Very few of today’s Mexican coin collectors in the US and Mexico realize just how great this old-line Mexican Numismatic coin dealer and auctioneer was, nor his history. Let’s try to set the record straight and maybe find out exactly how good Harvey Bruns really was!
I get an overall picture from his catalogs that his primary interests were the Mexican minors from all periods of Mexico; Colonial, War of Independence, Iturbide, Republic, Maximilian, Revolutionary War and Modern.
It appears Bruns’ second auction closed on September 16, 1969 and contained 1,303 lots of coins, medals and books. The first 40 lots were early Colonial coins from Carlos & Joanna through Luis I, most were minors but there were three 8 Reales. Lots #47 to 120 had a nice selection of War of Independence Royalist coinage from Durango, Guadalajara, Guanajuato, and Zacatecas, plus 20 lots of counter stamped coins. The Insurgent mints were represented by coins from Zacatecas, Vargas, American Congress, and Supreme National Congress. Not being a good judge of these coins I can’t comment on the quality, but it appears there were many extreme rarities in this group. Harvey had only four lots of Iturbide coins, with nothing special to write home about. Lots #125 to 171 were Colonial 8 Reales and it appears that most were about average. Lots #172 to 179 were all Colonial ½ Reales, most with problems. The State Coinage ran from Lot #180 to 234 and I’m sure you will find something interesting in all of these. Next we find a run of Republic 8 Reales beginning with Lot #235 and ending with Lot #326. Then we come to a good run of Republic 4 Reales from Lot #327 to 404 that has a few really rare coins even if not in high-grade. The balance of the Republic minors (1/2, 1 and 2 Reales) appears from Lot #405 to 424. There are 46 lots of Balance Scale silver 1 Pesos and 19 lots of Maximilian coinage. There are almost 200 lots of decimal minors; everything from 1 to 50 Centavos. Next we find a single Revolutionary War collection that took two catalogs to cover. This first part ran from Lot #682 and closed with Lot #830 and includes many extreme rarities. Another group of State Coinage runs from Lot #831 to 888 and then almost 100 lots of Modern Mexican coins. The next 200+ lots have foreign coins from Canada, Guatemala, Panama, San Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, British Honduras, Honduras, and then another 30+ lots of late arriving Mexican coins. Finally three gold coins, some rolls of Mexican coins, a nice, but small selection of medals and tokens, and other miscellaneous material. All in all, a pretty good auction for a second attempt in 1969 don’t you think?
Mr. Bruns mail bid sales seem to have become better over the next few years and he handled many very rare to extremely rare minors and War of Independence coins in some of these mail bid sales. But one has to wonder if most of his better material never saw the public auction block because I have had several old-timers tell of some great coins that they purchased from Bruns in private treaty transactions.
Bruns’ last auction, according to my records, was in November 1984, and was 10 years after his next to the last sale. One can only wonder what was going on in Harvey’s life that stopped his public sales for so long?