Famous ancient coin collectors

The first prominent numismatists all resided in Italy....
Augustus (Roman Emperor)
Pope Boniface VIII
Pope Paul II
Lorenzo Di Medici
Alfonso V of Aragon
Matthias Corvinus King of Hungary
Maximilian I Holy Roman Emperor
Ferdinand I Holy Roman Emperor
Alessandro Farnesse Duke of Parma
Albrecht V of Bayern
Ferdinand II Grand Duke of Austria

We are in elite company
Please post your coins of famous collectors....

Here are some of mine....
Ferdinand II Holy Roman Emperor
AV Dukat 1633 K-B Kremnitz Mint
Hungary
Ferdinand I of Habsburg
AV Goldgulden 1531 K-B Kremnitz Mint
Hungary
Pope Clemente IX
AV Mezzo Scudo d'oro year XVI (1716) Roma Mint
Papal States

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Somptuous coins @panzerman

Gaston d'Orleans, prince of the Dombes principality was a great collector too. When he passed away, his collections were inherited by his nephew, the king Louis XIV (Le Roi Soleil) and then constituted the basis of what is now the "cabinet des médailles" at the Bibliothèque nationale de France


A gold ecu and a double tournois of his :





Q

 

Magnificent examples Q!
Maximiliam I Holy Roman Emperor was very interested in coin design. He of course is well known for promoting early dating on his coins His legacy is that today, coinage of the Holy Roman Empire is admired and highly sought after in auctions.
John
Here is a Louis d'or of the "Sun King" another collector
My first Heritage Auction win....

 

Although he was only the brother and father to coin collectors, I will add this coin:

Louis XIII, quart d'écu de Béarn, 1618 Pau
Obv: LVDOVICVS. XIII. D. G. FRANC. ET. NA. REX. BD., Croix fleurdelisée, avec fleuron quadrilobé en cœur
Rev: GRATIA. DEI. SVM. ID. Q. SVM. 1618, Écu parti de France, mi-coupé de Navarre-Béarn, couronné, accosté de II et II

And this Smithsonian bulletin quote:

 

George III was a collector as well, most of his collection is in the British Museum

heres one of his donated by George IV
https://research.britishmuseum.org/...Id=1&searchText=julius+caesar+denarius&page=1

EDIT: everything donated by George https://research.britishmuseum.org/...nline/search.aspx?people=86877&peoA=86877-3-9

 

There are stunning coins on this thread ! The 1633 ducat of Ferdinand II is the very definition of "FDC" . The coin pictured below I sold at a Heritage auction a couple of years ago & it is of no great value , but it came from the most famous of all ancient coin collectors, Nelson Bunker Hunt.

 

A couple of Augustus heads...




George III - of course he wasn't mad, he was a coin collector...



I wonder who M.A. Iles and Miss Stuart were. There is a painting from 1804 of "The Younger Miss Stuart of Albemarle Street" -



- https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Portrait-of--the-younger--Miss-Stuart-of/E1476FEAD55BA964 -

I'd like to think this is my Miss Stuart, but who knows!

ATB,
Aidan.

 

I believe many posters in this forum could be called famous.
Sir Midas (OP) aka panzerman, is very famous, to me anyway.

 

Aidan said it well, George III could not have been all that "mad", since I have yet to meet a "lunatic" coin collector. Takes a high IQ to be able to research the historical aspects, curate and form a collection. Plus, know previous auction trends/ formulate your bidding strategy and most of all, not let emotions make rash judgements.
John

 

I have this coin of George III for the image of Roma, Britannia seated on the reverse:
George III, Half Penny 1807, Soho Mint
Obv: Laureate bust of King George III facing right, wearing robes, the surrounding legend reading 'GEORGIUS III-D:G-REX.', with the date,1807, below
Rev: Britannia seated upon a rock facing left, extending the symbolic olive branch of peace to all, a shield by her side, "ruling the seas" with a man o' war in full rigging at her feet in the distance and holding the trident spear of Neptune, the legend reads 'BRITANNIA', SOHO mint mark below shield.

Great story and coin.

 

...Ferdinand ll was also HRE 1619-37..

 

Ferdinand II as HRE then struck magnificent AV 100/ 50/ 40 Dukaten coins for his son in 1629 (Bohemia) to get him elected as future HRE. It worked, in 1637 Ferdinand was the new Emperor! I guess the massive coins were bribes good ones at that

 

yup...good ole Ferdinand lll.....i really hit the bricks this year trying to get all the Habsburg HRE's, Austria, but i still lack a few (and bought some that wasn't i.e. Louie ll and his dad Vladislaus ll)...i got'em all back the Ferdinand l tho......

 

Re. the George III coin - it's obviously not ancient, but is interesting - an overstruck Spanish 8 reales coins - the Bank Of England struck these as 5s coins, the Bank Of Ireland as 6s coins (the Irish and British coinages had different values at this stage).

From Edward Colgan's book "For Want of Good Money":

"In addition to the circulation coins, Boulton decided to produce 1000 proof 'dollars', writing on 17th May 1804 that he was 'persuaded the Irish dollar will be thought a more beautiful coin than the English one... I am desirous that every cabinet of coins in the kingdom should have one and therefore I propose to coin a few hundreds, put them into proper preserving cases and offer them to sale in some other shops about Charing Cross or Pall Mall or St James Street'. The proof dollars were to be sold at 8s 6d."

This is one of the 1,000 proofs (there were 790,509 regular issue 6s coins).

Interestingly, Albemarle St. in London, the home of the painted Miss Stuart, is close to where Boulton proposed to sell his proof coins (Albemarle St. becomes St. James St. on crossing Piccadilly and the other places are nearby also), so perhaps Mr Iles spotted these coins on his way to pay a visit

ATB,
Aidan.

 

I just got a Josef I AV 1/12 Dukat from Breslau (Macho&Chlopovic) auction. You are doing way better then me. I still need Matthias II/ Maximilian II/ Lajos II/ Janos Hunyadi/ Wladilaus I. I think the coinage of the Holy Roman Empire is absolutely A++ in design/ scope in varieties (from the teeny 1/32 Dukat to the 350g. AV100 Dukaten. Here is that 1/12 Dukat Josef I 1709

 

Sorry...1711 That coin is somewhere between Prague and Orleans presently/ maybe arrive by Christmas! There are 2 known examples. Only 200 were struck in 1711/ Breslau Mint.

 

..ahaha...9_9...o, you flatterer you...it's only because i collect coins you wouldn't..my whole group wouldn't come close to the cost of one o your saint seducing gold ones..but i appreciate the thought...

 

President John Q. Adams was a collector as well.

From the JQA Collection:

VESPASIAN
Æ Dupondius
OBVERSE: IMP CAES VESP AVG P M T P COS V CENS, radiate head left
REVERSE: FELICITAS PVBLICA S-C, Felicitas standing facing, head left, holding caduceus & cornucopiae
Struck at Rome, 74AD
10.2g, 28mm
RIC 716, (RIC [1962] 555), Cohen 152, BMC 698
Ex: J.Q. Adams
lot 785 of the John Quincy Adams sale (Stacks, 1971) purchased by Christian Blom. Chris sold it to Mendel Peterson of the Smithsonian Institution (it comes with his tag) who sold it to Gene Brandenberg, Trojan Antiques.

 

Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy (1900-1946) was an avid numismatist whose huge collection focused on coins of Italy from the end of the Western Roman Empire to the modern period. He encouraged the high Neo-Classical artistic standards on Italian coinage during his reign. His collection was later donated to the National Museum.

 

Does someone have a coin of King Farouk of Egypt? He had a very large collection of coins.