(303) Untold Stories: Volume 1 Issue 3: Last Revision: 02/25/05
Searching for clues of Spanish Bribes, a Pirate’s Treasure or simply a Mysterious Find?
In Part Two of this article you will find a list of Sotheby’s auction catalogs that represent the single largest and most significant group of Mexican Republic 8 Escudos (4,917), 4 Escudos (190), and the second largest offering of 2 Escudos (30) and 20 Pesos (58) ever publicly sold on our planet! Sotheby’s, the now infamous London based auction house whose roots can be traced back to 1744, conducted these sales from March 1990 until October 1994. Each and every one of these sales contained numerous Latin American gold coins, spanning a time frame from the late Colonial Spanish American Era through the mid Republic Period of Latin America. However, this series of articles’ prime thrust will be the Mexican Republic gold coins that appeared in these sales, because I have little or no interest in the other Latin American gold coins appearing in these sales.
Questions with No Apparent Answers
Many unanswered questions remain today about the coins that appeared in these sales, a few are listed below. The facts, or rather the lack of concrete facts about these coins present today’s Mexican Numismatist with some of the most intriguing questions about Mexican Republic gold coins that have ever come to light:
Question #1: Where did these thousands of old gold coins originally come from?
Question #2: Why did these gold coins come on the numismatic market when they did?
Question #3: Why were the bulk of these sales conducted in Europe?
Question #4: Why were these sales not well publicized in the world numismatic marketplace?
Question #5: Who bought all of these coins?
It has taken me over ten years to eke out the few fragments of this mysterious puzzle I have found and I’m still trying to verify most. These sales remain a gigantic puzzle, where large chunks and small pieces of the puzzle remain hidden and shrouded in total secrecy by those who know the truth, for reasons they will not reveal even today!
While I’m personally only interested in the Mexican Republic Period gold coins appearing in these sales, it may actually be the Colonial Era Spanish American gold coins that help us pinpoint some of the answers to the greatest mystery of all: Who was the original source of these many thousands of Latin American gold coins and the Mexican Republic gold coins in particular?
Off to Spain, looking for Answers
Now let me invite you to step aboard “our personal time machine” for a short trip, after all this is a Fairy Tale. For our first stop we need to go to Spain, please note the large clock on the dashboard of our time machine; the year is 1986 as we begin our quest for the answers to our perplexing questions.
One of, if not the greatest book ever written about large Latin American gold coins, The <<ONZA>> Main Book (The Gold Doubloon of Eight), is streaming off the printing presses in the city of Barcelona. This wonderful new book has been written by those celebrated Latin coin experts, ”the brothers Calico”- Ferran and Xavier. This book will create more than a little excitement in the numismatic world over the next couple of years for several reasons:
(1) This is the first totally new work without many of the errors and omissions found in earlier works on Latin 8 Escudos or Doubloons
(2) The Calico brothers give only one price for each, regardless of grade, and every Doubloon minted from 1611 to 1873 in Spain, Colonial Spanish America and the Independent Republics of America based on the availability and rarity that they have found in their extensive research
(3) The Calico’s introduce a new concept for identifying rarity and those coins that they suspect may exist. This creates much interest because they list and sometimes display photo reproductions of coins in this book never before seen by Latin coin experts.
But surely one of the most controversial items in the book may be the phrase they use to indicate they have never seen a particular coin, “Only known through bibliographic references”. I can only assume this to mean-- any and all other coins listed in their book, no matter how rare, have been personally seen at least once by one or both brothers.
An Important Side Trip to Switzerland
Now let’s return to “our time machine” and make a short jump forward in time to an event that is taking place in Geneva Switzerland. This event is an obscure one-day, six-hour coin auction held on Friday, May 18, 1990 that contains 600 lots of Latin American gold coins. We enter the Hotel Beau-Rivage where the last of a five-day group of coin auctions produced by Sotheby’s is about to begin.
