(802) The Front Page:
Volume 2 Issue 8: Last Revision:
05/26/07
Latest
News From Long Beach
Emails are pouring in about the auctions before
and during the Long Beach Show. Three public auctions had significant Mexican
coins this year that all serious collectors need to be aware of and make notes. Some of the
prices realized are eye-openers to say the least!
World-Wide Coins of California
Auction#51
The first Pre-Long
Beach sale was a mail bid only sale by Jim Elmen that closed on May 17, 2007.
Elmen's sale contained 23 lots of Mexican material beginning with Lot #254, a Carlos
and Joanna 4 Reales graded toned
Extra
Fine
and ended with Lot #276 a toned
Choice
aUnc
Culiacan Cn 1904 RP silver 1 Peso. In between these two lots were some very nice
coins including several choice pieces. Here is a sampling of the Mexican coins
in the sale:
Lot#255
Lot#260
Lot#263
Lot#264
Lot#266
Lot#267
Lot#268
Lot#273
Ira & Larry Goldberg Pre-Long Beach
Ancient & World Coin Auction #41
It seems, to an
interested bystander, that the Goldbergs are once again taking a leading
position in Mexican coins, especially if this sale is any indication. Once I
discovered the sale on the Internet, again we didn't receive a catalog, I had to
call Larry to get the scoop on the Mexican coins in the sale. Goldberg told me they
were part of a collection that was formed many years ago and that the owner
had taken note of the advancing prices for good Mexican coins, so he
assumed it was time to sell.
Goldberg inferred that this was a test, and there might be more in the future?
The ancient and
foreign coin portion of this Goldberg blockbuster live auction started with
session three at 1:00 PM on May 28 and ended with the afternoon session six at
3:00 Pm on May 29. To say there were some nice Mexican coins would be an
vast understatement. The first Mexican coin was Lot#3629, a NGC AU-55 Carlos and Johana 4
Reales and the Mexican silver and copper continued to Lot#3680, a NGC Fine-15 countermarked cast Mo
1810 HJ War of Independence 8 Reales. The Mexican gold killer coins
started with Lot#4692, a Mexico City 1714 2 Escudo Cob graded NGC MS-64 and
ended with Lot#4789, a Oaxaca 1915 gold 10 Peso graded NGC AU-53.
There are almost
too many great rarities to mention in this sale, but let me give you just a few
to wet your appetite:
Lot#3630 a Mexico
City NGC AU-53
Mo 1732 F
8 Reales; estimate $35,000-$45,000
Lot#3652 a Durango
NGC MS-63 Do
1825 RL 8
Reales; estimate $1,000-$1,250
Lot#3653 a
Guanajuato NGC AU-58
Go 1866
Maximilian silver 1 Peso; estimate $2,000-$2,500
Lot#4693 a Mexico
City NGC MS-61
Mo 1733 F
8 Escudo; estimate $12,500-$15,00
Lot#3653 a
Heritage
World & Ancient Coin Auction #440
Every Mexican
Republic minor silver collector was blown away by two spectacular
Chihuahua minor reales in this sale. It was reminiscent of the Ponterio &
Associates Sale # when two other choice mint state Chihuahua silver minors
crossed the auction block back in 20__. The two coins in the Ponterio sale both
set records for the public sale of Republican silver minors and the
pre-sale consensus was the two Heritage coins could possibly break these
previous records..
News From CICF'07
Richard A Long is Retiring from Mexican Numismatics?
Most of you already know that after a long (pun intended) and
great career, Richard Long has decided to close his coin auction business. When
I spoke to Richard about this he told me he needed more time to work on his
books, both in the numismatic and philatelic (stamp) areas, and he was tired of
doing the time consuming work of producing catalogs and fixed price lists. He
did however state he would continue to dabble in Mexican coins by advising,
buying, and selling a few collections from his old clientele in order to help
the hobby. I would personally like to thank Richard for all of his work helping
me personally in the past 20+ years.
The World’s Greatest Cap & Ray 8 Reales Collection
The Ponterio Family
completed the first of the three part of the sale of this fantastic Cap & Rays 8
Reales collection. I didn’t personally attend the first sale but reports from
our sources said the sale was well attended and that many of the coins sold
returned to Mexico after being held prisoner in the U.S. for way too long. Some
people thought bargains were easy to find, and yet others claimed that the
overall prices were higher than they expected. If you look at the prices
realized I’m sure you can draw your own conclusions.
No matter what your
conclusions are about the first sale, I believe the next two sales will see a
major upswing in prices as this collection has some really great coins that
haven’t been seen on the public market in years, if ever.
The
Cap & Ray 8 Reales Market Today
Unlike Mexican Republic Gold we haven’t had a
recent benchmark public auction for the Cap & Ray 8 Reales. The last
“great” public auction of this series occurred in 1997 well before the
upswing in Mexican coin prices.
This is the first
truly public sale of a great Cap & Ray 8 Reales collection since the
J.B. Parker Collection sale in 1997. Let me stress the word public
because another great collection, the Jamie Varon Collection, has been dispersed
both by “Private Treaty” and in a series of very subdued public auctions.
And believe me, “This happens all of the time with the ‘great’ collections of
Mexican coins.”
Since “The Book”,
Resplandores, about the Cap & Ray 8 Reales series was published in
1996 much has happened in the world of Cap & Ray 8 Reales! Some very good, and
some very bad things have occurred. I personally believe Parker got ripped when
he sold his collection, but more about this in a later article in The Soap
Box column of MCM.
There is no doubt the
total number of Cap & Ray 8 Reales collectors have greatly increased since “The
Book” was published. The big question is what kind of
collectors? Some believe we are seeing a whole new group of great
collectors in the making. Others believe most are just casual collectors. Beyond
a doubt “The Book” helped create these new collectors, but the
main source of these new collectors came about with advent of the daily Internet
auctions. Many believe these new Internet collectors are the future “great”
collectors.
