate for BHNC membership, and individual must own a minimum of 100 different Bust die marriages by Overton attribution,” etc. That means 100 distinctly different matchups of obverse and reverse dies… and the documentation to prove it. Like I said, self-awareness.

A prominent Bust Half nut was the late Donald R. Frederick, whose collection of early U.S. coinage, alias “Bayside Part II,”is an important Featured Collection in the upcoming April 2010 Central States auction. Mr. Frederick’s collection went far beyond the 100-variety minimum; in fact, Heritage is auctioning 443 separate varieties from his collection!

The varieties range from relatively common to scarce and even very rare. Picking out a single half dollar highlight is difficult, but the 1827 Overton-148 (that is, the 48th die marriage identified and listed in the Overton reference) is a safe pick. It is one of just 14 to 15 pieces believed known—and one of just 12 coins accounted for in our census—with a grade of VF35 awarded by PCGS.

While there will be a great deal of interest in Mr. Frederick’s coins, I am particularly interested in how a certain non-coin lot turns out. Lot 3370 contains two copies of the Overton die variety reference, one a First Edition signed by the author to Mr. Frederick, the other a Revised Edition with extensive annotations in Mr. Frederick’s hand. The latter was Mr. Frederick’s “working copy” of Overton, his personal and well-traveled guide to Bust half dollars that can now pass into another’s hands. For the devoted student of Bust halves, this well-worn book of Mr. Frederick’s may prove more valuable than any piece of silver.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

It's still going! - Original Energizer Bunny readies for auction Saturday at Heritage Beverly Hills

2010-04-08T15:45:00.005-05:00

April 8, 2010
Posted by Noah

While I don't have a ton of time for writing today, I thought it might be fun to post this little video I took this morning at Heritage Auctions Beverly Hills.

The consignor of the original Energizer Bunny readying for auction here on Saturday has the thing up and running and had enough hands - in the way of friends, not actually on him - to get the running.

Now, it's a cool thing in the first place, an amazing piece of pop culture, to be sure, but it's actually even cooler when you see it working and running live.

The video is not too long, but you get the point, and that is indeed the bunny. His nickname is Clint, and his business associates refer to him as EB, but that's Mr. EB to you...

To leave a comment click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Coin Monday: Personal Treasures from the "S.S. Central America"

2010-04-05T13:56:00.006-05:00

April 5, 2010

Written by John Dale

There are certain stories that will be told and retold for as long as there are collectors of U.S. coinage. The sinking of the S.S. Central America, with its lost gold and lost lives, has enough financial and personal tragedy to endure for centuries. Yet for decades the disaster faded from memory, not quickly but with the slow erosion of waves on a rock, as ships such as the Titanic and the Lusitania took on more meaning.

When the Central America’s gold was re-discovered, so too was its story, and the long-forgotten details seemed fresh and exciting. The “Ship of Gold,” as it is now often called, gave historians new insight into California Gold Rush assayers’ ingots and collectors a remarkable opportunity to own like-new 1857-S double eagles, such as this Gem in the upcoming April-May Central States U.S. Coin Auction.

The assayers’ ingots and gleaming double eagles, stacked up and packaged up in the hold of the Central America, are of great historical and collector importance. When I think about the wreck, though, I find myself drawn to other numismatic treasures. In addition to the ingots and double eagles, headed for the banks of New York City before they met a different fate, there was more gold onboard the ship: the personal fortunes of passengers, which often took the form of double eagles but also eagles and half eagles, gold dust and nuggets.

There were also a number of oddities, reminders of the strange and often dysfunctional monetary system that Californians cobbled together in less than a decade. Two Territorial gold coins in the Central States auction, both moderately worn from five years of use in West Coast commerce, were recovered from the bottom of the ocean floor. One is an 1852 ten dollar Augustus Humbert/United States Assay Office coin, graded VF30 by PCGS; the other, also dated 1852 and graded VF30 by PCGS, was issued by Moffat & Co.

As the San Francisco Mint became established, many of the old Territorial gold coins that stayed in California were melted, and few survivors remain. Both coins are of varieties rated as R.6, or “very rare,” with a couple dozen examples known at most. While fewer Territorial gold coins were recovered from the Central America than assayers’ ingots or 1857-S double eagles, the few Territorial pieces salvaged do offer valuable clues to how various issues were used or not used in California at the time.

One of the great paradoxes of the Central America is that for all the value its gold holds for us today, there was a time when it was all but worthless. Survivors’ accounts tell of people throwing away their golden fortunes, like the coins and nuggets were leaden weights instead of wealth—and why not, for what is the value of gold against one’s life? We, however, are not in danger of drowning. We can study. We can acquire. We can collect.

We must remember.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

An education in high-end coin collecting: A Heritage Auctions Account Executive’s story

2010-04-01T09:15:00.002-05:00

April 1, 2010
Written by Heather Harvey

(This is no April Fool’s joke. I have the pleasure today to welcome Heather Harvey to the Heritage Blog. Heather is an Account Executive for the Coin category, and – as anyone reading this probably knows – that’s a pretty big matzo ball [Happy Passover Ma!] here at Heritage. The biggest in fact. Thing is, when Heather came into her job, taking over from a very well-liked predecessor, she had big shoes to fill not only in getting to know everyone – and reveal her strong work ethic and positive disposition – but also in her knowledge of coins. As you can read below, that knowledge equaled exactly Zero. Fortunately for her, and all of us, there are about a million experts here at Heritage, give or take 999,950 or less, and an education was soon underway. Remember Heather, Cardinal Rule #1: It’s called a cent, not a penny! – Noah Fleisher)

Two years ago, on her fourth birthday, my niece received a large, silver-like coin from an older family member. She was told it was to go toward her colleges expenses.

College expenses? Huh?

She wasn’t alone in her look of bewilderment, because who honestly thinks a coin will contribute to the hefty fees associated with higher education these days? Maybe he forgot to take his medicine that morning…

Fast forwarding to my interview at Heritage six months ago. I was asked: “Do you know anything about numismatics?”

Numis-what-ics?

Coming from the person I was to replace I thought for sure I needed to know this to get the job (or at least know what the word meant). Timidly answering with a “no,” he assured me that it wasn’t necessary in order to organize the advertising for those particular venues. Although I didn’t know the first thing about numismatics, I knew enough about marketing to get the job as the Marketing Account Executive for coins and currency, and I began my advertising duties a week later.

That same week a whole new intricate world of numismatists and a hidden underground numismatic community was brought to light. The amazement on my face could not have been more apparent. People collect these things? These coins are worth what? This coin is how old? Someone spent that much on one coin? I can’t call it a penny anymore? Are these people OK? Don’t they know it’s only a quarter?

It seemed as if I would never run out of questions, and maybe I never will, because I’m still increasingly intrigued by not only the coins themselves, but the people who collect these tiny rarities.

Recently my involvement with numismatic advertising, in addition to my fervent curiosity of the collecting community, led me to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the ANA National Money Show ™ in Fort Worth, TX.

I’ve learned by seeing firsthand that, to the collector, it is so much more than just a quarter. They truly have a sincere love of… well, money. From the intaglio printing and secrecy surrounding the new $100 bill at the B.E.P, to the rows of gleaming showcases and wizened faces hunched into their magnifiers at the show, it was all most remarkable. These people are so passionate and knowledgeable about something I never gave a second thought to unless it involved my trip to the ATM because some store didn’t accept credit or debit.

After learning more than I ever thought to learn about numismatics, I’m finding this love/passion/obsession – whatever you want to call it – admirable. For someone to have such a unique understanding of a niche so detailed and so specific is absolutely fascinating.

Even so, I’m not sure I’ll ever summon this “collecting gene” and start my own private collection of fancy money no one else has. I’ll just secretly hope that my dear old relative will generously bestow whatever other college funding coins he may have laying around to my cause so I can sell them. I may not be a collector, but I can still relate to their love of… well, money. It’s just that, for now, I’d rather spend it!

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Heather Harvey

Coin Monday: Period of Adjustment

2010-03-29T13:55:00.007-05:00

March 29, 2010
Written by John Dale

[Image uploading doesn't seem to be working at the moment. Consider it extra incentive to click on the link for now. I'll try to upload it again later. -- JDB]

The Fort Worth auction is in the books (though the Post-Auction Buys will still be available for a limited time), so it’s time to move on.

The next U.S. Coin auction, the official auction of the Central States Numismatic Society convention, will bridge the end of April and the beginning of May. It’ll be held in Milwaukee, a city that holds plenty of fond memories for me, mostly involving coin conventions, chess matches, and eating with my family at some of my father’s favorite German restaurants. (His favorite two, in no particular order: Mader’s and Karl Ratzsch’s.)

Actually, my mind has been on Central States for a while, since cataloging for each auction happens up until about four weeks before the coins are hammered down. I’ve already seen most of the coins that are going to be in the auction, and while there isn’t an 1804 dollar this time (ending the streak at two), there’s plenty to be excited about.

For example, there’s this 1975 Mint set. Just an ordinary Mint set, right? Of course not! This is Heritage. It couldn’t be that easy. Follow the link and take a closer look at that quarter. Looks kind of funny, doesn’t it? And not just because it’s a Bicentennial quarter, either. It’s ... not all there.

The Bicentennial quarter in the set is actually a die adjustment strike, a special kind of “error coin,” and in many ways not an error at all. In fact, die adjustment strikes are made on purpose! When a coinage press is being set up, a few test strikes are done on coinage blanks to make sure that the dies are properly aligned.

These test strikes aren’t done at full power at first, to keep the equipment from being damaged if something is wrong, but the power is enough to make a shallow, partial impression on the planchet. On this quarter, most of the broad details are visible, but the drummer doesn’t have much detail, and the words UNITED STATES OF AMERICA are illegible. (They’re supposed to be around the top. You’ll have to trust me on that.)

While die adjustment strikes are a vital part of mint operations, they’re not supposed to leave the grounds. Usually they’re destroyed, but this quarter not only wasn’t destroyed, it was packaged into a Philadelphia Mint set by accident and shipped out to an unsuspecting buyer! Fortunately for the set, the quarter was recognized as special, and rather than being “broken out” of the set, it was certified with the other coins in its packaging. It would’ve been a cool coin on its own, but now, it’s a cool coin with a great story. It's hard to argue with that!

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-- John Dale Beety

Knock knock knockin' on Heritage's Door: Original Energizer Bunny to finally come to rest in Beverly Hills

2010-03-25T15:59:00.004-05:00

March 25,2010

Posted By Noah

Talk about an advertising icon with legs – or, in this case, tracks. One of the original four Energizer Bunnies – and one of the two that was in the majority of Energizer commercials prior to retirement around 2000 – will be sold at Heritage in Beverly Hills in the April 9-11 Signature® Music & Entertainment Auction. It comes with the original custom made cases for both the Bunny and the three controllers. The price for this famous lapin? Somewhere in the neighborhood of $20,000+. But, hey, it's more than two feet tall, right? And talk about aconversation starter at parties, or a way to meet chicks at bars...

The pink bunny with sunglasses – 25 inches from feet to ears and almost a foot-and-a-half across – a drum and blue and black flip-flops became instantly recognizable to consumers since the minute it was introduced in 1989, and has since been named by AdAge.com as #5 on the list of the Top 10 Advertising Icons of the 20th Century. To occupy the same space as other advertising symbols like The Marlboro Man, Ronald McDonald, the Pillsbury Dough-boy and The Michelin Man, among the few, is rarified company indeed.

The bunny still runs as it did in its heyday, which means that you would need three people to operate it in its full glory: the head is on a gimbal, allowing for full range of the motion for the head; the arms bang the drum and move up over its head; drumsticks spin in its hands; his ears move backwards and forwards, the feet march and it moves in all directions, and spins on its axis, on tracks.

For the original ad campaign Energizer had Eric Allard and his company, All Effects, create four original animatronic bunnies. Each one was given a letter of the alphabet as identification – A, B, C and D – and a nickname to go with it. The present example is the "C" specimen, oh-so cleverly nicknamed “Clint.”

A and B, made with wheels instead of tracks, were impractical for use and scrapped for parts. C and D were made with tracks and the rest is advertising history, yes?

There were indeed two other Energizer Bunnies created – one with a deep sea diving suit and one with an astronaut suit, both of which were directly sewn onto a mechanical bunny body – but neither possesses, or needs, the range and detail of motion that the two principle bunnies needed.

When this thing hits the block in two weeks in Beverly Hills, Pop Culture watchers the world over will be anxiously waiting to see what it brings. There are only two bunnies that can claim the original spot and the top glory of starring in more than 100 commercials... For collectors, this may well be the only shot they're going to get for many years to come.

The ad campaign may keep going and going, but for this Energizer Bunny – one of the originals – it’s about to get a long deserved rest and a brand new home.

To leave a response click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Coin Monday: Heritage Auctions and The Riddle of the ‘Double Eagle’

2010-03-22T14:32:00.006-05:00

March 22, 2010

Written by John Dale

One of my favorite pop tunes is Nik Kershaw’s “The Riddle.” The lyrics are pure British nonsense (the artist has stated as much) that originally served as placeholders for the incredibly catchy music.

Recently I fielded a riddle of my own from another department. Actually, it wasn’t a riddle, but a genuine question: why do numismatists call the big gold coins “double eagles” when there’s only one eagle on the back?

I giggled a little. I hadn’t thought about the term “double eagle” that way. Then I put on my Serious Professional cap and typed my reply. The word “eagle” in “double eagle” doesn’t actually refer to the bird on the reverse, but rather a denomination of ten dollars.

The usage dates back all the way to 1792, when the Second Congress passed the Mint Act, which laid the groundwork for the United States Mint and is followed (albeit with much modification) to the present day. The term “eagle” appears in Section 9 of the Act, which starts:

“And be it further enacted, That there shall be from time to time struck and coined at the said mint, coins of gold, silver, and copper, of the following denominations, values and descriptions, viz. EAGLES – each to be of the value of ten dollars or units …”

The section continues from the eagle through the half eagle (one-half of ten dollars or five dollars) and quarter eagle (one-quarter of ten dollars or two and a half dollars), before going on to silver. When the discovery of California gold inspired calls for a coinage denomination larger than the eagle, the Act of March 3, 1849 authorized the striking of “double eagles, each to be of the value of twenty dollars, or units …”

Actual production began in 1850.

While terms like “dollar,” “cent,” and “dime” (originally (“disme”) are in common use today, “eagle” is not. Even when gold coins were made with regularity, they weren’t used much except by bankers and the wealthy. While many Americans grew up with cents and parts of a dollar, even in the early 1800s, gold coins were simply irrelevant to everyday life.

When the eagle denomination went back into production in 1838 after a 34-year hiatus, the denomination was written as “TEN D.” (for DOLLARS) instead of “ONE EAGLE.” Similarly, the early double eagles read “TWENTY D.” instead of “DOUBLE EAGLE.”

All too often, numismatists can be impatient with others who don’t understand the jargon, and I’m no exception. When I thought about it from the asker’s point of view, though, the question was perfectly logical.

If I didn’t know any better, I could see myself flipping over a double eagle and wondering why there weren’t two birds on it myself!

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: Double Provenance

2010-03-15T12:53:00.004-05:00

March 15, 2010
Written by John Dale

Provenance, pedigree (the term Heritage coin catalogers use informally), a roster of previous owners…whatever it’s called, a coin’s past can be a boon to its value. While there’s no provenance that can save a coin from itself—a harshly cleaned coin remains harshly cleaned, regardless of who owned it—the right provenance can make a good coin great, or a great coin transcendent.

Lot 2176 in Heritage’s upcoming March auction at the National Money Show in Fort Worth, is a 1911-D quarter eagle. First, the date: good. The 1911-D quarter eagle has the lowest mintage of any Indian quarter eagle, just 55,680 pieces; by comparison, the issue with the next lowest mintage, the 1914, saw 240,000 examples struck.

Next, the grade: even better. This example is graded MS66. Most Indian quarter eagles don’t come close to that quality, regardless of date. Since the 1911-D started out with such a small mintage, there aren’t too many of the coins regardless of grade, and the 1911-D quarter eagles weren’t saved heavily when they were released, so most survivors are worn or heavily marked. As I write this, lot 2176 is one of only three PCGS-certified 1911-D quarter eagles graded by that firm as MS66, and PCGS hasn’t graded any finer pieces, either.

Last, the provenance: incredible. This coin is being sold as part of The Atherton Family Collection, Part Two, but before that, it was part of two of the most esteemed collections of the 20th century. The Norweb Collection was built to its full splendor over nearly half a century by Emery May (Holden) Norweb and her husband, Ambassador R. Henry Norweb.

When this 1911-D quarter eagle was sold in the late 1980s, it landed in the hands of Harry W. Bass, Jr. His researcher-collector approach to early American gold made him famous, but his eye for quality extended across the entirety of U.S. gold coinage. The Norweb provenance was front-and-center when this coin was sold at auction at the end of the 1990s, along with other Bass Collection coins outside his core holdings.