If this auction has been well publicized and marketed properly it will draw worldwide attention and we should expect to see “a standing room only” crowd in the auction room because of the vast number and diversity of the coins being offered here! We should expect to see every major collector of Latin American gold coins in the world here or at least their agents, all actively vying for the unbelievable number of “rare” coins getting ready to cross the auction block! These include many coins that will be seen for the first time and some for the last time in recent numismatic history. However, we are dismayed as we look around; the auction room is almost empty. How can this be?
The Sotheby’s May 1990 “Gold Coins of the Hispanic World” Auction
The moment this catalog is seen by collectors of Latin American gold it should grab them by their throat in an “iron fist” !
The first item that should grab any Latin American gold coin collector’s attention is the total number of individual lots in the sale.
The next item is the range of time found in the sale: The earliest coin is dated 1765 and the latest 1878.
There are 12 countries represented in this sale.
There is the almost total lack of most small denomination gold coins.
This is a going to be a real “barnburner sale” for large Latin American gold coins!
But something is wrong, in fact very wrong! It appears that Sotheby’s didn’t publicize or market this fantastic auction well. In fact, one might draw the conclusion that very little or maybe even no effort was spent by the moguls of Sotheby’s to let the general collecting public know about this sale and its contents. More about this later!
Upon closer examination of this auction’s catalog one finds some questionable techniques used by Sotheby’s in this catalog’s production:
The photography in the catalog is atrocious, even by Sotheby’s standards, let alone the rest of the world.
This catalog contains numerous cataloging errors, which later causes confusion to people who did not attend the sale.
Next we have to question the rather large groupings of some coins into single large multi-coin lots. I wonder if it was done to speed up the sale? Or did Sotheby’s not realize how rare some of the coins were in these large lots?
Before going any further with my Fable, let me emphasize something at this time, “I personally know very little to nothing about any Latin American gold coins other than the Republic Period of Mexico because I personally specialize in Mexican Republic 8 Reales and 8 Escudos”.
With this understanding I’m going to call your attention to what I personally believe are some major errors, or at least oversights, by Sotheby’s when dealing with the Mexican Republic portion of this sale and this catalog.
Who Collects Mexican Gold Coins
There are many Mexican gold coin collectors all over the world. The vast majority of these collectors are Colonial Type Collectors and because there are many categories of Type Collectors, I will not bore you with an explanation of each at this time. The Mexican Republic gold collector base appears to be much smaller than that of the Colonial Mexican gold collectors. Again, most Mexican Republic gold collectors fit into one of the categories of Type Collectors, thus creating a high demand for some Type Coins and very little demand for some coins that do not fit well into one of the many classes of Type Collecting.
A Few Facts
Now for a few “undisputable facts” about the Mexican Republic gold coins that are pertinent to this Fairy Tale:
Fact #1: Many large (8 Escudos, 4 Escudos, 20 Pesos and 10 Pesos) Mexican Republic Gold Coins minted between 1823 and 1905 must be considered to be Very Rare. Now let me define what I consider to be Very Rare because this term is so overused in today’s numismatic market place, “Any Very Rare Mexican Republic gold coin in my opinion, and on my rarity scale has only 16 to 20 examples known to exist”.
Fact #2: There are a number of Mexican Republic gold coin DAMs (Date/Assayer/Mintmark combinations) that are represented by a single known specimen!
Fact #3: Until the Sotheby’s Gold Hoard Sales of the 1990s many more Mexican Republic gold coins were considered to be much rarer than they are today!
Fact #4: Until the Sotheby’s Gold Hoard Sales of the 1990s most, if not all, of the large gold coins from some of the twelve Mexican Republic mints that produced these gold coins were thought to be at least Very Scarce to Very Rare.
Fact #5: Most Mexican Republic gold coin collectors reside either in the United States of America or Mexico.
Armed with these facts, let’s reexamine the Sotheby’s Geneva Gold Coins of the Hispanic World 1990 Auction catalog for some of their errors or oversights.
