BCD coins - What's included?

Going through what seems like an endless attribution ceremony; I've come to find a few of my BCD coins have "to scale" photos included with each coin. I own several BCD coins, but this is a first for me (that I have noticed.) I can't imagine this guy doing this with each one of his probably 10's of thousands of coins.

This may have already been discussed on this forum. Pretty cool provenance with some of the coins as well. Anyone know what the "GMRH" collection is? Google/CNG produced no results.


-Michael

 

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Back in the 80s dealers would take Polaroid photos of coins and cut them out and use them to compose auction and fixed price lists. If you bought the coin they would usually include the Polaroid cut out with the coin. So BCD pprobably did not shoot those himself. A dealer friend told me each side of the coin cost $1 for the film.

John

 

Those of you new to the hobby would be amazed at the low end market before digital photography. Even high end lists sometimes would not photograph every coin but the end of the market selling $50 and under coins (perhaps $200 today) rarely had images. I'd get at least five price lists a week with half being unillustrated. You soon got to know whether a coin a certain dealer called fine would be acceptable to you and the grade coins populating eBay today just were not sold as much. It made it hard to collect some things since many dealers did not bother with mintmarks on LRB coins. One dealer was regular in saying a Septimius coin was probably barbarous when they were Emesa mint. One dealer offered $1 Polaroids and would cram as many coins as would fit on the thing. Sometimes you would get a photo cut raggedly since he would combine images for more than one customer each wanting only a couple small coins. I considered it unnecessary in many cases since the descriptions were good enough to give an idea and you could always phone and ask for details before ordering. We had to phone as soon as a list arrived because most of the good deals went to people with good mail service and the willingness to call. We then had a certain number of days to get a check to the dealer (no PayPal). Big deal catalogs like NFA had full illustrations and the arrival of an NFA mail sale auction catalog made my whole week. I have most of the ones I got tossing out only catalogs of sellers who mixed US and modern with their few ancients. Some of the illustrations in some catalogs were terrible (I'm thinking of a couple in particular but fear they may be lurking here - or their grandchildren???). I know I learned as much from sale catalogs as from fancy hardcovered books.

 

I have a BCD coin in my collection with much of the same material as the OP's coin. Tray tag, small, cut photos, etc. They might be dealer photos, as Doug suggests. But BCD had such huge numbers of similar coins in his trays, that I wonder if he used the photos as tray placement reminders.

Many collectors have record keeping habits that get lost when big auction houses sell their collections. RBW, for instance, always kept his coins in envelopes with detailed provenance information. These envelopes were not included in the NAC sales lots, but are often included with RBW duplicates.

 

I've heard that and I think that was a real injustice done to the collection by NAC.

 

I had actually wondered about that myself. This envelope is from one that was unsold in NAC 61 and sold later and as you can see, lost its envelope as well. Not sure what the 167 is a reference to:

 

Okay, as the individual who has been responsible for flipping 90% of the coins sold at CNG since 2010, I think I'm uniquely suited to answer your question. For the BCD - the ticket obverse gives the region (Thessaly), the city (Larissa), and the reference (not included here). The reverse gives the source, in this case 'GMBH.' BCD bought from EVERYONE in Europe and North America, so GMBH is probably just some small time dealer or collector he met at a show. This is followed by the date purchased (October 1979), and the cost (2200 Swiss). The other ticket is from the seller, GMBH. Unless its a common name - Glendining, Spink, etc - there's really no point in looking for it.

The little Polaroids could have possibly been from a seller's list, but remember that BCD was extremely generous in sharing his collection with scholars, so for certain series EVERYTHING has been imaged. This one was likely photographed to be shared with Cathy Lorber during her study on the facing head coinage of Larissa. In addition, some BCD coins, particularly those of Pharsalos, come with tiny blue tickets. These are from Lavva's die study, "Die Münzprägung die Pharsalos."

 

You must be very busy!

Great answer, by the way.

 

I flipped most of the esales until just this year. It takes about half to 3/4 a day to flip ~750 lots.

 

Isn't GMBH they short for the German way of saying of saying a business is limitedly liable, "Incorporated"? For example Münzen & Medaillen GmbH

 

Ardy - How come CNG doesn't put coin detail info on the flips for major sales such as Triton (maybe MBS too?). It would be nice as a customer to not have to make my own tags for my records especially for nicer coins from your better sales.

 

I read GMRH on the Larissa but have no idea who it is.

 

Googling GMRH ancient coins discloses other ex-BCD items with the same notation. Their dates range from May 1979 to October 1984. I can't shed more light than that, but even that tells us it was a Swiss dealer who was around for over five years (at least.) This wasn't a one-off purchase from a collector at a show.

 

From Wikipedia: Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung which is German for "company with limited liability", is a type of legal entity very common in Germany, Austria, Switzerland...

 

From my German company dealings: GERMAN LAW: private company with limited liability is known as a Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (GmbH)

 

This thread resembles a game of telephone, lol! The abbreviation in question is GMRH, not GMBH.

 

May I, as the humble owner of the BCD initials, clarify the following:

1) Polaroid cutouts were shot and done by myself, upon the acquisition of a silver (or gold) item and placed with the item and its ticket. Bronzes only got the polaroid treatment if they were exceptional rarities or very valuable. The reason for this "polaroiding" (which was an expensive and time consuming affair) was to be able to know what dies and/or varieties existed in the collection without necessarily having access to the actual items that could therefore be safely stored elsewhere.

2) GMRH are the initials of a British dealer from whom I acquired a large number of items, some of them very expensive and many of them vastly overpriced. These purchases took place from about the mid 70's through the mid 90's. At some time around then I severed my relationship with him because he refused to let me take a photo of a fake he owned and which he claimed was genuine. The photo was meant for an article on the fake facing head Larissa drachms that was planned at the time, a sequel to another such article already published in an obscure periodical.

I hope this post clarifies these issues but if there are more questions I will be glad to answer them to the best of my ability.

 

Basil,

Good to hear from you. It's bee a long time!

 

Thank you for stopping by and solving the riddle! I hope everyone makes note of this, I know I am.