Any 1911-D quarter eagle in MS66 is sure to be coveted, but the provenance of this example, its link back to the glamour of the Norwebs and the golden touch of Harry Bass, makes it more than just a high-grade coin. It’s hard to explain the appeal of a great provenance to someone who’s never felt that way. Here’s as close as I can get: when a coin like this comes along, when it makes me forget about cataloging for a moment and sends me checking the other offices for someone to share in my excitement—a memorable provenance tells me I've been in good company feeling that way.

-- John Dale Beety

1000 Comic Books You Must Read: A Review by Heritage Auctions' own Barry Sandoval

2010-03-11T10:58:00.003-06:00

March 11, 2010

Written by Barry

I’m not sure if you can afford to buy Tony Isabella’s new book, 1000 Comic Books You Must Read.

Oh, you won’t have a problem paying the price on the back cover, a very reasonable $29.99. (In fact, follow this link to snag it for the pittance that is $19.79). I’m talking about the price of all of the comics you’ll end up buying after you read the book.

“Luckily for you, many of the issues chosen are now available in reprint form,” the afterword says.

Yeah, that’s fine if you want to read Fantastic Four #1, but you’re out of luck when it comes to the likes of Jumbo Comics #1, Silver Streak #7, or Crime Does Not Pay #22.

Let’s say you wanted to buy every comic in the book, with no compunctions about substituting reprints to save money and no qualms about buying the lowest of low-grade copies to save dough. Even with those compromises, getting all of the comics couldn’t possibly cost less than $20,000. If you left the Golden Age out of it, you could probably do it for $5,000. Thanks a lot, Isabella!

Well, the fact that so many great comics exist isn’t the author’s problem (Tony Isabella is a veteran comic writer/editor, who among other things has my undying gratitude for giving John Byrne his big break at Marvel). The wealth of material in this book is amazing, with cover scans generously laid out four-to-a-page. What a treasure trove! Many of the scans were taken from Heritage’s own Permanent Auction Archives, with our blessing of course.

Before I get to the positives, there is one thing I would “zing” the author or his publisher about: some of the scans shown in the book don’t show the original comics but rather reprints, including Action #1, Whiz #2, and Tales of Suspense #39. What’s up with that?

That mini-abomination aside, let me tell you what I loved about the book: the author avoided falling into the three traps that compilers of similar (if less ambitious) lists have fallen into.

Trap 1: Making the list too personal, and by that I mean personal in a way that’s boring for the reader. The choices are personal all right, but in a way that’s interesting for the reader, a very difficult feat to pull off.

Trap 2: Focusing too much on “key” issues. Any comic collector already knows what those are. Thankfully, Isabella neither ignores them nor spends too much time on them.

Trap 3: Focusing too much on covers. Lists of the best covers are fun, but anyone with two eyes can easily make his or her own. Admirably, this book is about comics you must read, not covers you must look at.

The result is a book equally fascinating for the beginning comic fan or the advanced collector. I consider myself the latter, but have I ever read Wings #1, All-Winners #9, or Two-Gun Kid #60? No, but I want to now. I think this book will make some collectors rediscover what got them interested in comics in the first place.

Here again the author goes beyond the usual suspects. Everyone knows Fantastic Four #51 has the classic “This Man, This Monster” yarn. But Kookie? Konga’s Revenge? Super Green Beret? Who knew these series even existed, much less that the stories in them were worth seeking out?

Also, the author includes all genres of comics, as well as Spirit sections, promotional comics, Undergrounds, Independents, Warren mags, and even a few non-U.S. classics like Asterix and Tintin.

I’m loath to use that reviewer’s cliché, “A must for any [whatever]’s library,” but this book will certainly be a fixture in mine.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

- Barry Sandoval

In the market for a dinosaur? Who isn't! Your chance is coming soon at Heritage Auctions

2010-03-10T08:56:00.005-06:00

March 10, 2010

Posted by Noah

I think I've expressed in these blog pages on the Interwebs my sincere desire to acquire - and subsequently clone - a dinosaur, then go back in time and present it to my playground self back in the mid-1970s at elementary school.

While I was there I would warn myself against many things, the Ice Capades and Fruity Pebbles in particular, not to mention beets of all stripes, and tell myself to invest heavily in Microsoft. Then I would jet back to 1938, pick up a dozen or so Action #1s, then to 1939 for a dozen or so Detective #27s, then I would be back at home in time to catch the season finale of Psych tonight - I am ever a fan of the great Dule' Hill.

All of that is to say that, as you can see by the picture to the right, we had some big company at Heritage earlier this week and I couldn't resist taking a quick pic or two. With a few hundred thousand, maybe, or maybe a few million, I could at least fulfill the first part of my peurile ramblings above. That, mes amis, is a real, not-quite-live, Stegosaurus, 70%-80% intact, as it was assembled for photography for a Natural History auction to take place sometime next year.

And, oh yes, did I mention how much fun it is to work in a place where you walk into an auction room and see a full-size dinosaur? I didn't? Well, let me tell you...

Let's just say that the beast was hulking, huge and scary, and that's just judging by the size of its skeleton. You can see by the other picture just how big it was compared to a man - that man is our Natural History department's own Peter Wiggins, and if you know Peter, you know he's a good-sized (and good-natured) guy. I can only imagine having to run away from such a hulk of dino meat, and dodge that spiked tail, just like I'm sure poor Cha-ka the Pekuni, also known as the great character actor Phillip Paley, used to have to do on a daily basis in the jungles of The Land of The Lost. Don't even think of getting me started on the sleestaks... Creepy, man, Creepy...

The Stegosaurus above, unnamed as of yet - though I do like Chet - has no estimate attached to it, though I can't imagine I can walk away with it for less than a lot more than I have, or probably ever will have. So, listen, I'm open for partners in a deal to buy this thing. Once I have it, and once my Time Machine is done, there's at least one copy of both Action #1 and Detective #27 in it for you... I promise I'm good for it.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Coin Monday: Little Coins Get a Little Bit Bigger

2010-03-08T15:10:00.003-06:00

March 8, 2010

Written by John Dale

By size (though not value), the dime is the smallest coin used regularly in the United States, with a diameter of just under 18 millimeters. In the past, particularly during the 19th century, this wasn’t always the case. The half dime (same face value as today’s nickel, but made out of silver) was just 15.5 millimeters across when the denomination ended in 1873.

From 1851 to 1873, the three cent silver coin was even smaller, only 14 millimeters in diameter. Its weight was just four-fifths of a gram—less than the average paper clip. They were nicknamed “fish scales” for their thinness and size. Even the three cent silver pieces don’t take the tiniest-coin honor for regular U.S. coinage.

Instead, the short-lived first version of the gold dollar takes that honor. This 1849-D gold dollar illustrates the Type One or initial design. Like other Type One gold dollars, it is just 13 millimeters across. (All coins in this post are part of Heritage’s March 2010 National Money Show auction in Fort Worth.)

As so many numismatists like to say, the Type One gold dollars “proved unsatisfactory.” (Read: too darn small!) Mint employees turned out a series of experiments and patterns, some retreads of old ideas, in their quest to improve the design. One of the more intriguing patterns to come out of this quest is an annular design that tried to broaden the diameter of the gold dollar without decreasing the thickness.

The trick involved putting a hole in the middle of the coin, a style not seen on any official United States coinage, though it is used elsewhere in the world, notably on current five yen coins of Japan.

Eventually, the Mint settled on a broader and thinner planchet, diameter 15 millimeters, as its solution. The first design for the new dimensions, the so-called Type Two, was a bit of a bodge, but it was corrected swiftly, and the final Type Three design stayed more or less stable until the last circulating gold dollars were struck in 1889.

The gold dollar wasn’t the only denomination to grow in size, either. The tiny three cent silver coins were struck through 1873, but it was in 1865 that they really met their match, when the Mint first issued a three cent coin in copper-nickel. The three cent nickel has a diameter identical to that of today’s dime.

The half dime also got a larger copper-nickel replacement in the same year. While the design of this 1866 Shield nickel may not look familiar, the size should; at 20.5 millimeters, it’s just a touch smaller than the modern five cent coin. The nickels jingling in our pockets are throwbacks to the days when a lot of little coins got just a little bit bigger.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

What price the Mummy's head? At Heritage Auctions, it was $31K+ last January...

2010-03-04T09:51:00.009-06:00

March 04, 2010

Written by Yinan Wang

(It is my pleasure to turn the blog over today to Yinan Wang, a new-ish addition to Heritage's Natural History Department, and - as you'll see by reading below - an entertaining blogger. I can confirm everything that Yinan writes about in the following post, especially the cool creepiness of the mummy head, and how working at Heritage - all of Heritage - can often feel like that last scene in Raiders of The Lost Ark, when Indy is watching the ark as it is buried by a forklift in a the back of a non-descript warehouse somewhere in Washington, D.C. The difference here, though, is that things are only put away briefly - until bought at auction - and they are relatively easy to get to - as long as you know someone with security clearance and you never, ever, touch! Trust me, when I get to make my happy rounds to any number of Heritage departments to look at the amazing stuff, well, let's just say that my hands are always behind my back and I do the appreciating with my eyes. Thanks Yinan, for the Natural History update. Read on and enjoy! -Noah Fleisher)

How much is a human head worth? About $31,070 if it happens to be the head of an Egyptian mummy.

Before I go any further, I apologize for the late blog entry; after the January auction the staff here at the Natural History department disperses around the world to look for exotic pieces for the next auction and I didn’t get much internet access in Marrakech. Now that I’ve had a chance to dust off my boots, let us examine some of the interesting pieces from the January Signature Natural History auction.

Back to the head: yes, the head dates from sometime between the New Kingdom and Ptolemaic eras (1500-300 BC) and fetched $30K+ after some fierce bidding. I’m actually quite glad it’s no longer sitting in the office; it was getting kinda spooky walking past his eyeless stare on the way to the coffee room every day. If I knew my head was going to be on someone’s shelf in 3000 years, I’d be rather annoyed.

Another fun item that sold was a 9 foot tall Russian Brown Bear that went for $9,560. It was rather entertaining watching people try to figure out how to move it out of the warehouse. You can just hear the bear saying, with a perfect Russian accent: “In Mother Russia, you are not moving bear, bear is moving you!”

Eventually the bear was successfully moved onto a truck before it could crush capitalism.

There were many exciting fossil pieces sold at the auction as well, including a beautiful Pteranodon from Kansas that went for $33,460. The amazing piece looks great and it would look nice on my wall (secret Santas take note).

Some other great pieces that went to good homes? T-rex teeth, dinosaur bones, fossil fish, etc.

The mineral section brought the highest prices of the show, with the top bid being a giant aquamarine crystal from Pakistan, bringing in $143,400. It essentially looked like a nice big piece of blue ice bigger than a flashlight. Although minerals don’t quite have the organic aspect of the other Natural History categories, they’re generally very pretty.

So what is it like working in Natural History? Remember that final scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” where the box containing the Ark is wheeled into a warehouse full of boxes? Yes, it’s like that. Our shelves are chuck full of oddities, taxidermies, dinosaurs, crystal skulls, and the occasional human head.

At the moment we’re working on processing our new inventory for the next Signature Natural History auction; June 6th 2010 in Beverly Hills. I’ll post again before the auction to give you a preview of some of the special pieces on our shelves! Until then, happy bidding!

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Yinan Wang

Coin Monday: "A Bonded-Mated Pair"

2010-03-01T12:54:00.005-06:00

March 1, 2010

Written by John Dale

“A bonded-mated pair.” While it may sound like the subject of a pulp magazine cover in the next Illustration Art catalog, it’s actually a coin term, used to refer to a particular class of error. A “mated pair” is a set of two coins united by a common strike; a “bonded-mated pair” is a mated pair in which the two coins were fused together instead of separating. This is what happened to the bonded-mated pair of 1972-S proof cents coming up for auction in the March 2010 Fort Worth Official ANA Auction.

So that’s the answer to the first question: “What the heck is that?” Now for the second: “What the heck happened to it?” After all, most of the fun in error collecting comes from imagining what happened!

I described a mated pair as a set of two coins united by a common strike. More specifically, imagine one coin being struck. The planchet goes between the dies, the moving die goes down and strikes the planchet with a ton of force. Out pops a coin, which then leaves the dies. Another planchet takes its place.

But what happens when the newly struck coin doesn’t get out of the way? It can stick to one of the dies, leading to a brockage error, like this dime I wrote about back in June 2009. Or the newly struck coin could get partway out of the dies, but not completely. It lands under or on top of the next planchet, the dies come down, and suddenly there are two coins which share one impression from the dies.

Usually the two coins separate from each other after the strike. Often they are split up, with one being caught in an inspection and never leaving the mint, for example. Owning a mated pair, or both halves of a common strike, is far more desirable than having just one of the pieces.

A bonded-mated pair takes the idea of a mated pair one step further. Instead of separating, the mated pair is bonded together by the common strike. Most bonded-mated pairs never get out into the world; they’re ludicrously easy to spot in a hand-inspection, and several automated systems are designed specifically to weed out misshapen oddities like this one. Interestingly enough, this error is also a proof bonded-mated pair, and all proofs are supposed to be hand-inspected at least once before they head out the door! Makes you wonder… [Then you realize that this thing was made in the early 1970s in San Francisco, and it all makes sense. – Noah]

What’s most dramatic about this error is how it’s bent. The photographs, as great as they are, can’t do justice to how truly three-dimensional the error is. The two coins form an angle nearly 45 degrees from the horizontal, like the sides of a chevron or the two halves of a book held open as a reader searches for a page. While this error, like all the best, leaves a few unresolved questions, it does offer many insights, and more importantly, a solid jumping-off point for wild speculation. So in both speculating and bidding, have at it!

-- John Dale Beety

Batman Beats Superman: $1,075,500 Price Is Comic Book Record, at Heritage Auctions

2010-02-25T16:16:00.003-06:00

February 25, 2010
Posted by Noah

Following is the press release that we just sent out about the 8.0 Detective Comics #27, a new world record for any comic! Can you say $1,07,500? I thought your could!

(Dallas, Texas) -- Batman beat Superman. The Caped Crusader pounded the Man of Steel – and the recession – in a comic book auction today in Dallas, Texas with an anonymous superheroes fan paying a record $1,075,500 for a 1939 comic book with Batman’s first appearance.

“This is a world’s record price for any comic book. There was applause in the room when the gavel pounded for the final price of $1,075,500,” said Greg Rohan, President of Heritage Auctions of Dallas, Texas (www.HA.com), the auction house that sold the Batman comic book today.

The name of the winning bidder was not disclosed.

“This is one of the finest known surviving copies of Detective Comics #27, the first appearance of Batman. Two weeks before the live auction session, online bidding already surpassed the previous comic book auction record of $317,000 set last year for a copy of Action Comics #1, the first appearance of Superman,” said Lon Allen, a Director of the Comics Department at Heritage.
The Batman comic was sold on behalf of an anonymous consignor.

“It was owned for decades and kept in excellent condition by a savvy comic book collector who purchased it for $100 more than 40 years ago. In the 1960s and 1970s many people considered that an outrageous amount of money to spend for a 1930s era comic book,” said Allen.

“The Bat-Man,” as he was originally called, appeared for the first time in a six-page story in Detective Comics #27 with a cover date of May 1939. Superman appeared a year earlier in Action Comics #1 with a cover date of June 1938.

The comic was certified at VF 8.0, on a scale of 1 to 10, by CGC. It is one of two known Detective #27 comics certified at that grade, with none higher.

Earlier this week, a copy of the first appearance of Superman was reported as being sold for $1 million by a company in New York City; however, it was a private treaty transaction and not an open, public auction.

For additional information, contact Heritage Auctions at (800) 872-6467 or visit online at http://www.ha.com/

###
On the Net:
Heritage Auctions: http://www.HA.com

Detective #27, first Batman at Heritage, sitting a $500K+ already and looks to rise... Old public auction comic book price, I laugh at you!

2010-02-23T15:49:00.010-06:00

Feb. 23, 2010

Posted by Noah

It's been a busy few days here at Heritage, and in the world of high-end, culturally iconic comic books. If you're reading this, then you know that Heritage is on the verge of selling an epic copy of Detective #27, first appearance of "The Batman," this Thursday, Feb. 25. The previous record for a comic book offered at public auction was $317,000, last year, for an Action #1. Right now our Tec #27 is sitting at $507,000, and bidding looks to continue rising a few days from now. Hang on to your plastic sleeves, everyone! It's going to be quite a ride...

There has been much press in the last 24 hours about an Action #1 that reportedly sold (unverified at this point) for $1,000,000 in a private treaty sale in NYC yesterday. I say good for the seller and good for the overall comics business. That book, according to the reporting, was placed on the site where it sold and picked up its $1M price about a minute later.