The Colonial Mexican gold starts with Lot#245, a late Colonial Era Guadalajara Mint GA. 1821. F.S. 8 Escudos and ends with Lot#298 a Mexico City MO 1814 HJ 2 Escudos, which was one of 33 Mexican 2 Escudos in this sale. The entire Mexican Colonial group of gold coins is only 54 lots, 21 of which are multi-coin lots that contain from a low of two coins to a maximum of nine coins.
The Mexican Republic gold coinage starts with Lot#302, an Alamos A 1864 PG 8 Escudos and ends with Lot#483, a Mexico City MO 1874 H 20 Pesos for a total of 182 lots that happens to represent a very significant portion of this auction’s total coins. There were 57 multi-coin lots in this section ranging from 2 to 11 individual coins per lot in the sale.
Here is another one of those “undisputable facts”; this was the single largest sale of individual Mexican Republic gold 8 Escudo DAMs that I have personally found in my over 20 years of research of public auction catalogs and fixed price lists for the last 125+ years.
One more of those “undisputable facts”; there were well over 20 Mexican gold coin DAMs in this sale that represent the only public sale of a particular DAM that I can find.
Needless to say this sale should have represented the “Greatest Sale in History”, with corresponding high prices for large Mexican Republic gold coins! And yet it appears very few, if any, actual Mexican Republic gold coin collectors knew about the sale before it occurred, and many still do not know it happened over 15 years after it occurred. I find this fact “kinda strange” don’t you?
But believe me things will get stranger as we go along. I have personally attended two of the Great Sales of old Mexican Republic gold coins collections:
(1) November 1985 when Christie’s sold the Norweb Collection in Dallas Texas
(2) December 1995 when Spink sold the first part of the Gerber Collection in New York.
Both of these sales were packed with collectors, dealers acting on their own and agent-dealers acting for other collectors.
I have never been to Geneva Switzerland.
But you better believe that had I known about this sale, I, like many other collectors, would have attended!
Another fact, even if it is not “undisputable”: It now appears that most Mexican Republic gold collectors were not aware of this fantastic sale for some strange reason, but more about this later.
Shortly after this sale some very interesting and rare Mexican Republic 8 Escudos started showing up in the secondary U.S. numismatic market, and I was offered my share, as deemed by some of the purchasers, from the Geneva auction.
Who Attended the Sotheby’s Geneva Gold Coins of the Hispanic World 1990 Sale?
At this time I still cannot tell you how many Americans or Mexicans attended the sale for sure. But I personally know of only four U.S. citizens that even knew about the sale in advance, and all four of these men received goodly portions of the coins sold there to resell to their customers. Rather strange isn’t it?
I’ve always personally believed that the “great old international collectable auction houses” were above reproach, until the scandals of the late 1990s that proved; greed and power will supercede honesty, no matter which industry or business is concerned.
The next question we have to ask is: Was there something fishy about the Sotheby’s Geneva Gold Coins of the Hispanic World 1990 Auction Sale? Or was Sotheby’s simply asleep at the wheel when this auction came about?
Who Owns the World’s Greatest Mexican Republic Gold Collection?
But stranger things come to light as we examine the catalog more closely. At the top of the page opposite the first four-color plate we find an interesting statement made by Sotheby’s, “This sale comprises a fine single-owner Collection, especially strong in Spanish Colonial and South American Republic Coinage of the period 1770-1870 but also with representation of a few earlier issues.”
Notice there is no mention of Mexico at all. I find this rather strange when one considers there were 236 lots of Mexican gold that represented over 1/3 of the total lots?
When I finally saw my first copy of this catalog, of course several years after the sale, and read this statement my chin bounced on the top of my desk like a ping-pong ball. The first question that leaped into my mind: I can’t believe a single person owned this fabulous collection, and I have never heard of him?
I was so intrigued with who this person might be, where he was located, and a zillion other questions that raced like a wild fire through my mind that I started making inquires into the background and owner of this collection.
Shortly I found that most people, collectors and dealers alike, I questioned had never heard of the sale, seen the catalog and those that had seen the catalog, had never read this statement by Sotheby’s! Most were as shocked as I when I brought it to their attention. Only one person had little or no comment about the statement.
