Possiblity of another Collector Doing What Eliasberg Did?

Mr. Eliasberg purchased the Clapp Collection in 1942 and in one fell swoop acquired quite a number of extremely high quality coins.

 

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And when he bought the Clapp collection that contained over 90% of the complete collection. Eliasberg just had to finish off the remaining holes. (Not to say there weren't some pretty darn impressive holes, but many of the "uber-rarities" were already present in the Clapp collection.) And the Clapp collection was at least a two if not three generation collection. Eliasberg managed to build a complete collection in a relatively short time, but only because someone else had spent decades building the core collection.

If someone had really deep pockets and decades of time over which to assemble the collection, it could probably be duplicated or almost duplicated. The 1870-S three dollar gold is probably the only piece that he might not get. And even that might be possible eventually. The Bass collection is not on permanent loan, it is on indefinite loan which means the Bass Foundation could take it, or part of it back. The Foundation also was not supposed to sell any of his gold collection, but was to make it available to researchers,yet the first thing they did was to sell of the research library and many of the gold varieties. Then they loaned the rest to the ANA so they had the headache of display, insurance, and making it available to researchers. They got rid of most of their responsibilities while retaining there salaries. Offer them enough money and the 70-S might just become one more variety up for sale.

And I don't believe the Bass gold collection was complete because I don't think he had the 1822 half eagle. There are only three of them. Two were in the Smithsonian and one in Eliasberg. Bass bought the 70-S $3, but not the 1822 $5 from the Eliasberg sale.

 

It,s ironic even if you had all the money in the world you couldnt have the best
Of everything !!