How many of today’s Mexican coin collectors have ever heard of F.C.C. Boyd? Probably very few, and the only reason I had was because of my earlier interest in US coins. So it came as a great shock to me when Larry Goldberg told me that Boyd probably put together the greatest collection of Mexican coins ever assembled in the United States of America. But I’m getting a head of my story…
Fredrick Charles Cogswell Boyd was a U.S. numismatic enigma. According to Q. David Bowers1 Boyd was an avid coin collector early in the 20th Century, and he became a member of the American Numismatic Association (ANA) in July 1912. However, Boyd’s first love was the New York Numismatic Club, formed in 1909, where he was very active and served as president in 1916, 1917 and 1923. His first public sale as a coin dealer occurred in 1913 and consisted of 916 lots. His second sale was conducted in 1914 with 750 lots. Boyd’s next sale was for the 1922 ANA Convention as the “Official ANA Auctioneer”, and then he drops off the public coin sale “radar” according to Martin Gengerke2 who lists only three public sales for Boyd. Yet Boyd continued to be a large advertiser in ANA’s The Numismatist for some time. Boyd was also active in the American Numismatic Society (ANS) during the early 1900s; he joined this organization in January 1914 and proceeded to loan many coins from his collection for display at their new headquarters in New York.
One can only wonder if his second job, for Union News Company, curtailed his public auctions because he quickly climbed the corporate ladder and went on to become an officer of this company. US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt recognized his skills during the depression and Boyd served on the board of the National Recovery Association during the 1930s. Roosevelt later tapped Boyd to serve on the board of Office of Price Administration during World War II, which was chaired by Michael V. DiSalle. DiSalle would later be the founder of Paramount International Coin Corporation that would become America’s first publicly traded coin firm. One can only wonder today if these two gentlemen ever talked coins in the boardroom or in the evenings after work?
Boyd was a coin dealer’s dealer, yet he sold many great rarities by private treaty to some of America’s greatest collectors. As a coin dealer, Boyd owned and sold almost all of the great US rarities at one time or another; including all five 1913 Liberty Head nickels; one, and maybe more 1933 $20 Double Eagles, and all of the rarest US Trade Dollars. Many times he purchased whole collections from some of his better clients. However, the full extent of his many personal collections are another of those worrisome numismatic questions without answers today.
Fredrick Charles Cogswell Boyd is still a US numismatic enigma. For a person who is reported to have once owned “The World’s Greatest Collection” of coins, ever assembled in the United States, nothing of significance has ever been written about him or his many collections. Why have all of the great numismatic scholars and chroniclers ignored Boyd? Today, I can only wonder if the reason had something to do with John J. Ford and Charles Wormser?
Years ago, while I was interested in US numismatics; I heard several rumors about Boyd and his collections. When I began this article I went to my “chief source” of data, the Internet and Goggle, and entered FCC Boyd. I got a list of some 81,000 sources; this number overwhelmed me, until I started looking at the listings. Most were either for the Junior Chamber of Commerce or had something to do with Jewish Community Centers.
So I tried again, this time with Fredrick C.C. Boyd. Wow! I got 534,000 hits this time. However, I soon discovered Mr. Boyd’s grandson F.C.C. Boyd III in Atlanta Georgia, and a granddaughter in of all places Granbury, Texas, which gave me a starting place for my story.
But first let’s talk about the Boyd Collection. In order to do this we must examine the public sales that are attributed to have come from his collections. The first public auction Martin Gengerke2 lists as coming from the Boyd collection occurred in 1923 and was produced by Keeler Art Galleries. Abe Kosoff was supposedly a close friend and he produced five auctions from January 1945 until January 1946 that were billed as part of “The World’s Greatest Collection”. Later Kosoff admitted that most of the coins in these sales were from the J.C.C. Boyd Collection. In October 1951 we see another Kosoff Sale (#72) with coins supposedly from the Boyd Collection. Then in 1957 and 1958 we see two (#50 & #51) New Netherlands auctions of Boyd material. March of 1960 sees a sale produced by Parke-Bernet (Sale#1956) of more coins from the Boyd estate; J.C.C. Boyd died in 1958.
Now New Netherlands gets back in the picture with three sales (#59, #60 & #61) in 1967, 1968 and 1970. It’s now the Goldbergs turn, Superior had two sales (March 1971 and November 1971) of Boyd material. Hold on we aren’t finished yet! Swann Galleries gets into the picture in August 1976 with Sale#1033 of Boyd coins. Now it is Q. David Bowers and friends who get a couple of sales from the Boyd’s Collection in 1982 and 1985. Finally our last auction house, NASCA/Smythe, enter the picture with two sales in June of 1986. Then the final public sale attributed to be of Boyd’s material reverts back to Bowers & Merena in March 1990.
Wow! It took 21 public sales lasting a total of eight decades to disperse a single collection! But wait one minute-- during a 2005 phone conversation with Larry Goldberg I found out there was still much more to this story than had been publicly revealed. Larry told me that all of the Mexican coins in the Superior-ANA 1975 Convention Auction originally belonged to F.C.C. Boyd.
This was a Mexican Numismatic “bombshell” if there ever was one. I couldn’t believe my ears; I’m kinda hard of hearing from my old racing days. So I asked Larry again, “You just said that all of the Mexican coins in your 1975 ANA Sale were from the J.C.C. Boyd collection, right?”
“No, I said all of the coins from our 1975 ANA Sale were from the Boyd collection, not just the Mexican material.” Was Larry’s reply.
Now I really was in shock. I still hadn’t caught my breath when Goldberg continued, “Most Mexican coin collectors don’t realize the depth and scope of Boyd’s Mexican material. In fact, our very first auction in 1970 contained many ex Boyd Collection coins. Most of the coins in the Merrill Bothamely Mexican Collection were ex Boyd coins, and had been purchased from Charles Wormser.”
“Wait a minute Larry, Charles Wormser from New Netherlands sold Bothamely ex J.C.C. Boyd Mexican coins by private treaty?” I asked.
“Yes, and he consigned all of the ex Boyd material to us that was in our 1975 ANA sale too.”
“Larry, I thought I knew a little about Mexican coin collections, but I’ve never heard any of this before.”
“Yea, well there is a lot more to this story. As you probably know John J. Ford and Charles Wormser owned and operated New Netherlands and both weren’t always on the up and up. As a matter of fact Ford wasn’t a “good” numismatist or coin collector, he was a “front man” who was truly ‘slick’. All of this hoopla about the Ford Collection is BS. All of the material now being sold by Stack’s as the Ford Collection is for the most part from the Boyd Collection. The guy was probably the greatest coin collector who ever lived and there are other sales of Mexican material that can be traced back to Boyd that no one currently knows about. Do you want to know the whole story?”
I blurted out, “Of Course!”
Stay tuned for more about Boyd, Ford and Wormser, because we don’t have enough time or space in this issue to go into all of the gory details. We will relate what we have learned from our research on the Internet, Larry Goldberg, and Dr. T.V. Buttrey about these three men and the fabulous F.C.C. Boyd Collection of Mexican coins in the future.
Sources and Footnotes
1 Bowers, Q. David on the American Numismatic Rarities Website dated April 2004
2 Gengerke, Martin, American Numismatic Auctions 8th Edition 1990
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