An internal white-hot fire now consumed me: Who was the mystery man who had once owned the World’s Greatest Mexican Republic Gold Collection?
Looking for Clues and Pieces of the Puzzle
Days and months flew by with no inkling of the owner’s identity, then one day I remembered something I read in a Wall Street Journal article about the time the auction took place. I made a trip to my local public library to find out if what I remembered was correct. After several days of haunting the library I found what I was looking for. I was correct in my assumption as I read the details of the Journal’s story.
I went back and pulled my Sotheby’s Geneva Gold Coins of the Hispanic World 1990 auction catalog and reread their puzzling statement. It seemed so clear when I read it the first time; “This sale comprises a fine single-owner Collection, …”!
Originally I had read and interpreted this statement to mean “one person”, but if you analyze Sotheby’s statement closely, this wasn’t really what it stated. A single owner does not mean a person! Was Sotheby’s trying to “hide something” with this statement? Were they using the old smoke and mirrors ploy of the political world when they wrote it? Only time would tell.
My next brainstorm concerned some of the listings and photo reproductions found in the Calico’s brothers’ The <<ONZA>> Main Book, I now attacked this book and its contents with much vigor! Sure enough some of the rarest 8 Escudos listed by the Calicos had found their way into the Sotheby’s Geneva Gold Coins of the Hispanic World 1990 auction catalog. Could there be a connection between the two?
After more study and closer examination of the photo reproductions in both publications I stumbled across two coins that I owned that looked very much like photos in the book and catalog. Even though the photo reproductions in both publications were poor at best, I was so excited I could barely catch my breath. “Sure enough” I thought, “both coins in my collection had originally been part of the Sotheby’s Geneva Gold Coins of the Hispanic World 1990 Sale”.
That’s when the third bottle rocket fizzled off in my memory bank; I knew I had read an article in some numismatic publication about an extended Latin American trip taken by the Calico brothers sometime before they completed their work on The <<ONZA>> Main Book.
Now all I had to do was to find a single article in one of the thousands of publications in my large reference library? Days and weeks melted away as I searched high and low for any article about the Calico brothers during the early 1980s. While I was searching for this story I remembered starting a crude synopsis file of any and all articles I found concerning Mexican coins while looking for Mexican 8 Escudos sales in these same publications.
It took several hours to find where I had hidden this synopsis file on my computer. Walla, finally there it was, not one article, but three about the Calicos’ visit to South America and the help they had rendered the curator of one country’s National Bank cataloging their National Coin Collection.
I now had three tiny, but plausible bits of the puzzle and a pretty good idea why Sotheby’s had written their statement in the catalog in the manor they did. I had to assume that Sotheby’s was trying to hide the true owner, or at least the current consigner of the coins in the Geneva Gold Coins of the Hispanic World 1990 Auction. But why?
What were the yet unknown reason or reasons for Sotheby’s hiding the name of the consignor of these coins, if it was a national bank? The only answer I could come up with at the time was there might be a question about their origin or the ownership of the coins. But if this auction had been part of a national collection, or maybe even part of a country’s gold reserves, this group of coins seem rather small when looked at in this light.
One person I spoke with, Dealer “A”, offered a “far-fetched idea” of where these coins came from: He thought they might represent a hoard owned by some South American drug lord and that Sotheby’s was fearful this drug kingpin might want revenge on the consignor or even the auction house that sold them. This theory seemed so bazaar at the time that it wasn’t plausible to me?
The Collection becomes a Hoard
It was now time for a more in-depth investigation and of this mystery. One day I accidentally discovered that this wasn’t the first or last Sotheby’s auction of these mysterious Latin American gold coins.
As I probed deeper into my “personal dilemma” I decided to contact a well-respected coin dealer, Dealer “B”, with some questions: “Some of the coins in two of your sales seem to have come from the Sotheby’s Geneva Gold Coins of the Hispanic World 1990 Auction? Is my assumption correct?”