Impressive, yes, but I wonder what it would have brought had the seller been really smart about it and placed it in a public auction. Imagine, if one buyer was willing to pay $1M in 1 minute, what would at least two buyers be willing to pay for the same book if they were both competing for it, and they had weeks to sit on it... Great price, yes, but in the humble opinion of your blogger, there seems to have been money left on the table...

Our concern here, however, is now with the 8.0 Detective #27. The excitement is certainly building and we're getting a lot of inquiries, not to mention 10s of thousands of page views on the book. It is important to note that this comic will make history for its price not as the most expensive comic ever purchased, but as the most expensive comic ever offered at public auction. It's an important distinction to make, because - at least in theory - everyone has a shot at the Detective #27. If it were a private treaty sale, well, then first come first serve...

The overriding theme in a lot of the press on the recent comics action has been on the pop culture rivalry between Supes and Bats. I prefer Bats, and given a choice I'd take the Tec #27. There are less copies available, and I believe The Dark Knight is simply more relevant to the squeaky clean Man of Steel.

Supes is true blue, and he operates strictly within the confines of good and bad. Batman, however, doesn't mind bending the rules to get what he wants. The line blurs with Batman, and in the world today, with so many competing outlets for our interests, that blurry line is the most relevant thing there is in this comic battle.

Tune in to Heritage Live at HA.com this Thursday, around 2 p.m. or so to see where the Tec #27 lands. It's going to be a public auction record, it's going to be fun, and it could be yours...

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Coin Monday: Fifty Large, Heritage Auction Galleries' style

2010-02-22T12:43:00.004-06:00

Feb. 22, 2010

Written by John Dale

The last heavy stages of cataloging for Heritage’s Official ANA Auction next month are underway. Cataloging life is never more stressful than in “the crunch,” but at the same time, it doesn’t get any more interesting. It’s impossible to predict what will come next!

For me, this past Friday was the most interesting day of all. Among other lots, I cataloged seven 1915-S Panama-Pacific fifty dollar gold pieces, three round and four octagonal. That’s…not normal.

Then again, it’s not normal for one of our auctions to have seven of these enormous coins, regardless of how many lots it contains. For example, the January 2010 FUN Auction had just three examples of either shape.

The fifty dollar pieces, along with three smaller denominations, were struck to commemorate the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, a World’s Fair-grade celebration held in San Francisco in 1915. (The San Francisco Public Library has an engaging “virtual tour” of the Exposition grounds as seen through contemporary photographs.)

For the first time in a decade, the U.S. Mint struck commemorative coins for the event, and for the first time ever, it did so away from the main Mint in Philadelphia. At more than two ounces of gold each, the fifty dollar coins were too large to be struck on regular coin presses. Rather than strike the huge coins in Philadelphia and ship them out to California, the Mint sent a medal press over instead. This allowed the San Francisco Mint to strike the coins on demand.

In addition to their huge size and dollar value (the fifty dollar face value remains a record for a U.S. commemorative), the Panama-Pacific fifties are known for coming in two different shapes, round and the more dramatic octagonal format. The octagonal shape is a nod to the massive fifty dollar “ingots” struck in California at the height of the gold rush, like this United States Assay Office piece.

The entire maximum mintage, 1,500 pieces each for the round and octagonal formats, was struck, though less than half of that mintage would be sold, with the rest re-melted. Not surprisingly, the octagonal pieces were more popular and sold 645 examples, leaving the round version a net mintage of just 483 pieces, the lowest of any classic commemorative.

With seven examples on offer in the upcoming auction, there are plenty of chances to own one of these massive gold coins. Two featured collections are key. The Cliff Street Collection offers four separate examples: here, here, here and here.

The Larry V. Cunningham Collection has two more pieces as part of a complete five-coin set of Panama-Pacific commemoratives, one round and one octagonal. A “lone wolf” octagonal, an attractive MS63 coin, rounds out the selection.

Whatever your budget (assuming you have, say, $40,000 or so to spend on a coin), there’s sure to be a Panama-Pacific fifty dollar in the auction for you. If they’re all out of your reach, there are a variety of other Panama-Pacific denominations, such as the half dollar, gold dollar and gold quarter eagle, that could be yours for a fraction of the price. I’m sure Mr. Cunningham would be happy if you bid on any of them…

To leave a commnet, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Martignette, Illustration Art - Led by Willcox-Smith, Elvgren, Leyendecker and Vargas - continues its inexorable climb to legend at Heritage Auctions

2010-02-19T09:04:00.008-06:00

Feb. 19, 2010

Posted by Noah

Perhaps a few of you tuned in to Heritage Live! yesterday to watch how Heritage's Illustration Art auction was going to do... Perhaps you even thought that, with the third segment of Charles Martignette's amazing estate filtering out that prices were going to settle and excitement was going to diminish... If that's the case, then you are disappointed this morning, no?

Let's see. I was at Heritage Slocum location for a good part of the auction in the afternoon, and had it on live on my computer back at my desk, and kept it on at home both before and after dinner until the thing ended somewhere around 9 or 10 p.m. I watched until my eyes blurred and ached, until I couldn't freeze the amazing images out of my consciousness and they seared the background of everything I looked at, ghosting in greens and yellows behind the skaters and skiers of Olympic coverage long after the final tally was set.

That tally? Oh yes, the reason you're disappointed if you're a naysayer (Do you say nay?), is that when the smoke settled, the auction had realized $4.5 million, obliterating the previous single auction record set last year at Heritage by more than $1 million. Serious scratch if ever there was.

While I could talk about the $310,000 Jessie Willcox-Smith drawing, or any of the $100,000+ Elvgrens, or the record setting Vargas Girl ($107,000+), or any number of record-setting illustrations, I will leave that up to the intrepid collector and pop culture junkie to dig through the archives - there is a certain Zen to spending hours doing it.

No. I want to talk about the one painting in this auction that I wanted above any, and that was Rudy Nappi's "Reefer Girl." And once you stop giggling at the quaint title and look at this painting you will see why I - and many more - wanted her for our own.

Reefer Girl was estimated at $2,000-$4,000, and given that none of his paintings had ever brought more than $4950, it seemed reasonable to expect the same range - he's that sort of artist. Quite good, indeed... But Reefer Girl, oh, Reefer Girl... I guess I knew it was destined, like the best of love affairs and liaisons, to end in heartbreak. Yes, my $2,000-$4,000 girl, who I actually entertained a brief second of hope of actually getting my hands on - don't ask how laughable my only bid was, how I would have possibly paid for it and explained it to my wife had I won it, or how quickly said bid tumbled to those with more do-re-mi - soared to $26,290.

Yes, I have good taste. Expensive, too...

I'm sorry for keeping this from you for so long, but love like this cannot be trumpeted too loudly, less it be lost or stolen, and I feared one of this blog's readers would try and take her from me. As it turns out, there was nothing to lose, for my sweet Reefer Girl was never really mine...

Excuse me, please.... No, those aren't tears... It's the smoke, the smoke left from a painted girl with an orange sweater, that's gotten in my eyes...

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Revisiting “Blondiegate,” 1982, at Heritage Auctions

2010-02-18T14:43:00.004-06:00

Feb. 18, 2010

Written by Barry Sandoval

Blondiegate: The day America lost its innocence, or an event of no consequence whatsoever?

You be the judge.

It was June 20, 1982, when the Associated Press wrote:

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – A recent Blondie comic strip showing two husbands sneaking out on a lecture was a slightly altered version of a Blondie strip published 19 years ago, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reported Sunday.

From the article, readers also learned:

- The strips were virtually identical except for the final panel, where a quip by Blondie was replaced by a funnier quip by Herb (hmm, 75% repetition!).

- Chic Young’s real name was Murat Young (who knew?).

- Dean Young, who took over writing the strip in 1973, could not be reached because his phone was knocked out by severe weather (suspicious!).

- King Features said “We are very concerned and surprised about this.” (Why, 28 years later, have no heads rolled yet?)

A follow-up story a couple of days later quoted Dean Young as saying: “Who cares?... I mean, golly, give me a break.”

I agree with Dean Young, but King Features obviously didn’t, as I learned from this lot to be auctioned Feb. 27, three boxes full of correspondence from the files of King Features editor Bill Yates.

The documents therein show that King Features launched into damage-control mode, demanding that Young re-do from scratch any strips with partially re-used gags, with the exception of those that had already been published or were too far along in the process to stop.

From handwritten notes, presumably by Yates:

"TOO LATE TO STOP: 6/7/82 redo of 3/10/63
any more?
anything we can pull, we must
Sunday holds (KILL) Aug. 15 + 22"

A few thoughts here:

- Writing a comic strip is one of those things lots of people think they could do well. Many probably could come up with a week’s worth of funny gags. Maybe a month’s worth. Perhaps even a year’s. Dean Young, though, had thought of about 4,000 gags by 1982, the vast majority funny. Try that sometime.

- If someone reminded me of something today that made me smile or laugh in 1991, I would thank him, not criticize him.

- If re-using premises was a crime in 1982, the makers of Three’s Company, the Dukes of Hazzard, and Love Boat should have all been sent to San Quentin.

In closing I quote a King Features memo from June 21, 1982, also part of this auction lot:

“With the exception of the Sioux Falls paper, reporters’ approach to the situation has been casual. The AP writer told Dean, ‘I feel silly calling you.’”

- Barry Sandoval

Coin Monday: Numismatic New Orleans

2010-02-15T11:08:00.004-06:00

Feb. 15, 2010

Written by John Dale

So there was a football game eight days ago. Maybe you saw it. Full disclosure: I was rooting for the Indianapolis Colts. I grew up in Indiana, and I’m a graduate of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, where the Colts hold their summer training camp.

(Apropos of nothing: Peter King of Sports Illustrated had a pretty amusing take on Rose-Hulman when he went there to cover the Colts in 2009, and while there wasn’t an “Advanced Calculus” course while I attended, math did start with “Calculus I” and got harder from there!)

Naturally, I was disappointed that the Colts lost, but the New Orleans Saints deserved the win. Enjoy the rings, Drew Brees, head coach/mad scientist Sean Payton, and all the rest. We’ll get you next time…

In honor of the Saints’ victory (and my lost “blog bet”), today’s coin comes from New Orleans. While Saints fans hope this season was just the beginning, the MS63 1909-O half eagle in the upcoming March 2009 Fort Worth Official ANA Auction marks an end: the end of the New Orleans Mint as a coin-striking concern.

The New Orleans Mint has an unusual history in two acts. One of three branch mints to begin striking coins in 1838, New Orleans shut down operations in 1861, along with the other two branch mints, which were also in Confederate states. While the other two branch mints never re-opened, the New Orleans Mint was refurbished and began to strike coins again in 1879.

The re-opening was only a partial success. The Mint’s equipment was old, and its existence was controversial. Production halted in 1909, and the Mint machinery was dismantled and returned to Philadelphia two years later.

The mintages for the various half eagle issues of 1909 illustrate how obsolete the New Orleans Mint was. That year, Philadelphia struck 627,060 half eagles for circulation. The San Francisco Mint coined 297,200 pieces, a respectable figure. The recently opened Denver Mint had an astonishing output of 3,423,560 five dollar coins. New Orleans? Just 34,200 examples. Worse yet, that was the first half eagle issue struck at New Orleans in 15 years.

The New Orleans Mint did not linger to strike more half eagle issues, and today, the 1909-O is key to its series in Mint State grades. The Select example to be offered in Fort Worth would make an excellent cornerstone to a complete collection. The winning bidder can do with the coin as he or she pleases, with one exception: no coin tosses. I’m sure the Vikings fans will agree with me on that one…

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Snow Day here at Heritage Auctions in Dallas

2010-02-11T10:21:00.007-06:00

Feb. 11, 2010

Posted by Noah

It's not often that we actually get a whole day of snow here in Texas - I can remember a few real snow and/or ice storms from when I was a kid, circa 1980 or so - so today is special for Texans who never see too much of the stuff. Most of them are actually stopping, looking up to the sky and scratching their heads as they mutter, "Now what in tarnation is that there white stuff floatin' down from the sky?"

While I am from here, I did spend 20 years in the Northeast and New England, not to mention one unbelievably cold winter in central Wisconsin, so it takes a lot of snow, and very deep cold, to make me even take notice.

Still, though, it is kinda beautiful...

The worst part of it all, I have to say, is how poorly Texans drive in the snow. It is literally as if the earth itself has thundered, shaken and been rent wide open - even though the snow is not sticking to the roads, and not freezing to the roads either. It is like driving in a medium downpour, really... Texans also have a thing about rushing to the supermarket and buying all the milk and bread they can find - bottled water, too, these days - just in case that funny white stuff coming down means the end of society as we know it... I kid, I kid...

The top picture is from the 17th floor here at Heritage World HQ, looking into Downtown Dallas. The other is from the front of our Slocum Street Annex in Dallas's Design District.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Coin Monday: The 1904 Double Eagle, Playing to Type

2010-02-08T12:12:00.005-06:00

February 8, 2010
Written by John Dale

One of the broad styles or modes of collecting coins, type collecting consists of acquiring and owning a series of coins, each representative of a subset, or “type” of coin. A type set of double eagles, for example, would include coins exemplifying its various designs over the years, both long-lived (such as the “Type Three” Liberty double eagle with denomination spelled out as TWENTY DOLLARS, struck from 1877 to 1907) and short-lived (the High Relief Saint-Gaudens double eagle was made only briefly in the latter year). The High Relief double eagles are worthy of their own blog post, so I won’t go into them today, but consider this coin from the upcoming March 2010 Official ANA Auction in Fort Worth a sneak preview.

The High Relief double eagles of 1907 are the only ones of their type, so the collector by type has to get one or do without. Longer-lived types, on the other hand, have a variety of issues to choose from, and usually type collectors will aim for more common dates, often known as “type coins,” well-suited to that style of collecting. Since type coins are more available than rarer dates, they are usually less expensive than their peers, letting the type collector acquire a higher-graded coin for the same price.

For the “Type Three” Liberty double eagle design I mentioned earlier, there are several dates that appeal to type collectors. Most famous is the 1904 double eagle, struck at Philadelphia. The official mintage of coins for circulation: 6,256,699 pieces. Over six million coins at twenty dollars face value each—and 1904 dollars, no less—that’s a lot of money, even for Mark Cuban. Which reminds me, I should go to another Mavericks game one of these days...

Anyway, there were a lot of 1904 double eagles made, and many of them have survived. In the Fort Worth auction, there are examples in a variety of Mint State grades, suitable for a broad range of budgets. Go ahead and check out the price information on this MS63 example. Those “Population in All Grades” numbers? In the six figures, and no joke. NGC has graded a 1904 double eagle as MS63 64,496 times. That’s not a typo. Suffice it to say, if you want an example in MS63, you can find usually find one to your liking, and quickly.

Same for MS64, and even MS65, though as the quality increases, so does the price. There’s a dramatic drop-off in availability from MS65 to MS66, though, and the example we’re offering in that grade looks every bit the five-figure coin it is. As for finer examples, NGC and PCGS combined have graded three total. Even Heritage hasn’t offered one. If you’re holding out for an MS67, expect a long wait. If an MS66 will do for you, though, the coin coming up in late March might be just your type.

-- John Dale Beety

CGC 8.0 1939 Detective #27 comic, Batman's first appearance, on the brink of a world record at Heritage

2010-02-05T14:11:00.006-06:00

Feb. 5, 2010

Posted by Noah

Ode to the CGC Certified 8.0 1939 all-original copy of Detective #27, The Batman's first appearance, in Heritage's Feb. 25-27 Comics and Comic Art Auction, which stands, at this very moment, one single bid away from being the single most valuable comic ever offered at public auction (currently at just more than $310,000+, which is a BIG wow) and the catalog has not even reached collectors yet:

The mintiest little Batman book

the public's ever seen

Whoever walks with this baby

will be feeling quite sanguine...

Okay, okay... so I'm not much of a poet, but you have to give me credit for using sanguine...

Speaking of sanguine, I daresay Heritage's comics department is sporting a collective smile these days. Think about it: The auction literally just opened to bidding a few days, online no less, and the bidding jumped immediately to $286,000 before moving one more notch this afternoon. There is little doubt that this book is going to surpass the record price ever paid at public auction for a comic book, and rightly so. It's a beauty.

Let's try this again:

Oh comely Detective #27

with your yellow cover still bright

you are the hobby's Holy Grail

let your price now take record flight...

Better? I didn't think so...

Facts, though, is facts, and this little comic, bought back in the 1960s by a savvy collector for about $100, is now a thing that rivals the prices paid for examples of artwork from important American painters and furniture makers. This is a storied item that speaks of a vastly different world - an era when America was quickening toward war with Germany and the public zeitgeist was indeed in need of a somber savior - that is somehow still very relevant to the war torn world of today.

