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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;bgarg, post: 258888, member: 1876&quot;]I didn’t wanted to highjack the other thread, but would like to quote couple of paragraphs written by Michael Bates who is curator of Islamic coins in ANS and prepared the catalog for this auction in 1987.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>“I can add a little bit--not much--to the story of the giant mohurs offered at auction by Hapsburg-Feldman in 1987. I first heard about them in the early eighties, when an Arab friend mentioned on several occasions that he had been offered the two coins but could not bring the sellers, or their agents, down to a reasonable price. Then towards the middle eighties, I was taken in a small elevator deep below Geneva to a bank vault where I was able to see the coins themselves and hold them in my hands. Almost dropped the big one, too--1000 mohurs of gold are a lot heavier than they look. I&#039;ve seen the same reaction when privileged visitors to the Federal Reserve Bank vault in New York are given a gold ingot to hold.”</i></p><p><br /></p><p><i>“I was asked to write part of the Hapsburg Feldman catalogue, in the form of a general history and discussion of giant Islamic presentation or donative coins. Such coins are mentioned in the early and later histories, but the only survivors are from modern times.”</i></p><p><br /></p><p><i>“Those two pieces, the 1,000 and the 100, were offered together as the <b>unique single lot </b>in the auction. As far as I remember, the Indian government may have taken notice when the catalogue came out, but they were not able to act fast enough to stop the auction. I was told authoritatively (by a principal in the affair) that the high bid, I think $9,500,000, did not meet the reserve. I have heard various explanations of the affair, including the one that the auction was held only to establish a price and enable the pieces to be used as security for a bank loan. I&#039;m dubious about that. I spoke to Hapsburg and to Feldman in the preparation of the catalogue, and they certainly seemed genuinely excited about the sale as a reality. Later, I heard that the pieces came from the treasury of the family of the Nizam of Hyderabad.”</i></p><p><br /></p><p><i>“The legal case was brought by the Indian government and proceeded very slowly. Just two or three years ago, the US Attorney&#039;s office in New York City sent me a four-page questionnaire, on behalf of the Swiss court handling the case, for a written deposition about my knowledge of the case.”</i></p><p><br /></p><p>Hopefully this will give some additional information about those mysterious mohurs.</p><p><br /></p><p>Regards,</p><p>Ballabh Garg[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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