Dealer “B” replied, “No, those two sales did not contain coins from that sale, but they were from other Sotheby’s Gold Hoard sales.”
I was stunned by his reply! This was the first time anyone made mention of a Gold Hoard and associated Sotheby’s name with it. I was now worried that the pieces of the puzzle I thought I had found were incorrect. It was now time to contact Sotheby’s to see if they would reveal where the coins came from.
At this time I wrote a letter to Sotheby’s in New York, asking if it was possible to find out where the coins in the Geneva Gold Coins of the Hispanic World 1990 Auction came from and I also asked if there were other sales associated with this group of coins? As expected, I received no reply from Sotheby’s on either question.
I seemed to be at a dead end in my detective work. But I wasn’t about to give up yet. Now I started talking and questioning other coin collectors and dealers about the Sotheby’s Gold Hoard, but I soon realized most people questioned knew nothing about the sales or that I was being “stone-walled” by some dealers and ignored by others.
But one day I finally hit pay dirt, because I was informed by a reliable source, Dealer “D”, “There were at least 9 or 10 other auctions of coins from this hoard! And even as great, (there were 272 Mexican Republic 8 Escudos in this one sale), as the Geneva Gold Coins of the Hispanic World 1990 Auction was, it was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg for the total number of Mexican Republican 8 Escudos sold exceeded 3,000 in these auctions.” Goodbye drug dealer theory.
The next question that arose in my pea-sized brain was; “Who could have originally accumulated such a large number of old Mexican and Latin American gold coins and why did they want to remain anonymous?” But this question had to “go-on-hold” for a while as I started trying to track down the supposed other nine or ten auctions and what coins what coins were in them
One day while in the office of coin Dealer “E” I noticed a stack of catalogs on a table next to the chair where I was parked waiting for him. I picked them up and started thumbing my way through them looking for any Mexican Republican 8 Reales and 8 Escudos sales when I stumbled on several large lots of 8 Escudos in one catalog. The number of very large multi-coin lots in this catalog stunned me! I had never before seen a single lot containing more than 11 Mexican Republican 8 Escudos and most of these had been in the Sotheby’s Geneva Gold Coins of the Hispanic World 1990 Auction! Yet here was a single small catalog that had 21 multi-coin lots including three that contained 100 Mexican Republic 8 Escudos each!
Quickly flipping the catalog to the front page, I discovered it was a Sotheby’s catalog! This catalog represented a single two-day auction held in London during October 1994. Wow, could this mean that all of the sales of the Sotheby’s Gold Hoard didn’t take place in Switzerland? I quickly copied down the sparse information on one of my yellow legal tablets I always carry in my briefcase when visiting coin shows, dealers or auctions. I had just finished scribbling down the information when the dealer entered the room. I asked if I might borrow a few of the catalogs in the stack. He answered; No, because they were his personal work copies of these sales and I shouldn’t even be looking at them.
Later, as I studied my written notes from our meeting I wondered if this could be one of those mysterious Sotheby’s Gold Hoard Sales?
It is now time for another of those “undisputable facts”; in my personal research of over 4,500 worldwide coin auction catalogs, fixed price lists and numismatic publications dated from 1878 until 2003, I have found very few multi-coin Mexican Republic 8 Escudos lots offered before 1990. Since 1990 there have been several (at least 15) auctions where large multi-coin lots of Mexican Republic 8 Escudos have appeared, and in all but two of these sales the auctioneer has been Sotheby’s! I have to assume this did not happened earlier because of the overall rarity of these coins before 1990.
The World Wide Web
It is again time for us to enter “our personal time machine” and move forward in our time travel; the year is 2002 and I’m introduced to the World Wide Web by one of my Mexican coin collecting friends. But even more important is his introduction of eBay and the fact they have auctions everyday of Mexican coins, books about Mexican history and coin auction catalogs! My friend still doesn’t realize how important this event was to my many research projects.