Others point out that the
new Cap & Ray collectors fostered by eBay and other Internet auctions
sites are primarily “newbies” and/or perhaps only “bottom feeders”. The recent
sale, on eBay, of a very nice PI 1860 MC 8 Reales seems to
back up this theory somewhat. Once I found the listing for this coin I called an
active, and advanced Cap & Ray collector telling him about the coin. He was not
thrilled that the coin was located in Argentina, but I told him I had bought
coins from this source before and he was an okay guy. We then discussed
the value of this specimen. I informed him I had sold my specimen years ago for
$18,000. While the latest coin wasn’t as nice as the other one … it was still a
very nice example of an extreme rarity. I told him I thought it would
sell cheaply and it was easily worthy of a minimum $5,000 bid. He ended up
purchasing it for his opening bid of $1,990.
What does this prove?
I believe there are many
collectors of Cap & Ray 8 Reales who are warily of extreme rarities from
this series not located in the US or Mexico. And there is good reason for this
because of the many fakes (generally altered dates) currently
being produced in Hong Kong and China that appear almost daily on eBay and other
Internet sites. In fact Stack’s was recently fooled by a number of these fakes
in a sale that was already cataloged and had to withdraw a large number of them
before the sale began. However, most of these fake coins are
either low-grade examples or funny looking high-grade specimens without a
lot of high quality mint luster, and many times the coins do not have the
proper design or styles.
Most of the coins in the
Santa Clara Collection (a name for this collection I have coined to protect the
anonymity of its current owner) being sold by Ponterio are coins that have a
long and very traceable pedigree and believe me; many have come from other great
collections. Many have been purchased at past public auctions and a few were
record prices for those DAMs. Others have been purchased in private treaty sales
from highly respected dealers or other long-term collectors. Additionally some
of the great rarities in this collection have never been seen at public action
before because this collector has been Numero Uno on most Mexican
Specialty Dealers Lists for many years and money has never interfered with his
purchases in the past.
Because of the above
mentioned conditions and because the Ponterio family is cataloging and selling
the collection, all collectors can feel confident that all of the coins
being offered are genuine. Therefore, the Santa Clara Collection sales will
become “The Benchmark” for the Cap & Ray 8 Reales; just like the
J.B. Parker collection did, for the next 10 years or more.
The only question
remaining is: What will the “new” benchmark be? Will we see an overall spike in
prices for Cap & Ray 8 Reales, or is the numismatic market still soft for this
series? Only time will tell, and that time is quickly approaching.
Along these lines I would
like to tell you I have experienced a much greater interest and huge increase in
the sales of the FoxLair Mexican Republic Cap & Rays Reference Collection coins.
When I ended my long pursuit of this series I had 15+ double row boxes of 8
Reales in my main collection, plus about 350 dupes. Last week after having four
visiting collectors I’m down to only six double row boxes and a few dupes. In my
personal opinion the market for nice coins from this series is great. However,
I can now fully understand why coin dealers hate building catalogs or creating
fixed price lists, as it is so time consuming. (See
Items for Sale 813a)
More Problems With International Money!
During
one week in February I received 10+ emails from coin dealers, the ANA, the ANS
and people I didn’t know about problems of importing and exporting coins from
Cyprus and Greece. Now that the attention has shifted from Mexican coins to
ancient coins everyone is worried about the mess our politicians are creating.
Hey people out there in electronic LaLa Land you need to contact your
legislators, no matter what country you live in, and tell them “coins, no matter
when they were made, or where they were made, are not national
treasures, they are only the implements of commerce!” If you coin collectors
are not willing to get involved in this sticky problem you will soon find out
how bad politicians can screw up our hobby!
A simple tip for
all of you people in the US to help prove this point, Tell your legislators that
you want them to demonetize all of our national treasure $100 bills in Russia
and the Far East. I promise you this will get their full attention.
It’s up to you
to do something before it is too late…
Mexican Coin Auction News:
2006 turned out to be just
a so-so year for all but a few public auctions. As usual eBay was “a blaze” with
bargains in many series of Mexican coins. In my humble opinion the steady
advance in Mexican coin prices is beginning to bring out lots of new, and good
material, and this trend seems to be building steam for 2007. One advanced
collector of 10 Centavos purchased over 10 choice specimens during his winter
stay in South Texas, the greatest number of new additions he has made in years.
Ponterio & Associates Sale#139Sale
While the highlight of Mexican coins for this Ponterio Sale was
the first offering of the Santa Clara Collection Cap & Rays 8 Reales, one must
not overlook the fantastic group of Republican Cap & Ray 4 Reales that were
offered too.
This group of
200+ Cap & Ray 4 Reales, also from the Santa Clara Collection, was the largest
public offering from this series in many years. Several 4 Reales
collectors filled a number of holes in their collections, and many more were
snapped up by a couple of dealers. Again prices were rather spotty and many sold
at bargain prices.
Richard A. Long Sale#99
Richard’s last auction was
a blockbuster if you look at the overall quality of the Mexican coins offered. I
personally purchased many extreme rarities for the FoxLair Reference
Collections, and for a couple of collectors that are customers of mine from
several series.
Heritage Auction Galleries
The Heritage NYINC 2007
Sale again shows the interest that Steve Ivy and his boys have in World Coins
because this sale includes two world catalogs.
Additional Auction Sales
Both Duane Douglas and
Alberto Hidalgo have had a couple of sales in 2006 and early 2007 that had some
really good coins. If you are interested in any Mexican series you should get on
both of their mailing lists.
That’s all for now…
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