My favorite take on this comic potentially setting the world record for price is that it proves, if only for now or a few years, that Batman is simply more relevant to society today than Superman. I know it's not really fair to compare this comic book with the Action #1 that sold last year for $317,000, because the grades were different - and if an 8.0 Action #1 showed up then that would probably eclipse this record - but I'm going to do it anyway.

In 2010 the general populace loves its superheroes to be flawed, plagued by doubt and conscience, in short, human. Superman is not a human, and he is almost invincible. Batman? Very flawed, even fragile, despite his incredible gadgets and intellect. Batman could easily have been destroyed many times over if only one of his foes had simply killed him on the spot instead of leaving him in a deadly, but slow, trap. That, however, is also Batman's particular luck, and don't we all live our lives in the same way - in one sense or the other?

No? Not you... Oh well... I was speaking metaphorically, of course.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to make my way out of the ropes binding me to this giant Jack-In-The-Box, painfully plinking Pop Goes The Weasel, before it pops open, pops up and smashes me to bits in the jagged refuse of the Joker's abandoned toy factory hideout... At least that's how my commute home through Dallas traffic sometimes feels...

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Unbelievably rare Mickey Mantle gamer surfaces for Heritage Auctions April Sports event

2010-02-04T16:03:00.011-06:00

Feb. 5, 2010

Posted by Noah

An extensively photo-matched, researched and authenticated New York Yankees jersey worn by Mickey Mantle during the 1967-68 MLB season – truly one of the greatest Mantle-related pieces of memorabilia to ever surface in the hobby – will make its’ world auction premiere as part of Heritage Auction Galleries April 22-23 Signature® Sports Memorabilia Auction, live in Dallas and online via HA.com. It is estimated at $100,000+.

Let's turn to Chris Ivy, Director of Heritage Sports, for his opinion, yes?

“This amazing jersey truly represents the find of a lifetime for collectors of top shelf baseball memorabilia,” he said. “Even more incredible is the fact that it sat in a private collection for more than three decades with the owner completely unaware of how important and piece it actually is.”

Consigned by a South Florida collector, who wishes to remain anonymous, the jersey found its way to the area after Mantle’s final game in pinstripes when the great slugger participated in a youth baseball camp in spring of 1970. Before that, however, it saw active duty in the minor leagues with the Oneonta Yankees – a farm team for the great franchise – as they trained alongside the professional team in Ft. Lauderdale in 1969, evidenced by a very faint outline of the letter "O" appearing over the heart, which replaced the original iconic “NY” Yankees symbol.

After Mantle agreed to participate in the clinic, the “O” was stripped and replaced with a block lettered "NEW YORK," which is how the jersey appeared when it came to Heritage from the consignor, a friend of one of the boys who had attended the camp. The stitching path of the original "NY" logo still remains clearly visible, even after expert restoration to return the jersey to its original appearance. Importantly, however, the number "7" on the reverse shows no such sign of removal or replacement.

"In actuality, the jersey also saw active duty in the spring of 1969, and could therefore be justifiably billed as Mantle's last pinstripes,” Chris said. “We know for sure that this was the very jersey that The Mick wore on the cover of the Mickey Mantle Day program distributed to more than 60,000 fans at Yankee Stadium on June 8, 1969.”

The aging slugger couldn't help but think of a man honored on that same ground three decades earlier as he stepped to the microphone.

"I've often wondered how a man who knew he was going to die could stand here and say he was the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” Mantle said, “but now I guess I know how he felt."

Like Gehrig, the Mick had nothing left to give to the fans of the Bronx other than his gratitude, the sharp edges of his athletic gifts dulled by injury, hard living and the relentless, unforgiving passage of time.

“Now, in a magical moment, Mantle has once more surfaced to gift us with his immortal presence in the form of this long-hidden gamer,” Chris said. “It’s easily one of the most important and desirable Mantle artifacts ever to reach the public auction block.”

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Coin Monday: Wreath Arms Wide Open

2010-02-01T14:14:00.004-06:00

Feb. 1, 2010

Written by John Dale

My taste in coins is well-defined: I favor proof Seated silver, classic and modern commemoratives, and obscure 19th century gold rarities.

My taste in music, on the other hand…well, calling it a “taste” stretches the definition of the word. But decidedly under-represented in the mix: power ballads. Pat Benatar is acceptable, but I draw the line at Michael Bolton, and ditto for any song title combining the words “arms” and “open” (see Journey, “Open Arms,” and Creed, “With Arms Wide Open” [JDB, I have to take issue with the Journey diss. Those guys stuill rock! In fact, my frist concert, at age 13, was Journey and Bryan Adams at the now-gone Reunion Arena here in Dallas! - NTF).

When the arms are those of a wreath, however, I do like open arms — and in the case of the 1849-C Open Wreath gold dollar, those open arms hold immense rarity, not to mention potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in value. Heritage is offering an 1849-C Open Wreath gold dollar, believed to be one of just five known, in the swiftly approaching February 2010 Long Beach U.S. Coin Auction. For many years, the fifth example was only rumored, though within the last couple of weeks Heritage has received information that all but confirms the existence of the fifth coin.

There are two major design varieties among gold dollars struck in 1849, the first year of the denomination, at the mint in Charlotte, NC. The “Open Wreath” coins have the ends of the wreath far away from the 1 in the denomination. The “Closed Wreath” coins, such as this example, have the ends in much closer. Both coins are from The Longfellow Collection, a remarkable gathering of gold dollars with the 1849-C Open Wreath as the cornerstone.

What makes the Open Wreath 1849-C gold dollar so rare? Between both Open Wreath and Closed Wreath coins, there were just 11,634 1849-C gold dollars struck. Researchers believe the Open Wreath coins were struck first, but only a couple hundred of them were made before the Closed Wreath design replaced the Open Wreath. Mint officials found fault with the technical details of the Open Wreath reverse, hence the replacement. For a Charlotte gold dollar issue, a survival rate below 3% is not unusual, so if, for example, 200 Open Wreath pieces were made originally, it wouldn’t be strange for just five coins to remain today.

Some rarities are famous, others obscure. To the collecting population at large, the Open Wreath 1849-C gold dollar is the latter, but the catalog description quotes Douglas Winter as saying, “Among Charlotte [gold] collectors, it has assumed near-mythic proportions.” What will it bring? A coin so infrequently seen is hard to predict, but a six-figure sum is virtually assured.

It’s time for me to go back to cataloging. I often catalog to music, and this time, I think I’ll make an exception to my usual rule about power ballads. Bring on the Pat Benatar! But should I start with “Shadows of the Night” or “Invincible?” Decisions, decisions… [I can only assume, John Dale, that you went with “Invincible.” – NTF]

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

RIP J.D. Salinger: Remembering the writer at Heritage Auctions

2010-01-28T15:11:00.007-06:00

Jan. 28, 2010

Written by Joe Fay

In early April 2008 I wrote a letter to the legendary, and legendarily reclusive, J. D. Salinger.

Like almost anyone who has done the same in the last 30 years (and probably long before that), I never got a reply. I wrote him that I thought he was one of the finest writers I had ever encountered. I wanted to relate to him that his fiction had helped shape my worldview, and to a certain degree my personality.

Mainly, I was writing to inform him that my wife and I had just named our newborn twins Franny and Zooey, after the eponymous characters in two Salinger short stories, published together in book form in 1961. So it is especially sad to hear of his passing this morning of natural causes at the age of 91.

My wife and I are Salinger fans, each in our own way, as are a great many children of the middle and late twentieth century. We were both introduced to Holden Caulfield in high school, again as a lot of people our age were, in Salinger's landmark novel The Catcher in the Rye.

We grew up on famous stories about Mark David Chapman's rabid fascination with the book, and how it helped tip him over the edge of sanity after which he murdered John Lennon. And over the years, we've listened to the stories, with varying levels of amusement and consternation, of Salinger's legal battles with his daughter and several other authors who've tried to publish works based in the Salinger universe.

Considering where I work and what I do, thinking of Salinger also reminds me of the wonderful selection of letters and books we've sold here at Heritage Auctions relating to the great writer, including a handful of nice copies of The Catcher in the Rye. This is one of the high points and touchstones of modern fiction. It has been, is, and will continue to be the most aggressively collected of his works, and there's no telling how high in value the VERY short list of signed copies of this it will go. We've also auctioned a number of signed documents and letters, most notably a very interesting three-page 1981 typed letter signed "Jerry."

We even have a small assortment of Salinger books in our upcoming February 11-12 Rare Books Auction in Beverly Hills. Included in the auction are five lots, ranging from a very nice copy of Catcher to a wonderful copy of the rare first issue of Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour An Introduction. None of them are signed, but then again, very few of Salinger's books are at all.

I've already had two friends ask me what today's news will do to values for Salinger material. Books, even rare first editions, will probably not appreciate considerably more than usual. For signed items, it's difficult to pin down exactly, but the short answer is that they're going up. Salinger is a notoriously hard autograph to get. Letters, manuscripts, and even clipped signatures demand a high premium in the market, and after today, and in my opinion, prices will spike for awhile and settle in at a higher plateau that they're at now. How much higher? Who's to say?

I think part of all of us who call ourselves Salinger fans hoped that one day he would snap out of his self-imposed isolation and re-enter the world, as if he had been under a magic spell since the early 1970s. Then, maybe, JUST maybe, we could have a letter returned or a book signed.

Alas, it is not to be. It was probably a pipe dream anyway. So, all I'm left with are his books (the important part, really). I have them all at home, including a first edition of Franny and Zooey, which my daughters will hopefully fight over some day. My wife and I will continue to cherish Salinger's fiction as we've always done.

Rest in peace, Jerome. We will miss you. Most of all, a lot of us will miss that we missed you, and that we never got to see or meet or interact with you at all, for Chrissake!

-Joe Fay

(If you've read this far, then you know that Joe named his twins Franny and Zooey after Salinger's book, which should tell you why I prefer he have the opening words on Salinger's passing. The reclusive master obviously had a great impact on my Heritage colleague and I have the utmost respect for his sentiments.

It is an odd feeling I have writing this on the day Salinger dies - it has seemed, in fact, that he has been dead for years, but he was only gone. Occasionally something would surface, or a friend of a friend has a story about friends that tried to find Salinger in New Hampshire and risked the wrath of the locals and the cops. Little towns, we learned, fiercely protect their celebrities. Now he is truly dead and the next few years will surely see the in-depth documentation of his last three decades. I hope there are a few books hidden away in the cold New england state.

I, as so many, was very moved as a young man by Catcher In The Rye, and now, as a grown man, a father, and with years of experience behind me, I find the very deep sadness behind the rebelliousness of Holden Caulfield much more poignant than the rebellion itself. More than that - with a four-year-old girl wrapping me around her finger - I find his drawing of Holden's little sister especially poignant. She is the ultiamte instrument of his final unraveling. He's undone by the simplicity of her love and the sincerity of her attachment to him - at least that's how I read it now... And how I'll read it tonight before I go to bed.

The world lost a great and difficult one today. Perhaps Salinger now has the peace he so desperately wanted when he was still in human form. - Noah Fleisher)

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

This Sunday Night! Force 10 from Navarone takes Heritage Auctions Weekly Internet COmics sale

2010-01-27T14:17:00.003-06:00

Jan. 27, 2010

Written by Barry Sandoval

When I saw the striking image you see here in this week’s Sunday Internet Comics Auction, I didn’t need to read the description to tell me it shows a scene from a real masterpiece of a thriller, Force 10 From Navarone!

If you have never read this Alistair MacLean classic from 1968, you are missing out on an incredibly tense adventure story. Personally I would rank it behind only Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal on my list of all-time favorite thrillers.

The book was a major bestseller when it came out, but it gets respect from the pros, too. In Dean Koontz’s book How To Write Bestselling Fiction, Koontz advises aspiring writers to read the last part of Force 10 From Navarone as the perfect example of a suspenseful situation and a climactic scene. The scene shown in the painting comes near the end of the story and features Mallory (an unforgettable character!) and Miller… and when that part gets resolved there’s still more excitement after that!

The book is the rare sequel that’s better than the original, though the original is darn good. I speak of The Guns of Navarone, published in 1957 and made into a movie in 1961.

That brings up an odd thing about Force 10, which begins on the same day the previous story ends. One early scene has Andrea Stavros (that’s a guy not a girl, and he’s another very memorable character) getting married, despite having no mention of any fiancée in the previous book! It turns out MacLean just wrote the sequel as if it were a sequel to the movie rather than to his own previous novel – the first time I had ever heard of that happening.

Force 10 was itself made into a movie in 1978 with Robert Shaw as Mallory, and with Miller being played by Edward Fox (best known as the Jackal in… now I’m back to mentioning the The Day of the Jackal again!).

Here’s the poster art for that movie, illustrated by Brian Bysouth.

Heritage has offered the poster now and then and it’s been quite affordable at $15-$20.

Anyway, the original illustration being auctioned this week is by Gil Cohen, one of the top illustrators for the now defunct genre of men’s adventure magazines. One such publication was the testosterone-laden Male Annual where this was published.

The art is being auctioned without reserve, so give it your best “shot”… as it were.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Barry Sandoval

Coin Monday: ‘Well, now, I wouldn’t say that!’

2010-01-25T14:45:00.004-06:00

Jan. 25, 2010

Written by John Dale

I had something of a “throwback moment” recently, reading through a copy of the “Greysheet” for the first time since — was it my internship here in the summer of 2004, or all the way back in 2002, when I was still in high school?

The Greysheet, more formally known as the COIN DEALER newsletter [sic], is a weekly publication listing “bid and ask” - suggested “buy” and “sell” prices - for many collectible U.S. coins in a variety of grades. The Greysheet, named for the signature color of its paper, has been a coin-shop staple since its inception in 1963, and two of its spin-off publications are of similar importance.

First, the “Bluesheet,” or CERTIFIED COIN DEALER newsletter, covers high-grade coins certified by NGC or PCGS, such as this 1944-D Walking Liberty half dollar, MS67 NGC, in Heritage’s upcoming February 2010 Long Beach U.S. Coin Auction. The other major spin-off is the “Greensheet,” or the CURRENCY DEALER newsletter, which covers collectible U.S. currency, but I’ve never actually used it; you’d have to talk to “the currency folks” for that one.

So if the Greysheet is such a numismatist’s essential, I should look at it every week, right? But as the Richard Q. Peavey character from The Great Gildersleeve would put it, “Well, now, I wouldn’t say that!” (For those of you unwilling to admit you heard The Great Gildersleeve over the radio, or those under the age of 55, perhaps you’ve seen a classic wartime Looney Tunes short, “Draftee Daffy,” in which Daffy Duck tries with increasing desperation to avoid the deliverer of his draft notice. The bespectacled messenger makes frequent use of the Peavey catchphrase.)

As a cataloger, I just don’t have much of a reason to pick up a Greysheet and look at it. I write about coins; I don’t make buying or selling decisions for the company, or help others make them. Thus, I consult price guides with less frequency than one of Heritage’s wholesale buyers, or a consignment director giving a client advice on proper venues for coins. When I do check a price guide, usually it’s to help me decide whether a coin should be photographed for the catalog, for example, or get a full-page description.

For that judgment call, I turn to Heritage’s Permanent Auction Archives and get my numbers from the past results. The Greysheet calls itself “The Only Source for Accurate, Timely & Unbiased Rare Coin Pricing Information!” I’ll admit to being a bit biased myself, but considering all the information, the actual prices paid for actual coins to be found in the Archives, I have only one proper response: “Well, now, I wouldn’t say that!”

To leave a comment, please click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

"Fangs - only very occasionally - & very subtle..." - Anne Rice originals bring vampire glow to Heritage Auctions

2010-01-22T14:38:00.007-06:00

Jan. 22, 2010

Posted by Noah

I will be forthright with you: Anne Rice has never been my thing. I always preferred my vampires more Count Chocula than Brad Pitt. I know you're shocked.

Rice hasn't really been anybody's thing for a decade or two really, but that's forgivable. The incredible splash she made on the American fiction scene in the mid-1970s with her first novel, Interview With The Vampire, and her impact on American Pop Culture are things to be greatly respected. And I'm sure she cried into a pillowcase full of money every time she laments her diminished flame.

Her more dubious legacy of having left us with the translucent, abstinent, doe-eyed vampires of Twilight, I am not so in awe of - anger is more like it... but that is for me and my therapist to discuss...

Anyway you look at it, though, there are a few very interesting Anne Rice lots in the Feb. 11-12 Rare Books Auction at Heritage Auctions Beverly Hills in the form of the very first book she ever signed - an advance review copy of the first edition of Interview, inscribed by Rice on front endpaper, "For Drake, This is the first book I've ever signed - With special affection, Anne Rice".

Considering what was shortly to become of Rice and her little book, there is indeed a magic of some kind in that book and signature. Most novelists would take 1/10th of that magic for their first book. 1/100th. The estimate on it is $1,500. We'll see if there are Rice fans out there who absolutely have to have this and what that means to this piece.