I can now go on-line every day to find articles, books, and coins about and from Mexico. I can now travel to places (museums, national libraries, custom websites, etc.) and find information about items that were totally inaccessible to me in the past. I now have a tool that allows me to communicate with other coin collectors all over the world that are interested in Mexican Numismatics. I can ask questions of coin dealers and auction houses thousands of miles away quickly, even if they don’t respond with answers to my quires. I’m totally ecstatic with all of the possibilities that the Internet provides.
I start going through my list of research projects to follow up on the Internet and I stumble across a dust covered one that I haven’t looked at for several years, the Sotheby’s Gold Hoard Sales of the 1990s. I wonder if some of my new Internet contacts in Europe, South America, Mexico or the U.S. can help me with this project?
One of my new Internet friends, who resides in England, says he owns most of the Christie’s, Glendining, Sotheby’s and Spink coin auction catalogs held in London from the 1960s though the current year and asks what I need. I send him a lengthy email explaining that I’m trying to identify all worldwide coin auctions containing Mexican Republic gold coins and that I have a 100+ page list of worldwide catalogs and fixed price lists that indicates which ones I own and which ones I haven’t seen yet.
He says he has a few duplicate catalogs, and if I send him my list he will check those to see if any contain Mexican Republic gold coins. He also tells me he is sorry, but he does not have the time to check his entire large library for other catalogs that might contain the coins I’m interested in at this time, but he will check his duplicate catalogs I don’t have.
I email my list to him; he responds that he has ten duplicate catalogs that have significant numbers of Mexican Republic Gold Coins that I haven’t seen or don’t own; one Christie’s, one Glendining, seven Sotheby’s and one Spink catalogs. I ask for a price for the entire group of catalogs? He says he will have to check out the current prices for the entire lot, but he knows for sure that the Christie’s catalog is very rare and is worth at least ₤25 sterling. I answer “no problem”! I wait several weeks and email him again, with no response. Over the next couple of months I email him numerous times with no response. He now has over twenty years of my research and my list of worldwide auction catalogs and fixed price lists in an electronic form and yet I never hear from him again. This again proves that greed sometimes overcomes honesty.
In a short time I have several eBay catalog sellers, literature dealers and coin collectors all over the world actively looking for items in their inventories and in their new arrivals of publications that deal with Mexico’s Republican Period. Many of the books and catalogs I buy or borrow contain few, if any, important bits of information or coins that deal with areas of my research, but a few contain very important pieces of the many different puzzles I’m working on.
I start trying to organize all of this data into a usable form along with a short synopsis of each important book or catalog. Because I’m currently working on multiple research projects, I want to cross-index each new bit of new information into the different categories that I’m working on and need.
Knowledge is King
One day in 2002 I get an email from Collector “A”, he is working on a book about a minor Republican gold denomination. He wants to know if I have any sales information about the Mexican Republic 2 Escudos? I inform him that I have a recap report listing the total number of sales of the coins he is studying and that it costs $35, he forwards me a check for the report.
Later he emails me, this time he is questioning some of the coins and the sales listed in my report. I tell him that if we can get together I will be happy to pull up the individual sales in question. We make arrangements for Collector “A” and his wife to visit me at a future date. He is planning on staying with Collector “B”, here in South Texas, when he comes and both collectors plan to attend a little Mexican coin powwow.
Upon the arrival of Collector “A” and “B” we open the computer files storing my thousands of individual Mexican Republic gold sales and answer Collector “A” questions quickly. As so often happens when Mexican coin collectors gather together, the three of us begin to discuss other areas of mutual interest and we are soon discussing the extreme rarity of certain years of gold coins from the Mexico City Mint. Each of us has ideas and theories about why these particular gold coins are so very rare and why some years are so common. I spout off one of my “pet theories” and both seem to feel I’m wrong. In fact the Collector “A” says he has two books he is going to loan me that should shed some light on why he thinks his theories are correct.
About a week later I go to the post office and there is a package from Collector “A” containing two interesting books I have never seen or heard of before. The first, The Mexican Republic: The First Decade 1823-1832, seems to be the most rewarding and interesting after I scan both and I start reading it that night. The second book, The Expulsion of Mexico’s Spaniards 1821-1836, is shuffled away for a while as I soon start two other new acquisitions; Juarez and His Mexico and Missions to Mexico- A Tale of British Diplomacy in the 1820s.
