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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;bartolus07, post: 3104565, member: 95822&quot;]I think it can be useful quoting Alan Walker&#039;s remembrance (&quot;Rivista svizzera di numismatica&quot;, 88, 2009, p. 16) about the wonderful catalogue of Nicolas&#039; coins compiled by Silvia Hurter in 1977, because he has told some details not universally known:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Another great triumph of Silvia’s was her superb catalogue of the collection of Roman Republican coins owned by the French collector E.P. Nicolas. This was the first time that such an extensive collection was catalogued based on the then new standard work of Crawford, and she was immensely proud of it. Nicolas, however, was not. A day or two before the sale he arrived in a fury because the catalogue was not done according to Babelon, which was for him an unforgivable lapse. Not only that, but she had carefully removed all the forgeries in advance and he did not agree, and he was enraged at the estimates and insisted on putting stiff reserves on a large number of the coins the day before the sale! Silvia was extremely upset and even wanted to cancel the auction, but Leo calmed her down and the sale became one of the most famous and successful Republican sales ever held most of the reserves turned out to be unnecessary). She did, however, have her revenge. When the unsold coins later appeared at auction in Paris after Nicolas’s death, they went for far less than they would have sold for had they not been reserved at Leu and the fakes appeared there as well). The Leu sale also was the occasion of a very amusing story that illustrates just how close-mouthed Silvia could be. Several months before the catalogue came out Charles Hersh, the distinguished Republican collector, came for a visit – he was a great friend of both Silvia and Leo. He sat down and Leo and Silvia began showing him the collection; almost immediately Charles exclaimed, “But these are the Nicolas coins!” And Silvia replied, “No they aren’t.” This went on for about ten minutes, with Charles saying they were, and that he remembered them from viewing them in Paris, and Silvia saying they weren’t, until Leo finally said, “He knows. He has seen them in Paris – he knows they are the Nicolas coins! We can admit it.”</p><p><br /></p><p>About the famous &quot;Nicolas tone&quot;, it is exactly the reason of my interest: I wondered if he bought a consistent group of coins coming from the same dealer/source or if he kept his coins in particular environmental conditions[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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