The other Rice lot is a Personal Manuscript Diary Feast of All Saints, With Thoughts on the Success of Interview With the Vampire - Signed Twice. It was written by Rice in Paris, London, New York City, and Los Angeles, April 15-June 15, 1977. It's estimated at $10,000+, and is probably just juicy enough to get that and more.

Again, while it's not really my particular cup of tea, this is an interesting look at the writer's process, and it contains Rice's thoughts on her publisher (Knopf - not good) and her thoughts on the possible adaptation of Interview, which wouldn't happen for another 17 years(!). I will concede this however, it contains an absolute gem of writing when, in her thoughts on the movie, she writes:

"Fangs - only very occasionally - & very subtle..."

Nice. What other way is there, really to present fangs? Besides in chocolate cereal with marshmallows...

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Feelin' Leyendecker: Ready for Illustration Art in February at Heritage?

2010-01-21T16:50:00.005-06:00

Jan. 21, 2010

Posted by Noah

I knew when I woke up on Monday morning that something felt different for me, and I don't mean the change in the Dallas weather for the warmer - though that's been pretty nice. 70 degrees this week, anyone? Anyone?

I soon pinpointed what it was: We're a month away from February Illustration Art, that's Feb. 18, to be exact, and the third section of Martignette. Hoo boy!

Now, I'm not going to make the mistake this time and tell anyone what my most absolute favorite painting is, because I have expensive taste and want to have just a teeny tiny wheeny whiney little chance of getting something I want out of this auction - though the truth is that I probably won't because, like I said, I've got some good and expensive tastes.

That said, and putting aside my love of the Pin-Ups and Pulps here, I have to tip my hat to J.C.Leyendecker's absolutely sublimely astounding Bringing in the Turkey (Thanksgiving cover), Saturday Evening Post cover, December 2, 1933.

You can see by the picture above, and by clicking on it and going to the lot, that this thing is an absolutely masterpiece of form and color. And it's not going to come cheap, either, estimated as it is at $100,000-$150,000. Needless to say, I am not going to be placing a bid. In fact, I can hear the money gods laughing their derision at the very thought of it....

There is something wildly evocative and instantly familiar about Leyendecker's scene, even though I'd venture a guess that most of us have never had a butler serve us Thanksgiving - at least I haven't - and most of us probably don't have three hound dogs chasing that non-existent butler into the dining room. I have actually served Thanksgiving dinner to people before, and I've even cut a turkey. Can you believe it?

But I digress.

As usual, this auction offers up just a tremendous amount of superb stuff. And there is actually one painting I will at least make a try for, but I refuse to tell you... After all, it was probably you who bought the one I wanted last time, and there's no way I'm going to go through that again...

See you Feb. 18, hopefully along with a few more world record prices.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Coin Monday: Behind the Gold Bars

2010-01-18T12:27:00.003-06:00

Jan. 18, 2009

Written by John Dale

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I have a penchant for vintage California gold bars, specifically the mid-1850s assayers’ ingots recovered from the S.S. Central America; I’ve already dedicated one Coin Monday slot to their remarkable qualities.

That post, however, largely restricted itself to stating the obvious, and there’s much more to assayers’ ingots than “heavy,” “shiny,” and “gold.” Though the company names seen on gold bars rarely lasted long—measured usually in months, and sometimes weeks—the people within the partnerships often made spent long portions of their careers in California, mixing, matching, and establishing reputations. The Harris, Marchand & Co. ingot in Heritage’s February 2010 Long Beach U.S. Coin Auction offers an excellent illustration.

The “Harris” of Sacramento-based Harris, Marchand & Co. was Harvey Harris, a fortysomething native of Denmark. Harris billed himself as “Melter and Refiner” of the firm, apparently newly created, in an October 1855 advertisement quoted in the catalog description.

(The source for the advertisement was California Coiners and Assayers by Dan Owens, a remarkably well-researched book that combines selections from thousands of vital records and newspaper commentaries to paint a picture of the personalities. Regrettably, California Coiners and Assayers, like so many numismatic library essentials, seems to be out of print. Secondhand copies are out there, but if anyone knows a way I can purchase the book “new,” so that a well-deserved royalty goes to the author, please let me know in the comments section!)

Harvey Harris had worked at two U.S. Mints, New Orleans and San Francisco, as well as the private assay offices of Kellogg & Co. and Justh & Hunter. Both firms, or their successors, would also have assay ingots aboard the S.S. Central America. For more information on the Hungarian Mr. Justh, a striking figure in his own right, see this recently offered ingot.)

By contrast, the other “name” partner of the firm, the Belgian-born, Paris-certified assayer Desiré Marchand, has credentials emphasized over experience. The reason? In short, he was a kid. Exactly how young he was is open to debate—sources noting his death suggest he was born in 1836 or 1837, but information from his naturalization as an American citizen suggests a birth in 1838 or even 1839 instead.

So in October 1855, when that advertisement went in the paper, if one goes by the death-notice figures, he was probably 19 years old, possibly 18. If the citizenship numbers are correct, he was 17 or maybe even 16! In other words, by the time I was interning at Heritage, looking at gold, Marchand was in California was assaying the stuff. Commence feelings of inadequacy…

How the two met, or why they went into business together, is lost to time, but it’s not hard to piece together a mental image of an alliance of convenience between Mr. Harris, long on experience but without the benefit of his former assayer employers, and Mr. Marchand, a young technical master who might have been lost in the rough atmosphere of California. And while the firm “Harris, Marchand & Co.” did not last until September 12, 1857, the date the S.S. Central America sank, this ingot, among the last assayed under that title, was in the ship’s cargo, lost to the ocean as part of a tragedy, brought back to the surface as a piece of history.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Human Target TV Show: Can’t Wait… Or Maybe I Can... (A Heritage Auctions comic expert's dissapointment...)

2010-01-14T13:07:00.006-06:00

Jan. 14, 2010

Written By Barry Sandoval

(It's always a treat to welcome the writing of Barry Sandoval to the Heritage Blog. Besides being the Director of Comics Operations here at Heritage HQ, Barry is obviously one of the world's foremost authorities on comics and comics art, and an unbelievable font of Pop Culture knowledge.

I've turned over the digital reigns to Barry today so he could express his outrage - of sorts - about a favorite second tier character that is being made into a most likely very bad TV show debuting this weekend - Shocking, I know, to think that TV or the movies would take a character with strengths and a great back-story and make him a dime-a-dozen pretty boy dope. I wouldn't watch the show that Barry talks about, either, and I certainly share his outrage... - Noah Fleisher)

I was really looking forward to the “Human Target” TV show that premieres next weekend and has been heavily promoted during the commercial breaks of football games for weeks now.

I say WAS because while perusing the Arts and Leisure section of yesterday’s New York Times, I read that the show will change one thing about the character: he won’t be wearing any disguises.

What???

Perhaps I should backtrack.

The Human Target is a comic book character, created by Len Wein, who first appeared as a backup feature in Action Comics #419 (1972). The character’s name hints at his original twist: he’s a master of disguise who saves people who think their lives are in danger by disguising himself as the intended murder victim.

Since he can interact with suspects (who think he’s the dead-man-to-be) without arousing suspicion the way a stranger surely would, he’s able to solve the mystery of who’s out to kill his client, and he’s handy enough with his fists to subdue the bad guy. This pose-as-the-victim gimmick was unprecedented (I think), and was the one thing that separated him from the usual dime-a-dozen suave hero.

The Human Target did his thing in tightly plotted short stories running eight pages or so apiece, popping up irregularly in Action from 1972-1974 and returning in The Brave and the Bold in 1978. All of the preceding are great yarns and highly recommended. The Human Target has appeared in comics now and then in the ensuing years (check out his memorable turn in Detective #500), and believe it or not, he has had a TV show before. It ran just a few episodes in the summer of 1992, starring none other than that suitor of Jessie’s girl himself, the one and only Rick Springfield!

As the Times reported yesterday, this new show is dispensing with the whole “disguise” concept, basically because the actor playing the lead was deemed too good-looking to be encumbered with fake beards and the like.

So… the TV producers paid good money (presumably) for the rights to an obscure character, then changed the one thing worth paying for rather than just invent their own good-looking hero for free.

Whatever.

If you’re intrigued by the investment potential of the character: CGC-certified NM/MT 9.8 copies of Action #419 have been selling in the $90 - $150 range in our Sunday Internet Comics Auctions.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Barry Sandoval

How about that Cowboys memorabilia! - a Lone Star trip through the Heritage Auction Archives

2010-01-13T14:00:00.007-06:00

Jan. 13, 2009

Written by Chris Nerat

(Before getting to Chris's blog post for today, I have to give him a heartfelt round of applause for picking himself up off the floor and writing this post about this subject, after his beloved Packers were so unceremoniously bounced from the playoffs by the pesky cardinals and some bad officiating. So here you go, Chris, listen closely right now and you'll hear my clapping.

The subject of Chris's post is indeed the Heritage hometown team, none other than the Dallas Cowboys, and - needless to say - Chris is not going to get a lot of sympathy for his dilemma down here. Right now people in Dallas are excited, yes, but wary. It's one game at a time for most Cowboy fans, nice and easy. It's been a dozen years since we tasted glory, and no one wants to get too overexcited. That said, thanks to Chris for pointing out some of the great Cowboys memorabilia that has come through Heritage, and that hopefully there will be more to come! -Noah Fleisher)

The Dallas Cowboys are probably the hottest team in the NFC, and possibly the team with the most momentum in the entire NFL right now. This late-season run has provided a lot of excitement around the Heritage offices, especially in the sports department. Whether it’s Cowboys memorabilia from yesteryear, such as game-worn jerseys from players like Roger Staubach and Tom Landry, or modern day superstars like Tony Romo, Troy Aikman or Emmitt Smith, our Dallas-based auction venue seems to have the inside track on obtaining pieces featuring “America’s Team.”

After a lengthy drought in the NFL Playoffs, the Cowboys finally proved victorious in a post-season game this past weekend, and serious Dallas collectors are definitely ready to take some of the funds they have saved up from the past 15 years, and unload their wallets on high-quality Cowboys memorabilia.

Let’s take a look at a few key pieces we have sold over the past few years, which are of similar quality that collectors can expect from our weekly and Signature auctions:

1969 Roger Staubach Game Worn Rookie Jersey:
There’s something about that little NFL 50th anniversary patch on the sleeve of a 1969 superstar jersey that drives collectors wild. When you combine that enthusiasm with one of the most iconic players in NFL history, and on his rookie jersey nonetheless, this combination transforms it into a piece that is Canton-worthy.Sold for $22,705 in May, 2007.

1971 Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl Championship Ring:
Salesman’s sample rings are some of the most attractive pieces in the hobby, and also help provide a nice alternative to an actual Super Bowl ring, which normally would break the bank. This beautiful 1971 Cowboys Super bowl ring featured Ten karat white gold, and a fantastic array of faux gem stones. Sold for $5,676 in October of 2009.

1970s Tom Landry Game Used Clipboard with Handwritten Plays, Coaching Whistle:
We sold this intriguing lot only a few months ago in one of our weekly sales. A killer investment for the lucky winning bidder, this lot was equally as affordable as it was significant. Any time you have the chance to purchase a piece that was used by an NFL legend, I advise you to snag it. You can’t go wrong when purchasing items from an iconic figure. Sold for $388 in October 2009.

1995 Super Bowl XXX Lombardi Trophy Salesman's Sample:
There’s nothing more breathtaking than walking into a memorabilia room and seeing a replica of the most recognizable trophy in sports. This salesman’s sample Lombardi Trophy from Super Bowl XXX would look extremely nice next to a Troy Aikman or Emmitt Smith gamer … By the way, we have sold those too! Sold for $2,031 in October 2009.

1961-63 Dallas Cowboys Bobblehead:
Vintage nodders will and always will be some of the most desirable pieces in the hobby. Due to their condition-sensitive nature, Mint examples command the most investment potential. This charming little fella comes from the early days of the franchise’s history, and he looks happy to have fetched a nice price of nearly $400. Actually it was $388 in August of 2008.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Chris Nerat

Coin Monday: Hat Trick at Heritage FUN

2010-01-11T13:20:00.005-06:00

Jan. 11, 2009

Written by John Dale

In keeping with Chris Nerat’s post on the virtues of Heritage’s Permanent Auction Archives, I’m going to finish off my coverage of the January 2010 FUN U.S. Coin Auction (don’t forget the Post-Auction Buys!) with a look at what the auction means for Heritage’s archives, and more specifically the coin wing of Heritage’s Auction Hall of Fame.

For starters, Heritage just auctioned off three million-dollar coins. The 1927-D double eagle? Yes. The 1874 Bickford $10 pattern in gold? Yes. The 1913 Liberty nickel? Oh heck yes. Three coins - one auction, one session - for more than one million dollars. No other firm has auctioned three million-dollar U.S. coins as single lots in one sitting. That’s reason to smile.

This isn’t the first time Heritage has pulled off the hat trick, either (credit due to Senior Cataloger Mark Borckardt for the reference). Back in January 2005, Heritage rattled off its first three million-dollar coins. An 1894-S dime was the crowning glory, and it came only about 150 lots after two different types of Brasher doubloons, the Punch on Wing for $2.415 million and the Punch on Breast for $2.99 million, sold as consecutive lots. (Since then, another duo, the 1796 No Stars quarter eagle and the 1796 With Stars quarter eagle, have sold as consecutive lots at Heritage auctions for more than a million dollars, but there was no third million-dollar coin to complete the trilogy.)

November 2005 closed out that year with another hat trick, as the fantastic Phillip Morse Collection of Saint-Gaudens double eagles redefined the record books. Lot 6522, an Ultra High Relief, Lettered Edge coin from 1907 (not to be confused with the “merely” High Relief Saint-Gaudens double eagle) went for $2.99 million. After Morse’s 1921 double eagle went for $1.0925 million, excitement built, since his 1927-D double eagle was still to come - and at $1.8975 million, it did not disappoint.

The two hat tricks of 2005 are important to the history of the company, but two key achievements make the January hat trick all the more remarkable. First, never before in history have three U.S. coins have sold in a single auction for over one million dollars hammer price, before Buyer’s Premium is added in. (Buyer’s Premium is the 15% difference between, for example, the “Sold for $900,000” announced for the 1894-S dime and the customer’s bill for $1.035 million.) At $1.1 million hammer for the Bickford ten dollar, $1.3 million hammer for the 1927-D double eagle, and $3.25 million hammer for the 1913 Liberty nickel, all three clear the bar easily.

Second, while the two previous hat tricks have been dominated by one consignor (the consignor of the Gold Rush Collection in January 2005, or obviously Phillip Morse in November 2005), the January 2010 FUN Auction’s three million-dollar coins all came from different sources. Ralph P. Muller proudly put his name on his collection and his 1927-D double eagle. I also know who consigned the Bickford $10 pattern, though as always, Heritage’s consignors remain private unless declared otherwise.

As for the 1913 Liberty nickel, even I don’t know who owned it. In the coin auction business, there are three broad classes of stories: the stories you can tell, the stories you won’t tell, and the stories you can’t tell. And as for who at Heritage “can’t tell” and who “won’t tell,” well, I won’t be telling…

To leave a comment click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Significant, interesting and a little strange at times… Many reasons to check out Heritage’s archives database

2010-01-06T12:14:00.005-06:00

Jan, 6, 2010

Written by Chris

It’s only natural to concentrate on the major sports of baseball, basketball, football and hockey when you think about some of the most notable and unique pieces in the hobby.

However, if you normally only have an eye for the classic pinstripes, the extraordinary lumber or the fantastic garments of the gridiron, hardwood and ice rink, I urge you to escape your comfort zone in order to explore the amazing memorabilia that surfaces from some of the more obscure sports.

All it took was a quick run through Heritage’s handy archive database, and I was able to pick out some of the most peculiar, and at the same time, significant pieces of memorabilia, which have nothing to do with the major sports.

When searching through the archives, I like to search from highest price to lowest, but there’s no rule when surfing through our amazing variety of sold auction lots. Here’s a select few I picked out in order to show the collecting public that even some of the “smaller” sports should still have a place in your memorabilia show room, right alongside some of the top dogs that regularly frequent the hobby world.

Some people refer to the legendary horse Secretariat as one of the best athletes to ever live, and others don’t feel comfortable placing an animal next to names like Ali and Jordan. All debating aside, this 1973 Secretariat Triple Crown worn bit and bridle, which the famed horse wore during the peak of its career has got to be one of the most intriguing pieces Heritage has ever offered. This Hall of Fame-caliber lot realized more than $26,000 in our May 2005 Signature sale.

The sport of boxing has graced the collecting world with many spectacular, and sometimes, downright peculiar robes and trunks over the years. Sold by Heritage in October 2008 for nearly $20,000, this beautiful blue and gold satin garment was worn by boxing legend Sugar Ray Robinson. There’s just something about this robe from Robinson’s Gold Glove days in New York that’s sure to impress collectors, even if they aren’t boxing fans.