Several months pass before I return to The Expulsion of Mexico’s Spaniards 1821-1836, and it is several days into this book before I begin to make important discoveries; some that may lead to answers dealing with the Sotheby’s Gold Hoard Sales of the 1990s.
Mexico’s Gachupines Plight and Flight
The book, The Expulsion of Mexico’s Spaniards 1821-1836, at first seems to be interesting, but contains very little information about the Mexican Republic gold coins or the Sotheby’s Gold Hoard Sales of the 1990s. The further I get into this book the more interesting it becomes because of the overview it gives me into the total hatred of the Peninsular Spanish or Gachupines, a term used by the Mexican population for those Spaniards born on the Iberian peninsula and their total control of the affairs and economy of Mexico for the past three hundred years.
The Mexican War of Independence was a gut-wrenching time for Mexico and once the major forces of the Spanish King were defeated, surrendered, and exit Mexico as a threat, there remains one thorn in Mexico’s side. The last remaining Spanish force on Mexican soil occupies the small island of San Juan de Ulloa and its strong fortress and they refuse to leave. The new Mexican Republican Government, having no naval forces are unable to drive this strong Spanish force away and because this island and its fortress control the harbor of Vera Cruz most of Mexico’s citizens are in total panic because they believe Spain will try to retake Mexico again through a military intervention using this island fortress as a “jumping off” place and as a base of operations.
The Spanish King, Ferdinand VII, makes a big mistake by not recognizing Mexico as an Independent Republic, even though it is clear to the rest of the world that Spain is no longer powerful enough to re-conquer Mexico. This decision wrecks havoc on the Mexican Gachupines because the average Mexican citizen sees these people as enemies of Mexico, or even a possible fifth column, if and when Spain decides to try to re-conquer Mexico.
The Mexicans now begin a purge of the Gachupines. First there are riots, then pillage and murder by armed marauding citizen groups and finally a series of very stiff laws are passed by the Mexican Congress that target the Spanish clergy, large property owners and the powerful Spanish merchants that have controlled most, if not all, foreign trade in Mexico for its entire history. Very quickly the smart Gachupines realize they are going to have to leave Mexico and a headlong flight begins, but these people want to take their many years of profit from Mexico’s controlled commerce with them.
I now discover some startling facts, the Gachupines transported huge sums of gold and silver specie from Mexico between 1828 and 1830. The exact amount of this “fleeting capital” is largely unknown today, but estimates range up to over 50 million pesos! In fact, for the fiscal year of 1828 Mexican export records indicate that more than 85% of the exports were this fleeting capital. A French revenue agent made this statement, “During the past three years, more than 40 million pesos had been shipped to Bordeaux by Spaniards.” And the British ambassador stated, “The credit of the Republic received a shock [as a result of the expulsion of 1828] from which it will not easily recover.”
But this isn’t the end of the trials and turbulence created by Mexico’s expulsion laws for the Gachupines. There are many horror stories of how certain Mexican officials and generals in port cities, on both coasts of Mexico, extorted large sums of money for bribes and or forced loans from these same unfortunate people as they were fleeing Mexico for life and limb.
I want to point out another of those “undisputable facts” at this time; the major port of Vera Cruz was the primary port on Mexico’s eastern coast and it was controlled by one of Mexico’s most notorious political and criminal figures during this time, but more on this later.
Moving Forward
During the summer of 2003, I had a chance to talk to another coin Dealer “F” who lends some interesting insights into the Sotheby’s Gold Hoard sales. He also seems to know more about the sales or is at least more forward with the details he knows, because he gives me the first list of the auction locations and dates that he believes represent the entire hoard.
