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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Curtis, post: 24840776, member: 26430&quot;]<i><b>Edit:</b> oh, <a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5252331" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5252331" rel="nofollow">that Probus was also ex Gysen</a>! Great object biography!!</i></p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;ve committed your White Whale of a Probus to memory &amp; will let you know if I recognize it anywhere! Do you intend to buy it? (Otherwise I certainly will -- but won&#039;t try to buy it out from under you.)</p><p><br /></p><p>I notice the surfaces are a bit similar to those of my Diocletian, which is reportedly from the Adams/MA Hist. Soc. collection (3 lots later, 939, part of):</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1591246[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>That&#039;s awesome! I&#039;ve thought about trying to visit the Mass. Hist. Soc. to see those catalogs -- I&#039;ve never heard from anyone who has done so.</p><p><br /></p><p>Do you recall if the coins were individually described and/or if it was noted where they were acquired? I&#039;ve read that the M.H.S. still has Charles Francis Adams&#039; old Sotheby&#039;s catalogs (including one that I <i>really</i> want to see!).</p><p><br /></p><p>I have biographical entries on my <a href="https://conservatoricoins.com/provenance-coins/#Private-Collections" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://conservatoricoins.com/provenance-coins/#Private-Collections" rel="nofollow">&quot;Provenance Glossary&quot; page</a> for JQA, CFA, and Henry Adams (still in progress, but my Adams entries are complete).</p><p><br /></p><p>As far as I can tell, the ancient portions of the surviving collection was probably all added by CFA (JQA collected ancients, so did John Adams, but not Henry, and there&#039;s a letter saying that the box of JQA&#039;s ancients was lost outright!). JQA&#039;s <i>world</i> coins were inherited smoothly. (I suspect some even date back to 2nd Pres. John Adams. CFA inherited 265 coins, per my notes, but died with &gt;10,000!)</p><p><br /></p><p>CFA famously (it&#039;s recorded in several books!) bought lots of ancients at Sotheby&#039;s while serving in London in the 1860s (during and after the American Civil War). Apparently it upset the dealers since back then collectors usually didn&#039;t buy directly from auction -- they were dealer-only wholesale affairs. But CFA didn&#039;t care, he went anyway. (But employing an agent sometimes, I understand.)</p><p><br /></p><p>I think I know where he got one of mine (through his agent, Joseph Curt), a Republican Quinarius. (Later RBW Collection / RBW 1325.) Likely from Sotheby&#039;s sale of the collection of <a href="https://archive.org/details/catalogueofcolle00sot_sk6/page/39/mode/1up?q=526" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://archive.org/details/catalogueofcolle00sot_sk6/page/39/mode/1up?q=526" rel="nofollow">John Lindsay, Esq., of Cork … [14 August 1867], Lot 526 (part)</a>.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1591251[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>It wasn&#039;t photographed in the 1860s Sotheby catalog, of course, but the Royal Belgian Library has a &quot;named&quot; copy, so I plan to write and see if I can get a photocopy of the page to see if Joseph Curt was the buyer. If I&#039;m right, that&#039;ll be my most satisfying bit of provenance research yet, so fingers crossed.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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