Interesting and eccentric pieces of memorabilia don’t always have to be pricey. Now, I’m not sure if wrestling should actually be considered a sport, or merely entertainment, but there’s no question that these crazy guys are great athletes. Offered in September 2008, for a little more than $1 per card, is this set of 1954-55 Parkhurst Wrestling cards. Colorful characters such as Gorgeous George, Primo Carnera and Mighty Atlas are featured in this rare and affordable collection.

Now, I’m not going to lie. I am in no way a NASCAR fan, and don’t think I’ll ever spend more than a few minutes watching cars drive around a track, but how cool is this item that we sold in April of this year? This uniform, which was worn by the iconic Dale Earnhardt Sr. during his 1996 Daytona 500 race, realized $12,000 in our Signature sale.

Whether it’s these types of unique items you’re looking for, or you simply want to find out the realized prices of your personal memorabilia collection, I want to stress that our auction archive database is unmatched in the sports memorabilia industry. The photo quality and lot descriptions, and the vast array of pieces we have sold over the years are just as impressive as the site’s user-friendly features.

To leave a comment, click on the title of the post.

-Chris Nerat

Coin Monday: The Big Bickford

2010-01-04T13:08:00.004-06:00

Jan. 4, 2009

Written by John Dale

A slightly surreal slice-of-life from Heritage, a recent e-mail exchange:

From John Dale to Noah – Still trying to come up with ideas for next Monday’s blog…would a digression into 19th century European monetary unions be interesting at all, do you think?

Reply from Noah to John Dale – As long as you can work in a reference to, or a quote from, The Dude in The Big Lebowski, I think it would be fine…

Reply from John Dale to Noah – In that case, forget it, dude. Let’s go bowling.

… and that’s why today’s topic is the Bickford international coinage proposal, which is well-represented in the January 2010 FUN U.S. Coin Auction, but which is only tangentially related to 19th century European monetary unions.

What the two topics have in common is a nebulous “international coin” movement that saw its 19th century heyday in the 1870s. The Latin Monetary Union, which aligned the values of national currencies of member nations, began with four countries: Belgium, France, Italy, and Switzerland. By 1870, Greece and Spain were also members. Many other countries remained unaligned, however, and currency conversion between, say, Great Britain and France remained frustrating, particularly for occasional travelers.

One such traveler was Dana Bickford, an inventor known in his time for creating an “automatic knitting machine,” but today best known among numismatists for his attempts to create a working international coinage. The Bickford pattern $10 coin lays out its value seven ways: there are six denominations and values in boxes that surround a center listing the weight and metal content.

The proposed gold coins would have been valued at 10 United States dollars; 51.81 French francs; two pounds, one shilling, one penny in British sterling, etc. The center, applicable UBIQUE (or “everywhere” in Latin—thanks, Mrs. Killion!) lists the coin’s weight at 16.72 grams (of gold), 900 fine (or 9/10ths pure).

It’s an utterly delightful and charming idea — until one realizes that as soon as any one country changed the value of its currency relative to the rest, the coin is suddenly wrong. This fatal flaw is why the Bickford $10 trade coin never made it past the pattern stage.

Most of the Bickford $10 patterns produced were made out of copper, like this example. Two precious representatives, however, were made out of gold, and these rarities are among the most prized patterns available to collectors today. One of them, formerly owned by numismatic legends such as Waldo Newcomer, F.C.C. Boyd, and Dr. J. Hewitt Judd (who literally “wrote the book” on patterns), is a highlight of the auction’s Platinum Night session.

In fact, it’s right there on the Platinum Night cover, next to the 1913 Liberty nickel and the 1927-D double eagle. While it may not have the instant recognition of the other two (pattern collectors excluded, of course), the Bickford $10 pattern in gold is actually the rarest of the three. Bidding is up to $725,000 as I type this…where will it end? Nobody will know until the bidding ends on January 7. Heritage’s January 2010 FUN event will be the first great numismatic auction of the new decade. Join us in Florida or on Heritage LIVE!™ to join in all the excitement!

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Top Favre memorabilia from an inveterate Cheesehead - PART II

2009-12-30T16:06:00.003-06:00

Dec. 30, 2009

Written by Chris Nerat

(While it started two weeks ago, I have not forgotten the second half of Chris Nerat's Top Favre memorabilia, I have just been giving it a good mulling over… Actually, the holidays have come, are here, and are ending, and once that's all done - and may I be among the first to wish you a Happy New Year - the Heritage Blog will get back with regular postings from our burgeoning group of blog superstars… Enjoy the second part of Chris's post, and see you in 2010! - Noah Fleisher)

#6: Brett Favre Game-Used Touchdown Balls

Touchdown balls from any player are hard to obtain, and maybe even harder to authenticate. But, if you are fortunate enough to obtain one of Favre’s touchdown balls with solid provenance, it’s comparable to owning a home run ball from sluggers Henry Aaron or Barry Bonds. Very desirable indeed, and Heritage just happened to have sold probably Favre’s most significant touchdown ball of them all, when we offered his 2nd career touchdown ball, which also represented his first game-winning touchdown. This museum-caliber piece sold for nearly $10,000 in our October 2008 Signature Auction.

#7: Game Program from Brett Favre’s 1st Game – September 20, 1992

No, Favre isn’t pictured on the cover of this historic artifact. It actually has a Pittsburgh Steeler theme that is featured, so many uninformed Packers fans have disregarded it as insignificant over the years. Don’t let the black and yellow cover fool you. This program is highly desirable and will go up in value for years to come.

#8: Full Ticket from Brett Favre’s 1st Win – September 20, 1992

Not as valuable as his first start ticket, but a definite close second. On September 20, 1992, Favre entered the game for an injured Don Majkowski. The young player from Southern Mississippi was a little shaky at first, but led his team to an amazing comeback win, and solidified himself as Packers starting QB.

#9: Full Ticket from Game Played One Day After Favre’s Father Passed Away - December 22, 2003

One day after Favre’s father passed away, he could have had a horrific game and nobody would have blamed him. Instead, the gunslinger put up the best numbers of his career, and led his team to an amazing throttling of the Oakland Raiders. This ticket is probably the rarest of all significant Favre tickets. The game was played in Oakland, and the Raiders’ faithful just didn’t save them.

#10: Super Bowl XXXI Green Bay Packers Team-Signed Helmet

This helmet, representing Favre’s only Super Bowl-winning team is an easy choice for the list. Due to the passing of defensive leader Reggie White, Favre collectors are no longer able to put together complete Super Bowl XXXI team-signed memorabilia.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Chris Nerat

Coin Monday: Ode to Louis McHenry Howe

2009-12-28T14:24:00.006-06:00

Dec. 28, 2009

Written by John Dale

While it may not have quite the same ring as “Ode to Billie Joe”, there’s an “Ode to Louis McHenry Howe” in lot 2062 of The Boca Collection, Part I, one of three volumes in the set covering Heritage’s January 2010 FUN U.S. Coin Auction.

Just about everyone who isn’t either a Franklin Delano Roosevelt fanatic, over 80 years of age, or a clicker of the hyperlink bearing his name is asking, “Who the heck is Louis McHenry Howe?”
Howe was a journalist turned ultimate political insider and ultimate confidant to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Through a quarter of a century Howe guided Roosevelt through his early state-level political experiences, his personal and political crises in the aftermath of his failed 1920 bid for the vice-presidency, and the vast majority of Roosevelt’s first term as president.

Still, Howe was doubtless more famous (or infamous) at the height of his influence than in the years following his death; even recent re-tellings of history inevitably must elide ($5 SAT word alert! - Noah) important figures of any one time, and advisors - even influential ones - are often among the first to fade.

Howe’s contemporaries could not deny his influence, however, so they called him names instead, attacking his appearance and his political acumen. He was a “Rasputin” for his perceived influence over Roosevelt, an unflattering “Talleyrand,” a “ghoul.” Less grudgingly, he was also “The President’s Other I,” “The Man Behind Roosevelt,” or as the title of a recent history-biography describes him, FDR’s Shadow.

The Roosevelt-Howe relationship was unusually close for a modern American president and an advisor, and the proof coinage of 1936 is actually a testament to that closeness. Though proof set coinage had been stopped in 1916 because of rising costs and hassle, the idea was revived two decades later.

Why? To quote a quotation of a quote (it makes sense if you read the description…), “It was understood at the Treasury that the resumption of [proof coinage] was ordered on a suggestion of Louis M. Howe, secretary to President Roosevelt, a few weeks before his death.”

Thus, it was a message from the President’s secretary and confidant – in some ways a last wish – and was, ultimately, the catalyst for the return of proof sets. The idea took only months to travel from Howe’s mind to then-Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau’s desk to the coining presses in the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia.

Why did Howe make his request? The press release that was the ultimate source of the above quote states simply, “Howe was said to have been interested in numismatics.”

The mid-1930s were a boom time for coin collecting, and there were a number of collectors campaigning for the return of proof sets at the time, but whether Howe was interested in proof sets himself or was acting on another’s behalf is not widely understood. Perhaps a further examination of Howe’s correspondence will reveal why this intriguing man – the “Medieval Gnome” at Roosevelt’s side, the whisperer in the President’s ear – looked after numismatics in his final days.

After Howe’s death, he was buried as much as he was praised, but his influence on President Roosevelt was incalculable. The last sets of the Boca Collection are the undeniable proof.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Coin Monday: Value Me as You Please

2009-12-21T13:15:00.005-06:00

Dec. 21, 2009

Written by John Dale

“Colonial” or “Pre-Federal,” “Post-Colonial” or “Early American” — all are labels attached to parts of the same broad group of numismatic issues. (Here at Heritage, we just call them all Colonials.) A nearly exhaustive definition of the broad group might be: “metal coins or tokens, issued by a colonial government or private authority, on behalf of an area now part of the United States of America in the years leading up to and immediately after the area’s territoriality or statehood.”

Why must the definition be so complicated?

Actually, considering the diversity and complexity of “Colonials” themselves, every word is necessary. (I’m sure at least one Colonials specialist is going to chime in with some variant of “You missed X, Y, and Z.” Consider this an apology in advance.)

“Colonials” were made before and after the 1783 Treaty of Paris: before, a 1662-dated Oak Tree twopence silver coin from Massachusetts; after, a 1787-dated Immunis Columbia copper token. (Unless noted otherwise, all coins are from the January 2010 FUN U.S. Coin Auction.)

“Colonials” were made for the British-styled “13 original colonies,” as well as North American French colonies and “New Spain” (present-day Texas), as seen in the Auction Archives.

As for the difference between colonial government and private authority, two prominent rarities from FUN’s Platinum Night offer a great illustration.

Lot 2390 is a “New Yorke” Token struck in brass, graded Fine 15 by PCGS. While no date appears on the New Yorke tokens, their origin can be pinned down to the space of a few years. They were issued by Francis Lovelace, who became the second British governor of the colony of New Yorke (as it was then spelled, after the Duke of York) in 1668. The colony had been captured from the Dutch, who called it “Nieuw Amsterdam.”

Lovelace’s governorship lasted until 1673, when the Dutch recaptured “Nieuw Amsterdam.” Though “New Yorke” was soon taken back by the British, Lovelace was not there to see the victory; he was instead rotting away in the Tower of London.

Before that end, though, Lovelace had enough favor to create the “New Yorke” tokens, which point to him on both sides: as noted in the catalog description, “the eagle on the reverse is identical to the crest on the Lovelace coat of arms.” The obverse, which shows Cupid and a woman on either side of the tree (various sources list her as Venus or Psyche), is a vignette depicting love, and puns such as “love-Lovelace” were not uncommon in coinage at the time.

While Lovelace’s “New Yorke” tokens were made with the approval of the Duke of York (or at least his indifference), the Higley coppers struck in Granby, Connecticut were strictly unauthorized. The coppers, represented in the auction by lot 2389, are traditionally attributed to Dr. Samuel Higley, a medical professional and a metallurgical amateur. He also owned a copper-mining business, and it’s believed that starting in 1737, Higley began making copper tokens, possibly with metal from his own mines.

His early copper tokens were self-described as “THE VALUE OF THREE PENCE,” according to their legends, though their closest approximations were actually British halfpennies. It would’ve been a nice racket if Dr. Higley had gotten away with it, but he didn’t, judging by his later tokens such as lot 2389; they read “VALUE ME AS YOU PLEASE” instead.

Lovelace and Higley were separated by the better part of a century and wildly different circumstances of birth and fortune, yet both contributed in their own way to the history of Colonial coinage. Theirs are also just two of the uncountable chapters in that history, told across two full centuries and a touch beyond. When Heritage’s next auction comes around, what will its Colonials have to say?

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

A Cheesehead's Top 10 Favre Collectibles - Part , or Heritage Auctions welcomes Chris Nerat

2009-12-16T10:52:00.003-06:00

Dec. 16, 2009
Written by Chris Nerat

(It is with great pleasure that I can welcome veteran sports collectibles writer - and recent Heritage Consignment Director appointee - Chris Nerat to the Heritage Blog.

Some of you sports fans out there will well recognize Chris from his days editing, writing and blogging for Sports Collectibles Digest, or SCD, and - if you do - you are probably as happy as I am to see his contribution here. Chris is a recent refugee to Dallas from the frigid cold of his home in Central Wisconsin, and Heritage is glad to have him. He's a lifelong Green Bay Packers Fan {I guess he can be forgiven for that} and is probably the biggest dealer in Vintage Packers memorabilia in the country.

Besides all of his professional accomplishments, which are many at his relatively young age, Chris is a supremely nice guy - as so many from The Badger State tend to be. I know this because I had the pleasure to work parallel to Chris in Iola, WI during my brief stint a few years ago as editor on an antiques publication based out of there. Like I said, he's very welcome here in Dallas and I hope he's enjoying the transition.

I pegged Chris for the Heritage Blog the day he started and decided to let him start easy with something he knows and love: Brett Favre material. The only caveat being it had to include Heritage in it. The result is Chris's Top 10 Favre pieces as the ageless QB puts together another stellar year. We only have room today for the first five, which don't include the Heritage lot, but given that Chris is new, we'll let it pass… This time… - Noah Fleisher)

On September 20, 2007, Brett Favre surpassed Dan Marino’s career touchdown passing mark when he completed a 16-yard pass to Packers receiver Greg Jennings for his amazing 421st score in front of a Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome crowd. Fast forward two years, and Favre is still slinging it, and coincidentally in that same Minneapolis dome. The difference is, this time he isn’t wearing the Green and Gold. Instead, he’s the enemy, or at least that’s the feeling in the hearts of most Green Bay Packers fans.

After spending a brief tenure in New York with the Jets, and now a Minnesota Viking, Favre is well on his way to winning his fourth NFL Most Valuable Player award, and quite possibly on the path to his third Super Bowl appearance. Favre is a sure-fire first ballot Hall of Famer, has excelled at a position no other 40-year-old player has ever even come close to … And by the way, has never missed a start during his 280-plus game career.

When considering Favre’s impressive resume already under his belt, no matter how bitter Packers collectors may be about No. 4’s recent career change, there’s no question that quality Favre items are, and will remain a smart investment for all football memorabilia collectors.

The good thing for potential Favre investors is that, recently, hype around the ‘ol gunslinger’s memorabilia has been less-than-spectacular. This has kept the price down. However, once the NFL’s postseason gets underway, and if the Vikings go on a serious Super Bowl run, Favre pieces are going to be on fire as much as one of his 30-yard, finger-breaking fastballs.

Presented here is my list of the Top Ten Brett Favre items in the hobby:

#1: Brett Favre Game-Worn Packers Jersey
No matter what team Favre is playing with, when it’s all said and done, he will always be remembered as a Green Bay Packer. Authentic Favre Packer gamers are definitely few and far between, but if you’re fortunate enough to pick up one of his green or white garments at a decent price, this is a no-brainer for the Favre investor.

#2: Full Ticket from Brett Favre’s 1st Game – September 27, 1992
Brett Favre’s consecutive start streak is one that could even make Cal Ripken Jr. blush. If you can’t afford an unused example from this game, stubs can make for a nice alternative, and a very good investment.

#3: Brett Favre Game-Worn Vikings Jersey
If you need proof, look no further than the example that recently sold for $16,000 by NFL Auction. Granted, this sale was for charity, and that may have had some affect on its realized price, but that is quite a hefty amount for a shirt that’s only a couple months old.

#4: Brett Favre Game-Worn Packers Helmet
The Packers equipment manager, Red Batty has stated that there has never been a Favre Packers game-worn helmet that has been made available to the collecting public. Well, that’s hard to believe, but we do know Favre game-worn helmets are nearly impossible to obtain. Also, the fact that there are many collectors who own Favre game-worn jerseys and would love to add a helmet as a suitable companion, the instant a gold Favre shell is offered it will attract lots of attention among collectors.