I find it interesting that he believes there are at least two and maybe three auctions of these hoard coins by Sotheby’s in New York City. This is my first indication that any of these coins have been sold directly by Sotheby’s in the United States! I also find it interesting that Sotheby’s did not publicize these sales with press releases, nor did they place any ads about these auctions in any U.S. or Mexican numismatic publications that I can find! So once again the coins in these sales went to the public auction block without any fanfare or the knowledge of the general Mexican gold collecting public.
But now, at least, I have a list of 12 auctions and I can begin trying to find the entire series of auction catalogs. For this task I enlist another Collector “C” to help me; his job is to contact literature and catalog dealers who may have these catalogs in their stocks. At first he finds only two in the hands of our normal numismatic contacts, but while surfing the Internet Collector “C” discovers an entirely new source for books and catalogs. He is excited when he calls me in September 2003 with his newly found resource. He has found at least one copy of each of the 12 catalogs we are looking for and has found two and even three copies of some catalogs. I tell him to buy all of them he can find so that we may piece together three entire sets; one set for him, one set for me and another set for a third collector who is also helping with our project.
By mid October 2003 I finally have what I believe are a complete set of the 12 Sotheby’s catalogs that supposedly constitute the entire Sotheby’s Gold Hoard Sales of the 1990s! I can finally begin my analysis of these Sotheby’s auctions, and the coins in them to see if the results fit the theories that have been slowly developing in my mind. After over ten years of work I’m finally making some progress on this project.
It is time (October 25, 2003) to again contact Sotheby’s to see if they will now cooperate with me and give forth some answers or simply ignore me as before.
At least this time a lady from Sotheby’s answers my email. She states; she is sorry that no one from Sotheby’s responded to my earlier inquiry and now, because Sotheby’s-New York no longer has any coin “experts” on staff, it may take some time for her to find the answers to my questions. Only time will tell if I ever hear back from her or anyone else at Sotheby’s.
A Sotheby’s Update
It is 7:25 PM CST on November 5th, 2003 and I have just finished a short, very blunt and rather curt conversation with a very proper sounding “English Gentleman” representative, whom I will not name, of Sotheby’s in New York City. He informs me, as I expected, it is the policy of Sotheby’s to give absolutely no information about unlisted consignors or about the coins in any Sotheby’s auctions that does not APPEAR in their catalogs!
However, “The English Gentleman” did state that I am totally “off base” with my theory about where the coins in the Sotheby’s Gold Hoard Sales of the 1990s originated from because two of the consignors in one auction are named. More about this later!
“The English Gentleman” was trying to get me off the phone as quickly as possible, but I did get him to sorta answer one question, “Where there any more sales from this gold hoard that I missed and I now realize that one sale I listed didn’t belong in the hoard?”
“The English Gentleman” replied, “It looks like you did your research very well.”
Then he said it was late and he must go. I thanked him for at least replying to my email and memo, a copy is found at the end of this Fable, with a phone call.
Do I believe I’m “off base” with my theories? No, I believe “The English Gentleman” tried to lead me astray with his comments about the two consignors being listed in one catalog- “so I had to be wrong”.
Did “The English Gentleman” try to discourage my thinking about who the consignor was? Yes, he did and I would expect him to do so under the circumstances and conditions caused by my memo.
Did I expect any more from Sotheby’s? No, in fact I feel privileged they saw fit to acknowledge my email and memo.
Is my detective and research work now to be shelved because of what “The English Gentleman” said? Not by a long shot! I will present my case of circumstantial evidence and then let each one of you, my jurors, “makeup” your own mind until we find a better theory or someday maybe even the truth!
I’m sure some of you reading this Fairy Tale are going to have questions, comments and maybe even some answers about these sales, Sotheby’s marketing techniques and the coins in them. Let me say: I welcome any questions, disagreements or comments you may have, or information you may want to add to what I already know or suspect, I may be reached at any of the following:
Mailing Address: Email: Phone: Fax:
Ralph Poucher, Jr. FoxlairAJ@aol.com (956) 943-8409 (956) 943-6751
FoxLair Partners, Ltd.
PO Box AJ
Port Isabel, TX 78578 USA
Stay tuned for Part Two of this Golden Fairy Tale…
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