Lord Marcovan's "Eclectic Box of 20" Collection

I do fully intend to add a Spanish Colonial (maybe a Pillar 8-reales piece or a smaller gold denomination) when I can swing it.

Yes, I know slabbing ancients is counter to tradition, and I'm perfectly happy to collect my ancients raw in other contexts. But for the purposes of the whole "Box of 20" thing, these particular ones get entombed in plastic. Their next owners can always liberate them, but some are going to be with me a while.

Sticking to 20 pieces? Yes, it's difficult, and gets increasingly challenging as I acquire coins I really like. But in the course of two past disasters that wiped out my collection (a 1995 de facto bankruptcy and a layoff in the 2008 recession), I've learned some detachment, and each time I got back on my feet I rebuilt the collection better than it had been before.

On the modest earnings of a hotel clerk (my salary is barely above the minimum wage in some places), if I'm to afford nice coins, I have to stick to a small collection. So each one that leaves the collection helps finance the one that takes its place.

Nowadays, I'd rather have twenty nice pieces than one or two hundred "OK" pieces. (But this was not always the case.)

I do dabble in some less expensive sideline collections occasionally, but this one is the "core".

 

Exactly! A smaller collection means your working capital is less diluted and even a low-budget guy like me can (with some work) pursue nicer quality coins.

Really the one criterion above all is that it's something I like and find attractive. I like coins that score high on both the historical and eye appeal fronts. I couldn't quite bring myself to add something rare but ugly.

Now, that being said, I did see fit to add a modern piece or two to the set, and that's how that Canadian gold piece ended up in there. I thought it was gorgeous, and the fact that it also had a half-ounce of gold bullion was a plus. It gave me something in my set that was attractive but expendable- and expend it I just did, to buy my new camera setup. So it's gone now- I just haven't got the images and writeups for the new additions ready yet.

Because I have in the past collected US coins, British coins, and Roman Imperial coins, all of those categories are represented by multiple examples in the present set. It's just the sort of stuff I gravitate to. The set does tend to be a bit Western-oriented, though I had a cute little Japanese piece for a while.

 

I don't necessarily disagree, if you mean "look at" as in "shop for" (after all, everyone should collect within his or her means)... but I'm wondering what that was in reference to?

 

Indeed!

 

Welcome to my first B20 update over here on the CoinTalk side.

I sold the 1913-E Saxony 3-mark and the 1978 Canadian $100, as previously mentioned.

Added a 1898 Guatemala quarter-real and a 1916-A German half-mark, which you'll see below.

I used the funds from the sold coins to buy a nice camera and accessories. Though the new coins were much less expensive than the coins they replaced, I don't think I sacrificed much in eye appeal in the process.

On Collectors Universe, I was accustomed to editing the OP of the thread and posting the new purchases at the bottom, but it was suggested by GDJMSP and one other member that over here I should just post the entire newly-reconstituted collection in a new reply each time I update.

I have decided not to try reposting all the subthreads over here. That's just too much work. So they'll still all lead over to Collectors Universe.

Here is the set as of September 17, 2016.


Ancient Greece (Thessaly), silver "Rhodian Mercenaries" drachm struck by King Perseus of Macedon, ca. 175-170 BC




Ancient Roman Republic: silver denarius of moneyer L. Furius Brocchus, ca. 63 BC




Ancient Roman Empire: silver "Capricorn" denarius of Vespasian, struck by Titus ca. 80-81 AD




Ancient Roman Empire: orichalcum sestertius of Hadrian, struck ca. 134-138 AD, ex-Boston Museum of Fine Arts




Ancient Roman Empire: silver denarius of Septimius Severus, ca. 193-211 AD




Ancient Byzantine Empire: gold tremissis of Justinian I, ca. 527-565 AD




England (Anglo-Saxon): silver penny of Aethelred II, struck ca. 997-1003 AD




Medieval Croatia (Ragusa): silver grosso portraying St. Blasius and Christ, ca. 1372-1438




Netherlands (Gelderland): "St. John" type gold gulden (florin) of Arnold van Egmond, ca. 1423-1472




German States (Teutonic Order): silver 1/4 thaler of Grand Master Maximilian of Austria, undated (ca. 1615)




Great Britain: silver "South Sea Company" shilling of George I, 1723




France: silver jeton of Louis XV, "Aurora in cloud chariot", undated (ca. 1740)




Great Britain: gilt proof halfpenny of George III, Soho Mint, 1806




United States: gold 5-dollar half-eagle, Liberty Head type, 1842-D (small date)




United States: bronze Civil War token, "Our Little Monitor" type, 1863




United States: proof copper-nickel 3-cent piece, Liberty head type, 1888




Guatemala, silver quarter-real, 1898




Great Britain: gold half-sovereign of Queen Victoria, 1901, from the Terner Collection




Germany (Imperial): silver half-mark, 1916-A




USA: silver commemorative half dollar, Pilgrim Tercentenary, 1920




That Pilgrim half is probably about to leave next. I will miss it if it does, but a friend is hot to trot on it, so some swap ideas are percolating...

 

I totally agree. That's what sold me on that Teutonic Order piece. The dude with the big two-handed sword standing next to a lion on the obverse was cool enough, but that armored knight on an armored horse charging across the field surrounded with heraldic shields... well, I just had to have that piece.

It's off at PCGS right now. There are bigger (full-thaler) versions of that design, but they're pricey. That 1615 quarter-thaler only cost me the equivalent of $238 US, from a seller in Austria.

I'm all about gettin' as much "bang for the buck" as possible!

 

I saw one of these in a museum once, and even though there were MILLIONS of dollars of coins and currency there, including some very rare early US stuff, that 1486 guldiner was my favorite thing there.

I will never be able to afford one.

So that 1615 Teutonic Order piece is a great compromise. I think the knight on it is just as cool. He's just a bit more "modern" by about 130 years.

 

It is rather simplistic, though appealing enough to me. Remember this is a temporary "filler" (like the German half-mark), to plug the two gaping holes created by the sale of that Saxony proof and the Canadian gold. A deliberate but temporary downgrade for the reason previously mentioned.

Simplistic design or not (and it had to be, on such a tiny coin) I liked the Guatemalan coin for its luster and toning, its high position in the pops, and the fact that with all that (and what I consider killer eye appeal), it cost less than 75 bucks.

Granted, I "bought the plastic" here. One could find a raw BU for a tenth the price, as one dealer pointed out on the CU subthread.