CNG Keystone 3

The consignors were completely involved in this discussion with Yale. The consipiracy theories are interesting but the truth is not remotely that exciting. CNG did not just "turn the coins over" without discussion with the consignors.

 

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Hi Mike. Clearly the boxes once belonged to Yale, but...

Did Yale have any records of the coins themselves, other than merely the boxes? Photos of course would be conclusive, but I doubt they have them. Even matching weights would be of some real value as evidence. I keep going round and round about the fact that the info on the boxes didn't match the coins, at least not on the ones I noticed. It seems at least possible that the boxes were disposed of for whatever reason and later retrieved and reused, or even given by someone at Yale to an unnamed collector, all without any coins involved at all. That scenario would at least explain the coin/box mismatches.

Don't misunderstand; there's no veiled criticism implied by my comment. Of course you guys are doing the right thing, ethically and practically. There's no advantage to anyone in a prolonged Yale/CNG squabble that ultimately could only be resolved in a courtroom. It's just an intriguing scenario.

Phil Davis

 

Back to the original information, Did the owner of the coins have any documentation of ownership? In Louis L'Amour's books, if you couldn't produce ownership of cattle, you were hung. There are tons of missing information. To go on and on and on without complete information, we are just walking into a wall. If complete information is available, I, for one, would like to read the complete story.
Thanks to all that have helped me spit in the wind.

 

It's obvious from CNG's posts, since CNG doesn't even know the name of the original collector from whom the estate's decedent acquired the coins, that there is no proof of the decedent's original purchases in the consignor's possession -- other than what's written on the coin tickets, which CNG has said actually reflect Yale's own purchases of the coins and the prices Yale paid (presumably, to the extent the coins didn't come from the Dura Europos expedition). Do you really think that if the consignor had proof of purchase from Yale or anyone else, it wouldn't have provided that proof to CNG and CNG wouldn't have mentioned it?

 

It can be a real minefield out there with auction houses and consigned items - especially ancients and stuff from later on that may have been seized by nazi Germany. Just about every auction house has dealt with stuff that was illegally seized from the 1933-45 era in Germany at one time or another. Items from some of the Iraqi museums started showing up in Europe and America after the Iraq war.

CNG obviously didn't want the association with something that may have been purloined from Yale. I don't hold CNG in any form of contempt for such a belief - they don't desire the bad PR that can result from such an association.

 

Thanks to all that gave their points of view. As I said earlier, there is not enough information to hang the rustler.

 

I understand you.
I bought, few years ago, a set of coins in the same kind of old trays that had also fascinated me.

The mention "Don de Monsieur Arthur Engel" is written on some of them. Arthur Engel was a famous french Numismatist (1855-1935).

After investigation, I've found that these coins came from the numismatic cabinet of "la société industrielle de Mulhouse" which consisted of about 10000 coins. The entire collection was sold to a french dealer in the 1970's.

 

The coins came to us third hand. They first sold in a Skinner auction in February of 2020. We don't know who the original consignor to Skinner was. We assume it was an estate (but we don't know that for certain). No records came to us. We just cataloged what we had, and we were fully aware of the Skinner auction the previous year. I really wish I knew the original source of these coins. It would potentially answer a lot of questions.

 

Yes, that has most certainly changed, I don't remember exactly how long ago. For many years I used my university library / faculty or student accounts, but I am no longer affiliated with a university. I download/ read close to my full quota of 100 monthly free articles from JSTOR using just my gmail account.

Try it, anyone can sign up for a free JSTOR account with any email. It's very useful since they have many important numismatic journals. In fact, many of the individual articles are available without even a free account (I think it may be true of the ones I linked, since they're "open access").

 

@Curtis, YOW! Twice in a row!!! You are the Angel of Good Tidings! Blessings upon your house. I can already see myself playing a Lot less Reversi and Freecell.
Massive, Massive, Massive Thanks for this.