#5: Brett Favre Game-Worn Jets Jersey
Despite the fact that Favre only spent one year with the Jets, his New York gamers appear in the hobby from time to time. You will also have your aggressive Favre collectors trying to obtain an authentic gamer from each team he played with. That alone suffices a Jets game-worn jersey at No. 5 on my list.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Chris Nerat

Coin Monday: The Catalog Stands Alone

2009-12-14T12:18:00.013-06:00

Dec. 14, 2009

Written by John Dale

It’s been a while since I last wrote about the coin cataloger’s perspective, so why not this week? (Don’t worry. You’ll get your coin fix closer to the end of this post. See hint at right.)

As a cataloger, I realize that my coin descriptions have two uses: the short-term and the long-term. In the short term, my lot descriptions have to sell the coins - that’s why I get paid - but finding a balance is tricky. Before the auction, if a consignor doesn’t like what I’ve written - doesn’t think it’s complimentary enough, or believes I’ve left out a Very Important Fact™ - and complains to the Consignment Director, I hear about it.

Then again, after an auction, if a buyer doesn’t like what I’ve written - see above, substituting “strict” for “complimentary” and “customer service department” for “Consignment Director” - I REALLY hear about it. So in selling the coin, I have to “sell” the lot description to two different audiences with wildly different expectations, making bidders say “It’s fair” and consignors say “It’s wonderful!”

While the department doesn’t have a 100% hit rate, considering the tens of thousands of coins the cataloging department describes each year, we come surprisingly close.

Once the auction has closed, the descriptions in the Heritage catalogs have a second life as reference material. While even the most basic photo-and-text description can help with tracking the provenance of an item, the greatest catalogs — usually single-collection catalogs focused on a specialty such as early copper or silver dollars — are treated with nearly the same reverence as scholarly books, and referenced nearly as often. A glance at our Catalog Orders page shows a number of catalogs that have attained this level of respect, such as the Lemus Collection of pattern coins, sold January 2009, and the Belzberg Collection of Canadian coinage, sold January 2003

(Conspicuously absent from the list is the Walter J. Husak Collection catalog, covering his impressive collection of large cents, which has completely sold out and now commands a strong price in secondhand numismatic literature circles. You might have heard about the Husak collection — maybe from the Washington Post or Ripley’s Believe It or Not! or even Saturday Night Live. Cue Seth Meyers: "A California man's collection of 301 rare American pennies [Bzzt! Never call a cent a “penny,” even if you’re Seth Meyers. – Noah] sold at auction this week for $10.7 million. Far exceeding my pre-auction estimate of three dollars and one cent.")

In January 2010, Heritage will hold two auctions with specialized catalogs that have every chance of becoming time-tested references. On the World Coins side, the Canadiana Collection will be auctioned in New York City. It’s one of the most jaw-dropping collections of Canadian coinage ever assembled—the legendary 1936 Dot cent is just one of many highlights.

On the U.S. side, the standalone collection leading the way in our Florida United Numismatists (FUN) auction has a distinct Floridian flavor: it’s called The Boca Collection, Part I. The collection contains a complete run of the 71 proof sets issued from 1856 to 1953, covering denominations up to one (silver) dollar.

The 1890 set has an added bonus: the four gold denominations, from two and a half dollars to $20, are also included in proof. Every one of those coins is a rare delight. Each year, Heritage auctions coins and collectibles from thousands of consignors. Every consignment is appreciated, but only a handful of these collections have the value and the strength to stand alone. While I treat each coin that comes across my desk with the respect it deserves, I invariably find myself giving extra attention to coins destined for stand-alone catalogs.

A stand-alone catalog means a great collection, and even if Heritage is going to sell it off one lot at a time, a collection that great deserves to last, if only in pages.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Me and Detective 27

2009-12-11T14:49:00.007-06:00

Dec. 11, 2009

Posted by Noah

What can I say? When in the presence of a comic book like the one you see in my hands in this picture - a pristine 8.0 graded copy of Detective Comics #27, the first appearance of Batman, tied with one other for the best copy known - you give in to the geek factor. Tell me you wouldn't do the same?

This comic will be part of the February 2010 Comic Auction, will most likely end up being the single most valuable comic book ever offered at public auction, and will once and for all settle the eternal question of who is the more popular and/or valuable. This picture will tell you what I think. I don't think anyone would argue that Batman is certainly more relevant to this day and age than Super... Sorry...

The amazing thing about this comic book is that, yes, it is actually as gorgeous as it looks. The colors are rich and full, the detail is crystal clear and the thing is absolutely perfectly centered. It is every bit a work of art, and will command a price worthy of such. You can believe the hype on this one. I've said it before in this blog that it takes a lot to make our comic experts sit up and take notice. Needless to say, they - who have seen pretty much every great comic book ever made - did exactly what I did: they whipped out their cameras, handed it to the nearest person, and said, "take a picture of me with it!"

Yes, look at it, enjoy it, love it, but don't get too used to it.... Unless, of course, you have about a half million bucks to spend. Then it's all yours.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Tiger, Tiger memorabilia and the whole salacious affair: Thoughts from the Heritage Auctions Blog

2009-12-09T12:10:00.007-06:00

Dec. 9, 2009
Posted by Noah

Perhaps you live in a cave somewhere deep in the mountains. Maybe you're a survivalist in a tree house deep in the woods living off your wiles. If that is the case, then you can be forgiven for not knowing about the ugly details of the unraveling of the monolith that was Tiger Woods.

I don't want to pile on to Tiger, because he's certainly getting a deserved pounding right now in the media and from his diminished fan base, but this is a monster entirely of his own making. Before two weeks ago, a suspicious car crash and the revelation of many women that they were paramours of the World's #1 golfer, Tiger's meticulously crafted and carefully guarded public image was squeaky clean to the point of shining. Now, not so much...

The question we have to ask at Heritage, being in the business we're in, is what will it mean to the memorabilia side of Tiger, Inc.

Now, Heritage Auctions is not the biggest dealer in Tiger memorabilia, but we have sold some... Though none since the story broke... so it's difficult to say if values will go down in a concrete sense - there is no proof yet. But...

I've spoken with most of my friends about this mess, many folks here, and with Heritage's Director of Sports Auctions, Chris Ivy, who was kind enough to spare a few minutes of his time for to discuss this whole debacle, and in his quite erudite opinion, and I'm paraphrasing Chris, how in the world could this not affect the value of his pieces? At least not in the short term.

Here's the thing: Most of us wanted to believe that Tiger was a clean as his image. He is the single greatest golf player (almost) of all-time, and his sport is easily the most elegant and refined of any major sport. It all added up magnificently - it was perfect. He's the greatest athlete in the world, people fall at his feet, and yet he was a charitable, humble man, a loving father and husband and, best of all, a sober role model for the millions that adore(d) him. We all want badly for it to be true... So badly... Now it seems that he, on many of those levels, is not what he presented himself to be. Speculation runs rampant.

What hurts the most is that this is the image Tiger himself wanted to project, and he did it masterfully. Had he never been presented as the Super Man, his fall from grace would have been less stunning. But it's not. It's actually more stunning, as it always is when a carefully constructed house of cards comes tumbling down.

The real revelation, which shouldn't be a revelation at all, is that Tiger is simply a man, and he is flawed like every one, and replete with weaknesses like every human. We all deal with pressure in different ways and - to say the least - most of us can never even consider the kind the kind of pressure that Tiger is under day in and day out, let alone reckon how to deal with it. In that sense, Tiger deserves somewhat of a break, I suppose, though there is little anodyne for the sting of this disappointment.

Would it do Tiger any good to pull a Kobe? Should he buy Elin a great big rock and change his ways? I do believe the public would welcome back a penitent Tiger with open arms, especially if he is sincere in his reformation. Mrs. Woods, however? Most of us can answer the question for ourselves as to where we would stand were it us. But we're not necessarily married to the single most charismatic person on the planet, no matter how much I tell my wife she is...

It will be interesting in the months to come to see how Tiger plays golf under the added scrutiny, and how his memorabilia plays given his recent tribulations. A couple major championships should ease the pressure a bit... It's that very pursuit, however, that got him into this situation in the first place.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Coin Monday: The Legend of the 1943 Bronze Cent

2009-12-07T14:51:00.007-06:00

Dec. 7, 2009

Written by John Dale

Back in late October, I discussed wrong-planchet errors in the context of a Franklin half dollar that had been struck on a planchet designed for a quarter. (The results from Houston are in, and the piece sold for $1,150. Not bad for a Mint mistake!) At the end, I left a slightly cryptic clue to another wrong-planchet error I knew about: “Oh, but I did mention ‘wrong size or type,” didn’t I? Well, I’ll tell you about that later…”

It’s officially later, if later than I’d planned, so now it’s time to let you in on the secret. This is the good stuff. The really, really good stuff.

Click here.

For those of you who clicked and didn’t experience sudden coin euphoria, let me slip into my best Olmec impression and tell you The Legend of the 1943 Bronze Cent:

“Long ago, in the city of Philadelphia, there was a building called the U.S. Mint. In the early days of World War II, when copper was needed urgently for bullets and artillery shells, the Mint was using tons of copper to strike one cent coins, which were made out of bronze. To save that copper for the war effort, the Mint metallurgists experimented with other, different metals in search of a replacement. They even tried making cents out of plastic!

In 1943, for one year only, the Mint made cents out of zinc-coated steel, but a handful of 1943-dated cents were made in the old bronze alloy instead, and one of them made its way to the January 2010 FUN Auction!

Your quest is to outbid the rest of the room, retrieve the 1943 bronze cent, and add it to your collection.”

…yes, I watched Legends of the Hidden Temple way too much as a kid. To Viacom, Nickelodeon’s corporate parent: no box set? Seriously? Not even a “best-of” compilation on one DVD? But I want to give you money...

Where was I? Oh, yes, 1943 bronze cent. These wrong-metal rarities have been sources of intrigue ever since their discovery, and even today, tall tales about them flourish. To quote the 1943 bronze cent’s description in the catalog:

“Almost from the outset, the 1943 bronze cents were the subject of misinformation. Henry Ford, the automobile titan, supposedly offered a new car in exchange for a 1943 ‘copper’ cent, for example; this was not the first coin hoax centered around Ford. … Similarly, news dispatches in 1999 about a 1943 bronze cent supposedly spent as an ordinary coin overestimated its value; the original wire report claimed it was worth a quarter of a million dollars, a number that increased to a cool half-million as the story was retold!”

The legends made the 1943 bronze cent as special as it is. Generations have sought it, most finding nothing, some discovering a great love for coins. The best part of any legend, though, is its tiny center of truth, and that truth—3.11 grams of bronze, stamped by dies that never should have struck anything but steel—makes all the built-up hype seem irrelevant. It sits in the hand, sandwiched between layers of protective plastic, terribly ordinary-looking for such a prized relic. Yet it is the driving force, the dreamed-of ending for thousands of stories, true stories.

Come January, let the end be written.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

John Dillinger Dilligence: Amazing trove relating to America's most famous ganster readies at Heritage Auctions

2009-12-02T15:03:00.006-06:00

Dec. 2, 2009

Posted by Noah

So this one has been a few months in the making, has encompassed national news coverage, a few would-be scandals from mongerers of such things and a whole lot of open-mouthed astonishment from those of us here at Heritage that have actually come face to face with the amazing John Dillinger trove, consigned by Dillinger's little sister, Frances Helen, that will be featured in the Dec. 12 Arms & Militaria Auction.

Let's just say that it's an exciting thing. Letters, guns, clothing, watches and even currency that was in Dillinger's pocket when he was shot, all of these things are part of this amazing trove. It's one of those amazing gatherings that defy explanation when you first see it. It takes a lot to impress the experts at Heritage, but when this stuff came in our Director of Civil War & Militaria Auctions, one Dennis Lowe - normally a man of quiet reserve - could barely contain his amazement.

"I've been in this business 38 years," he said, "and I've never seen anything like this. A grouping of materials this significant, and related to such a huge figure in America's collective memory, is a truly remarkable occurrence in the annals of collecting."

Agreed, times two. Actually, make that infinity+1 no backs.

The icing on the cake will be when Frances Helen herself comes to town for the auction next week. She's in her 80s now, having been only 12 when "Johnny" was killed, and she's still as sharp as ever and her memories of her older brother are quite clear. This amazing gathering of Dillinger-related material has been in her possession for decades and, while it may seem a vast treasure to the rest of us, to her it has been a heavy reminder of her departed and beloved big brother. She has held on to them to assure their safety, and the safety of her brother's legacy, but has decided that now is the time to part with the treasure, all to benefit her family's future.

For what it's worth, Dillinger comes off very well in archive, but still very crafty and smart. He relates in detailed letters to his father how he came to be who he is, and is represented physically by an amazing hunting suit worn during the shootout in Little Bohemia, WI. If history and popular memory bears out that Dillinger wasn't such a nice guy, his family still views him as a generally good man gone astray, one who just happened to really like robbing banks but never hurt anyone.

It may be disputable whether the last bit is true, but it's also never been proven.

One thing that will be proven in just under two weeks from now is what these amazing personal Dillinger treasures are worth to the collecting world at large. His Double Derringer, seized when he was arrested in Tucson, AZ, sold for more than $95,000 last June. If the items in this archive come anywhere close to that, then Frances Helen and her progeny stand to do pretty well off of Big Brother Johnny.

For all the damage he had done to his name and family during his crime sprees in the 1930s, perhaps his greatest legacy will ultimately be the security he has provided his family with, and the pop culture treasures released to the world.

To leave a comment click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Coin Monday: "The $100,000 Nickel"? Not Anymore!

2009-11-30T11:33:00.006-06:00

November 30, 2009
Written by John Dale Beety
The Heritage Blog

Last week, I mentioned that the January 2010 FUN U.S. Coin Auction contains more than one million-dollar coin. As promised, this week I’ll discuss the other piece. Interestingly enough, this won’t be the first time I’ve talked about this particular million-dollar coin in the blog; I led off my “Seeing Double?” post with a reference to a 1913 Liberty nickel in an episode of Hawaii Five-O.

In early January, the same coin—called “The $100,000 Nickel” at the time of taping and “The Hawaii Five-O Specimen” (among other names) today—will be auctioned by Heritage. There are only five authentic 1913-dated Liberty nickels, and the five have appeared in many of the most famous coin collections of all time. While this is the first time Heritage has offered this or any other 1913 Liberty nickel at auction, there is a Heritage connection in the coin’s past.

Back in 1972, it first became “The $100,000 Nickel” when it was offered by Abe Kosoff for that sum. It was purchased by World Wide Coin Investments, which was co-owned by Warren Tucker, now the Director of Heritage World Coin Auctions.

(Aside: I often call Mr. Tucker Tucker-san, after a humorous incident that took place at a wedding in Tokyo. He had been invited there by the father of the bride, a leading Japanese coin dealer of the day. The wedding guests received appliances as gifts; the men were to get radios, the women crock-pots. As a jest, Mr. Tucker was led to the wrong receiving line, and afterward, the Japanese dealer would greet him with “Ah, Tucker-san, you like the crock-pot?”)

It was shortly after the record-setting and news-making purchase that World Wide Coin Investments lent the 1913 Liberty nickel to production of the Hawaii Five-O episode. Like many high-priced stars of the screen, the 1913 Liberty nickel had a “stunt double” for its various adventures in the show. The actual nickel appears only in close-ups, but in those close-ups, it was seen by millions of viewers, which has led some numismatic experts to call it "The Most Famous Coin in the World".

Before and after its brush with showbiz, the coin has been owned by a variety of famous collectors, including Wall Street scion Colonel E.H.R. Green, Fred Olsen, Dr. Jerry Buss of Los Angeles Lakers fame, and the Texan Reed Hawn. (Reed Hawn’s Class I 1804 dollar was bought by David Queller and sold as part of the Queller Family Collection of Silver Dollars for more than $3.7 million dollars in April 2008, the third-highest price ever brought by a U.S. coin at auction.)

It appeared in the news a month back that CBS is looking to revive the Hawaii Five-O franchise. If they ever do a re-make of “The $100,000 Nickel,” perhaps the coin’s next owner will let it reprise its role. Of course, the episode title is out-of-date now. Nearly four decades on, that $100,000 price tag seems almost quaint. While it’s too early to tell what this 1913 Liberty nickel might bring in January, all the early signs point to “The $3,000,000 Nickel”—or maybe something more.

Gobble... Gobble... Gobble... and Happy Thanksgiving from Heritage Auctions

2009-11-25T11:23:00.011-06:00

Nov. 25, 2009

Posted by The Heritage Blog

It is Thanksgiving and the Heritage Blog, like most every other American, is taking time to relax for a couple of days, eat some turkey, mash some potatoes and pie some pumpkin - does such a phrase even exists. There may even be some football watching... No shopping, though... Crowds freak The Heritage Blog out.

