On behalf of Stack’s Bowers Galleries and Sotheby’s, I welcome you to Part III of our auction program of the D. Brent Pogue Collection of early United States coins. Parts I and II, held at Sotheby’s international headquarters in New York City in May and September, are now history. These dynamic sales, cataloged by John Kraljevich and the team at Stack’s Bowers Galleries and held in partnership with Sotheby’s, exceeded all expectations and will forever stand among of the greatest auctions in American numismatics.
Part III will be held on Tuesday, February 9 with our special Rarities Auction the next day. Once again you will be a witness to the most valuable collection of United States coins ever sold, formed over the decades from the 1970s to the present. The collection, composed of over 600 copper, silver, and gold coins, is being presented in a series of auction sales at Sotheby’s headquarters in New York City, with sales IV and V yet to come. Each is sure to be a world-class event and each catalog will be a collectible in its own right. You are invited to participate as a bidder and buyer, or as an observer. Either way you will have a rendezvous with numismatic history.
Brent Pogue began the careful study of early American coins as a teenager. Soon after, he and his father, Mack, were familiar faces in auction galleries whenever the most significant or finest known examples were crossing the block. Always perceptive, Brent had many discussions with me and with others as he sought advice.
He placed emphasis on the early, formative years of the Mint, beginning with 1792 and continuing into the late 1830s. This was the era of hand craftsmanship of dies, of striking the coins on presses powered by two men tugging on a lever arm, and of ever-changing political and economic challenges. This was before the age of steam-powered presses and the mechanical repetition of dies. Each coin has its own characteristics; no two are alike. To these, some selected later series of interest were added to the collection – such as the marvelous set of $3 gold coins that is featured in the present Part III sale.
In the early federal era, relatively few people in America collected coins. By fortunate happenstance, in the 1780s and 1790s there were many numismatists in Great Britain who collected coins, including a few who sought “foreign” pieces from America. One of these was William Strickland, who came to the United States in 1794 and 1795 and returned to England with what would be recognized later as some of the finest coins of their era. We told this story in Part II. Certain other Pogue Collection coins in our series of sales trace their provenances to other European sources of years ago.
It was not until June 1838 that the Mint Cabinet was established (forming the basis of what is now the National Numismatic Collection in the Smithsonian Institution). After that time interest in coins grew in America, but it was not until the 1850s that it was truly widespread. Accordingly, the survival of high-grade coins from the 1790s into the early 19th century was a matter of chance. Many of the Pogue Collection coins are condition rarities – available in lower grades, but exceedingly rare at the Choice and Gem Mint State levels.
The Pogue Collection is built on a foundation provided by those who have gone before – great collectors from the mid-19th century to the modern era who formed high-quality cabinets. Nearly all of the Pogue coins have provenances tracing their ancestry to earlier numismatists. Examples:
The Garrett Collection was formed by T. Harrison Garrett and his sons from the 1860s to the 1930s and in 1942 was passed to The Johns Hopkins University. This remarkable cabinet was consigned to us and sold from 1979 to 1981 when we worked with Hopkins curator Susan Tripp and her husband David (who is participating in the present sale on behalf of Sotheby’s). Brent and Mack were on hand to study, preview, and participate in that landmark auction.
When the Louis E. Eliasberg Collection – the only cabinet to have one of each and every date and mintmark of United States coin from the 1793 half cent to the 1933 double eagle – was auctioned by us in a series of three sales from 1982 to 1997, Brent and Mack previewed and carefully studied the coins and were among the most active and successful bidders. From the Eliasberg sales they acquired the only 1822 $5 gold half eagle in private hands as well as other impressive coins. As the only auction sales of an 1822 half eagle in the 20th century were in 1906 and 1982 – the Pogue coin – generations of numismatists were born and died without having had the opportunity to own one!
Harry W. Bass, Jr., a fine friend and numismatic connoisseur par excellence, specialized in gold coins and formed one of the finest collections ever, beginning in 1966 and continuing to his passing. Mack and Brent Pogue were front row center among the buyers in our several sales of his remarkable cabinet. Over a long period of years Stack’s in New York City conducted many “name” collections laden with treasures. Again, the Pogues were on hand to capture coins of exceptional quality and value. Connoisseurship was the guiding precept.
Year after year, sale after sale, the Pogues carefully bought the finest of the fine, the rarest of the rare. The result is the collection we now offer in a series of events that will forever echo in the halls of numismatics.
The present sale includes incredible half cents of the 1793 to 1797 years highlighted by an amazing 1796 Without Pole to Cap, large copper cents of 1793 beginning with the Chain AMERI., Capped Bust dimes from 1814 through 1837, Capped Bust lettered edge half dollars from 1823 to 1836, and half eagle rarities from 1807 to 1820, all of these from the first several decades of the Philadelphia Mint. In addition, the highest-quality collection of $3 gold coins from 1854 to 1889 is a special feature of Part III and will be forever remembered.
Coin for coin, no other collection ever formed – not even the Eliasberg Collection or the National Numismatic Collection in the Smithsonian Institution – can compare or even come close to the quality of the D. Brent Pogue Collection coins in these series. The term once in a lifetime opportunity has never been more appropriate than now.
Welcome to our third sale. As a bidder, buyer, or observer you will be part of numismatic history as it is made.
Q. David Bowers
Co-founder, Stack’s Bowers Galleries
Click here for the auction details.
