It's a purely debatable subject and one with so very many possible answers that it almost defies listing them all.
Well, here is the biggest (not necessarily greatest ) publicly accessible coin collection: http://www.coswig.de/tourismus/restaurant/erholung/erholung.htm This is a restaurant in Coswig, Saxony (DE) which has a collection of currently 224,907 coins. If the "quality" of the collection is relevant too, there is the Berlin Coin Cabinet: http://www.smb.museum/ikmk/index.php?lang=en Does not exactly answer your question. But as Doug wrote ... Christian
Mine is! Colonel Green had a nice collection. He one time owned all 5 1913 Liberty Head Nickels. The Smithsonian's National Numismatic Collection and the ANA's collection are both nice as well.
My exact answer. Colonel Green had a nice collection, but he is only known in the numismatic world for owning all 5 1913 V Nickels.
I didn't say that was the only known person to own all 5, I said that he "is only known" for owning all 5.
Best answer so far. Famous collections are nice, but they end up broken up. Legacies are nice, but I will stick with my blue collar collection. And yes the term is borrowed from bonedigger.
For example, there is a set of books called SNG COPENHAGEN. The "Sylloge Numorum Graecorum" is a long term effort to catalog the great collections of ancient Greek coins and the Copenhagen (Royal Danish) collection is perhaps the top of that heap. However... to understand the coins of Taras (Tarentum), the "Boy on a Dolphin" issues that are so famous, I bought a copy of "Vlasto" the auction catalog from about 100 years ago in which the finest collection of these coins was assembled. The catalog numbering is the one all the dealers use, even Stack's today. While Eliasberg is famous for pursuing one of each type of US gold coin, Trompeter focused on Proof Double Eagles. Hard to say...
Not the greatest collection, but that 50,000 Silver Dollar Bar sounds like a cool place. I think it's in Montana? They have over 50,000 silver dollars mounted on the wall of their bar. Anyone else heard of it? Pretty unique in my opinion.
Silver Queen in Virginia City, Nevada The Silver Queen is 15-ft. tall and 8-ft. wide, a ceiling-touching painting of a lady in an evening gown decorated with 3,261 "Morgan" silver dollars minted in Carson City (in what is now the Nevada State Museum). Her belt is fashioned from 28 twenty-dollar gold pieces, and her choker and bracelets are made from dimes.
I believe there are collections and collectors we don't know about. I mean who knew Benny Binion Jr. Had a couple mil face value Silver US coins buried in a hole in the desert ?