1st $1 million large cent(s) !

A record setting night tonight, as the astounding Dan Holmes Collection of Early Date Large Cents hit the auction block.

Among the many highlights - the very first million dollar large cent ! And it only grades VG-10 ! It's the finest known 1795 S-79 Reeded Edge. Hammer price was $1,000,100. With the juice, it will be more. I thought floor bids had 15% bp, but the website shows 20% for a final price of $1,200,120.

But that's not all !

Order before midnight tonight, and you can get a second million dollar large cent ! That's right... on this amazing night, another copper topped the magic million mark - the finest known 1799 S-189 Normal Date. Only an R.2 +, graded MS62 NGC. Hammer price $850,000 + 20% = $1,020,000.

An 1804 went for over $660,000.

All of these coins broke the previous record for copper of $632,000 set at the Husak sale in February 2008.

Congratulations and warmest regards to Dan Holmes for his many contributions to the art of collecting Early American Copper. Godspeed, Dan.

 

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Wow, I need a new job.

The 20% number is curious, i wonder if that was through e-bay? Normally anything directly through the auction house is as you mentioned 15%.

 

Some of the auction houses have upped the ante.
For a while many had a tier structure (below $X, 20%; above $X, 15%), but that seems to be a thing of the past.
And don't forget, this is the buyer fee.
They are also taking a percentage from the seller.

30-40 years ago there was a seller's fee of 10%.
Then the auction houses started raising the fee: 15%, then 20%.
The sellers revolted and stopped consigning material.
So the auction houses split the fees between the buyer and seller.
Now BOTH of those have risen to today's levels.

Part of the expense could be eliminated if the auction houses would stop making their hardcopy catalog a collector's item.
Glossy paper, in color with comments by outside experts.
Very expensive.

 

Well, I was able to score four little jewels from the auction. Turns out they were... um... less than $1 million.

Quite a bit less, it seems.

 

The buyer's premium was 15% on the Goldberg sale. It's only 20% if someone were to bid through iCollector, which I'm guessing no one would do on any of the coins sold, but especially not on the million dollar coin!!!!

Another great sale by the Goldberg's right now, Part III of the Naftzger Large Cent collection. None of my bids are even coming close in that sale, big money required for the great coins

 

Wow. Just wow.

 

I still can't believe $1.265 million for a VG10 Large Cent. With that sort of cash I'd rather have a couple of the mint state Chain cents that were sold and still have plenty of cash left over I guess if you really need that reeded edge 1795 for your set, you need to pay up though.

 

Yes yes yes. Just wow.

And here it is... the world's first $1 million copper :

http://www.mkjassociates.com/cgi-bin/ilgvulot.pl?site=1&sale=54&lot=128

Makes for interesting reading, eh ?

Note : the final hammer quadrupled the auctioneer's estimate.

To get a feel for how things were going, I tabulated hammer prices during the auction and compared to auctioneer's estimate. Since this was during the "heat of battle", I couldn't do 'em all.

I found that 86% of the lots exceeded the estimate. The total dollar value was 71% above estimate. This helped me estimate what a winning bid would be. It showed my pre-auction bids were smoked. Action required !

Now that all figures are in, I will do that analysis for the entire sale of 571 lots.

 

I can appreciate the rarity but even if I had the money I'm not so sure I would buy it.

After looking at it several times I just have to say to myself......WHY?

Although I think I can answer that as I have bought some pretty beat up varieties for my own set.

 

I can certainly understand that.

Interesting to note that this coin was featured on the cover, all by itself, of the "pre-catalog" disbursed at the EAC convention so that folks could look over the collection. It was also in the center of the final version of the catalog.

All I can figure is it shows the passion of variety collectors, particularly EAC guys.

I don't have the figures handy, but it's amazing how many unique, near unique, or NC coins this collection had. That means for many people who aspire to complete a set, this auction was the only shot they will ever have of acquiring certain coins. This is it. Score or die.

 

I wonder how many pieces the new owner of this coin got from the collection?

 

The actual hammer on the Dan Holmes S-79 was $1,100,000, not $1,000,100, as the Goldberg site incorrectly posted, making the final price (with 15% juice) $1,265,000.

A YouTube video of the calling of the S-79 is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLK6QFK9uQU

 

Please do and share the results!

That said, it doesn't surprise me in the least. Goldberg's are notorious for underestimating the value of coins.

 

Great video. Kinda funny how they split the bid a couple of times and eventually sold at 1.1Mil.

 

True dat. I chatted with Ira about that. He mentioned that its advantageous for coins to exceed the estimates; it can get a bit awkward (even Debbie Downer) for coins to be below estimates. Imagine if the opening bids were too high, and nobody bid !

I think there's some psychology and good salesmanship at play. All reasonable, and good business sense.

 

I'm glad still put estimated values, I don't think I have seen public estimates on goldberg Heritage auctions for a very long time.

 

I was thinking the same thing !

Since several unique coins were up, the only guy who has any hope of a complete collection had to score all the unique coins ! Which means, if someone is so inclined, the onus is on the guy who won the first unique coin up for grabs. He's the guy in the driver's seat.

The first unique coin was the 1793 Wreath NC-2 Strawberry.

There were a total of 68 NC coins (!), so the odds of someone pulling down all the very, very rare coins (R.7 or more) is long indeed*. I doubt anyone "cornered the market" on this deal. I suppose the great, great rarities were dispersed around a bit. I'll check into it.





* 23 of the NCs are estimated to be R.6 or less, so 45 coins were R.7 or R.8.

 

On one of the lots I bid on I bid six times the estimate and still lost it.

I was really hoping to get something out of this collection. There will never be another one like it. The most complete early date large cent variety set in history. Lacking only one variety of being complete. That one variety in the 1793 NC-5 which is unique and locked away in the ANS collection. I believe there were at least a dozen or more Unique coins in this collection. The chances of anyone being able to pull them all together again is slim to none.

His middle date collection IS complete, and his late date set lacks only one variety including the proof only varieties. If anyone knows where he can get an 1851 N-42 he's interested. (After some 12 years it's still unique and the owner won't part with it.) No one has ever completed all the late date varieties, even if you ignore the proof onlys.

 

Whew ! So much for the "gloom and doom" types who bad-mouth the coin market. Great coins have brought great prices, even during the worst of the economic issues.

One of the interesting facets of this auction - The only missing variety, the unique 1793 NC-5 Wreath you mentioned, was displayed with the coins for lot viewing. Thus, the assemblage of lots was truly complete. This was of great value for the student of early dates; it may never happen again.

They also included the NC-5 in the Auction catalog, so it too is a truly complete reference work.

In addition, Dan had NC-5 tokens minted in copper, silver and gold which were also auctioned off (or given away).

 

Yes i was at EAC where they were all together, and I have one of the "NC-5" souvenirs. (copper)