The Heritage Blog is very thankful for many things in its life, but most thankful of all, dear readers, for you. Thanks for coming and checking out these ramblings.

The Heritage Blog will be back on Monday, Nov. 30, with all new postings.

Gobble, gobble to you and yours.

To leave a comment, though there is nothing to comment on, click on the title of this post.

-The Heritage Blog

Coin Monday: Lucky 13 and the 1927-D Double Eagle

2009-11-23T11:14:00.006-06:00

Nov. 23, 2009

Written by John Dale

Normally, I’d be talking about a coin in the upcoming December 2009 Houston U.S. Coin Auction in this space, but if I don’t get started on my preview/commentaries for the January 2010 FUN Auction , I know what’ll happen — it’ll be the day before the auction and I’ll still have half a dozen coins to write about. (That may happen anyway, though. Heritage’s FUN auctions are just that awesome.)

For the longest time I had to keep the secret that a certain coin is coming up for auction, as part of a remarkable set of Saint-Gaudens double eagles. With the mailers we’ve sent out, though, plus the Heritage Web site preview and the humongous advertisement in Coin World, I figure it’s safe to say…

We have a 1927-D! We have a 1927-D! (Insert video clip of me doing the Heritage Happy Dance of Coin Joy.) [Not happening. – Noah]

The 1927-D double eagle is rare, and I’m not talking garden-variety rare. When Heritage sold a Class III 1804 dollar earlier this year for $2.3 million, one of the big selling points, as has always been true in its history, is that there are only 15 known 1804 dollars out there.

In our census of 1927-D double eagles, part of an in-depth and potentially mind-bending catalog description in its final stages, Heritage has accounted for only 13 distinct examples. While 13 is seen by many as an unlucky number, it takes a mighty lucky (and wealthy!) numismatist to own one; moreover, since four of the 1927-D double eagles are in museum collections and thus as good as permanently impounded, that leaves just nine coins for collectors.

Just between us, there are a lot more than nine people who want this coin.

When Heritage offers a 1927-D double eagle, the results can be impressive. We offered this particular 1927-D $20 once before, when it was consigned by the Connecticut State Library; it brought $390,500 back on June 2, 1995. (For reference, I was still in fifth grade then. You may now feel old.)

In the Heritage Auction Hall of Fame’s Coins Wing, 17 of the 20 pieces listed sold for more than a million dollars total, and of the 17, two of the coins are 1927-D double eagles. In November 2005, we sold the MS67 Morse specimen for just under $1.9 million, while the MS65 example we offered in January 2006 went for slightly more than $1.3 million.

This coin is graded MS66, so it splits the difference, and it seems a fairly safe bet that this 1927-D $20, part of the Ralph P. Muller Collection, will be Heritage’s Million-Dollar Coin #18…unless it turns out to be Million-Dollar Coin #19, that is!

The story of that other seven-figure coin, however, will have to wait until next week, so stay tuned…

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Now Hulk Smash World Record! 9.2 #1 issue brings more than $125,000 at Heritage Auctions!

2009-11-20T10:57:00.005-06:00

Nov. 20, 2009

Posted by Noah

Easy there, big fella... Easy there...

What I really want to know is why The Hulk's skin changed from more gray-green to more lime green over the years... A little too much broccoli, perhaps, and not enough irradiated beef?

Thank you! Thank you! I'll be here all week...

The real reason you're checking this post out is to find out more about the 9.2 certified Hulk#1 that sold at Heritage yesterday as part of our November Signature Vintage Comics auction, and I don't blame you. It is indeed an amazing copy of a groundbreaking comic book and it brought a price worthy of its title character yesterday when a determined buyer turned over $125,475 to take home that little beauty you see above and to the right.

Hulk was never really my thing - don't get me wrong, if someone wanted to, say, give me a comic book like this one, then who am I to say no? Right? - but I did always love it when he would show up in a Fantastic Four book and poor Ben Grimm would be forced to go fight him, much to Ben's chagrin of course. Allow me to paraphrase:

"Why do I always gotta go fight that guy? It don't matter how hard you hit him, he just gets madder and madder!"

Yeah, that is the problem with fighting the Hulk. I suggest he try a little looser pair of purple pants. I imagine the freedom granted him there might go a long way toward easing some of that , uh... anger... Yeah... Thank you! thank you! All week, as I said...

I also always wanted Ben Grimm to know that I was with him, in spirit, in those fights, and that the reason he always had to fight the hulk was because his stone skin made him nigh invincible. It's the eternal dillema of being The Thing, Ben, don't you see? And don't you, dear blog reader, see what a perceptive and brilliant child I was? All those hours of reading comics have sured paid off now! Take that, Mrs. Draper, my second grade teacher! I want my JLAs back!

Today, Friday, Nov. 20, is also the day that orginal artwork from The Joe Kubert Collection goes on the block - 1 p.m. Central time - and I'm dying to know what the pieces will bring. Joe is awesome, and one of the all-time greats. He's held on to his art all these years and is now starting to let collectors get their hands on it.

Nice of Joe, don't you think?

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

Woody Allen: The Comic Strip(?), this Sunday in Heritage Auctions Sunday Internet Comics Auction

2009-11-18T10:12:00.005-06:00

Nov. 19, 2009

Written by Barry Sandoval

(I got this nice little post yesterday from Barry Sandoval, Heritage Auctions' Director of Comics Operations, regarding quite a fun little lot we have in our Nov. 22 Sunday Internet Comics Auction. It may not be as glamorous as the massive spread Heritage Auctions got yesterday, Nov. 17, in The New York Times on the upcoming auction of Joe Kubert artwork, but it's still plenty cool and just the sort of thing that makes Heritage such a fascinating place to work.

Barry writes nicely and concisely about the original art work for a Sunday strip for Inside Woody Allen, an insecure comic that actually ran in various markets for the better part of a decade. Was it any good? Um... If Woody Allen is your thing - and during the period of the comic he was indeed creating some of his greatest work - then it carries a very intersting place in pop culture.

As a young Jewish kid, let's just say that I was exposed to Woody Allen early and often, and I count Hannah and Her Sisters as one of my Top Five movies of all-time, and proof that there is goodness in the unvierse and that all is right with the world - watch it this Thanksgiving and see if you don't agree with me... As for the strip Barry writes about, let's just say I'd like to have it for my own collection. The bid right now stands at $33, plus BP, so it's just possible I might... Read, enjoy, and thanks to Barry! - Noah Fleisher)

I’ll wager that most people do not remember the comic strip, “Inside Woody Allen,” which ran in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Or more precisely, most people have probably never heard of it in the first place, and whether you have or not probably depends on your hometown. Reportedly a number of newspapers dropped the strip in fairly short order.

One is tempted to say that a strip about a guilty, neurotic type who has dating misadventures wouldn’t “play in Peoria,” but that same formula worked just fine for Cathy, which debuted in 1976 (the same year as Inside Woody Allen) and is still going strong today. Perhaps neuroses are more endearing in a woman than a man… In fact, I’m sure they are.

The strip has received a retrospective in the form of the newly released book Dread and Superficiality: Woody Allen as Comic Strip by the strip’s writer/artist Stuart Hample.

Yes, I said writer/artist – Allen did not write the strip, but as Hample told The Guardian: “(Allen) judged the material and offered suggestions on how to develop characters and pace gags, and pleaded with me to maintain high standards.”

Heritage hadn’t offered an Inside Woody Allen Sunday before this week, but there’s one in the auction ending this Sunday night, offered without reserve.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

- Barry Sandoval

Coin Monday: What’s in a Chain?

2009-11-16T10:34:00.005-06:00

Nov. 16, 2009

Written by John Dale

Symbolism, as any political cartoonist can attest, is a tricky tool, built almost entirely on connotations.

Judged correctly, symbols are powerful; misjudged, however, they are damaging.

Worse yet, a symbol may be accepted in one context but decried in another. The use of a chain as a device on late 18th century U.S. coinage offers an interesting case study: it was accepted on the Fugio cents of 1787, but rejected on the Chain cents of 1793.

The Fugio cents, the first coins issued by the United States under the authority of the U.S. Constitution, used a chain motif on the reverse, 13 linked circles around the motto “WE ARE ONE.”

On the obverse, a sun hangs over a sundial and aphorisms, such as FUGIO (“I fly,” or when paired with the sundial, “time flies”) and the ever-popular “MIND YOUR BUSINESS.”

The chain was interpreted as a call for national unity, important with the still-fractious debates over Constitutional ratification ongoing; at the least, the chain motif received less comment than the controversy surrounding fulfillment of the Fugio cents’ coinage contract.

(Side note: the Fugio cents, though not popularly known, received an oblique mention as the “first U.S. coins” on the PBS children’s game show Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego? The episode centered around Sir Vile traveling back to the ancient kingdom of Lydia to steal the first minted coins. When I played along at home, I didn’t miss a single question. I wonder why…)

When the first U.S. Mint opened in 1792 and copper coinage began the next year, the cent also featured a chain on the reverse, but it was paired with a portrait of Liberty on the obverse. The Chain cent received immediate criticism.

Many public comments interpreted the chain as a symbol of slavery and not national unity. One famous complaint, the source variously given as a Philadelphian or Bostonian newspaper: “The chain on the reverse is but a bad omen for Liberty…”

Liberty herself was said to be “in a fright” by the same commentator. Bowing to public pressure, the Mint quickly scrapped the Chain cent reverse, replacing it with a wreath.

Both the Fugio cents and the scarce Chain cents are highly prized by collectors of early copper, and the Chain cents in particular have been popular for more than a century and a half. The idea of a chain on a coin, on the other hand, took much longer to catch on.

I’ll admit I might have missed an obscure issue somewhere in the past, but after the Chain cent, the next such design I can find is a modern commemorative struck more than two centuries later, the 1994 U.S. Prisoner of War Museum silver dollar.

The obverse shows an eagle with a chain on its leg. On that design, unlike those of the past, the symbolism is clear. The chain is broken.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-John Dale Beety

Where are the Wild Things? Well... A first edition was once seen at Heritage Auctions

2009-11-12T13:45:00.008-06:00

November 11, 2009
Written by Joe Fay

I was in a bookstore last night, as I seem to be most nights when I can find the time, and ran into a curious little book that got me thinking about a beautiful new movie and, subsequently, the classic book from whence it came, and, yet again, to the place I work and the job that I do there.

Let me explain:

I'm talking about Where the Wild Things Are. Last night, I spied a copy of Dave Eggers' new novelization of the Spike Jonze film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic illustrated children's book. As a rare book person, I couldn't help notice the weird and twisted creative path this story had taken to arrive at this new book: classic children's book to screenplay to film to film adaptation, like a game of "telephone" played by eclectic popular creative artists. Sendak to Jonze to Eggers, oh, my.

Written by modern fiction's jack-of-all-trades, and co-writer of the screenplay for the film, Dave Eggers, the new novelization of Where the Wild Things Are, titled simply The Wild Things, was published in two versions. Of course (and again), being a rare book person, I immediately contextualized the two releases into vastly disparate tiers of future desirability. The trade edition is nice, and will continue to be bought and read, but it just ain't that cool.

The deluxe edition of the novelization is cool. True to his McSweeney's roots, Eggers master-minded a deluxe "fur-covered edition" of his novelization which includes a dust jacket made of grey fur, reminiscent of Max's wolf costume in the movie. It's a very cute touch that will surely have children's book collectors savoring the deluxe edition for years and probably decades to come.

The value of this fur-covered edition will never approach the first edition, first printing of Sendak's original, and the reasoning goes straight to what makes rare books rare and less rare books, well, less rare.

Mainly, what I'm talking about is the idea that collectors ultimately place the most value on "first" things.

As an example to illustrate the point, take Shakespeare's First Folio of 1623, the first time most of the Bard's plays were collected and published together. The value of this book is in the millions. By comparison, the movie tie-in for Kenneth Branagh's Henry V or Mel Gibson's Hamlet ain't worth a plugged nickel.

Eggers' fur-covered edition of The Wild Things will most assuredly be worth more than chump change in coming years, but it remains to be seen if it will be a truly collectible book. On the other hand, there's no doubt that Sendak's 1963 first edition in the first issue dust jacket will continue to appreciate. We've had the pleasure of selling one copy of Where the Wild Things Are at Heritage in June 2008 for $3,346, and hope to sell many more in the coming years.

In case you're wondering what makes a first issue dust jacket for this book, it must have a three-paragraph blurb on the front flap, three paragraphs on the rear flap, and no Caldecott medal, nor mention of one anywhere on the dust jacket. If your copy fits these criteria, you probably have a valuable book in your hands.

If you want to sell it, my direct line is (214) 409-1544.

Let the wild rumpus start!

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Joe Fay

"Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes" or, best wishes to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar from Heritage Auctions

2009-11-10T15:00:00.006-06:00

Nov. 10, 2009

Posted by Noah

I never really liked Kareem Abdul-Jabbar until I was 10 years old, it was 1980, and my babysitter took me and my brothers to see Airplane! Kareem's cameo as co-pilot "Joey Murdock" was a great turn for the imposing Lakers big man, and funny, too.

Now, growing up in Dallas, in the years just before the Mavs came to town, the Lakers weren't much on my radar, or that of any of my friends. During the finals, in his classic battles against Bird and the Celtics, we watched and played, imitating Kareem's towering sky hook on the under-sized playground hoop, but that was about it. For most of us it was the Cowboys or nothing, and a few sad sacks - like me - even perpetually pined for a winning season for the hapless Rangers? Where have you gone, Buddy Bell?

The news today that Kareem is suffering from Leukemia, and that his prognosis is good, is welcome news to sports fans in general, many of whom - like me - are realizing today how much we've always like Kareem, and how much we wish him well.

Abdul-Jabbar has always been a class act, and an advocate for civil rights. He was impressive on the court, as his numerous records attest to, but his legacy off the court has been no less impressive. He has lived his life well and has continued to contribute to the NBA, via his position as a special assistant with the Lakers, and now will carry the banner for chronic myeloid leukemia, a form of the disease most of the world had not heard of until Kareem came forward this morning.

As with most any major sports stars, Kareem has a presence in the Heritage Auctions Archive. There are several autographs, sculptures of him and numerous signed balls. The top of the top, however, is a 1980s Abdul-Jabbar game worn Jersey that brought more than $7,000 in October of 2006. It's a prime Kareem jersey from the era of them an in his top professional form. It's also safe to say that most kareem autographs and cards, from the least to the best, are probably worth a little more today due to the man's brave admission.

I don't reckon Kareem frequents this blog, but just in case you are reading, Kareem, here's hoping you stay healthy and strong. The world is a better place with you in it.

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-Noah Fleisher

Coin (Glass) Monday: An Americana Detour

2009-11-09T09:18:00.008-06:00

Nov. 9, 2009

Written by John Dale

Coin Monday has just made a temporary detour — don’t worry, though! I’ll be going back to the world of actual coins soon enough. (The December Houston U.S. Coin Auction catalog should be printing as this posts!).

There’s another auction of interest to numismatists that’s coming up even sooner, and it just can’t wait. Our November 2009 Grand Format Americana Auction has the Mike Follett Collection, which contains more than two dozen lots of glassware that should appeal to coin collectors and antique glass collectors alike. I’ll give you two guesses as to what it’s called…

Coin glass, in its original form, was manufactured for just five months, with pieces in the Mike Follett Collection dated to either 1892 or 1893. The Central Glass Company, which did business in Wheeling, West Virginia, began creating pieces of glassware that featured impressions of actual coins, such as Morgan dollars and Seated halves as well as smaller denominations and motifs from the Columbian half dollar, the nation’s first silver commemorative coin.

The coin glass sold well enough on novelty value that it came to the attention of the Treasury, which, predictably enough, was not particularly enthused about a private company replicating U.S. coinage. The Treasury claimed that the Central Glass Company’s method of manufacture was illegal, and the molds used to make the coin glass were destroyed. The Central Glass Company itself did not last much longer.

Though the manufacture of the original coin glass was short-lived, it remains well-appreciated today, both by collectors of antique glassware and numismatists. The Mike Follett Collection is itself proof of the latter; he was a widely known and well-liked professional numismatist who established his firm here in Dallas. He passed away early this year; our offering of his collection of coin glass is not merely an auction, but a way to honor him. Pick up a copy of the catalog, and just past the Dear Bidder letter, you’ll see what I mean.

Then, on the facing page, the Americana auction begins with fragments of $20 bills recovered from the ransom money paid to D.B. Cooper, the enigmatic hijacker who leapt from a plane in the American Northwest in 1971 and vanished into myth. We last offered bills from the D.B. Cooper ransom in June 2008; here are the results.

But that’s currency, not coins. Now I must walk back from the river, retrace my steps through the forest, and find my way home… (Just follow your carefully laid trail of Morgan Dollars, John Dale. You'll be home in time for supper, and none the worse for wear... - Noah Fleisher)

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-John Dale Beety