September 2, 2024: Great Moments in CRO
#1. The Denarium
We thought we start a new series of articles on the site in which we describe in detail a great moment in the history of our business.
With this story taking place waaaaaay back in February of 2008 at the Long Beach Show.
Your author was walking through the lobby of the Hyatt hotel on Wednesday before the show headed for lot viewing when long time dealer friend Julian Leidman says “Hey, I have a coin you might be interested in – it is a Maryland Denarium”.
Now, at that time, there were 7 or 8 of these known, including four impounded in institutional collections. One of the 3 or 4 in private hands was the high AU coin which had sold in the Ford Auction in 2004 for $210,000(!), and the rest were all ground finds that were, to be kind, corroded and ugly. But even a barely recognizable ground find had sold for over $40,000 at auction in 2007(!!).
So I assumed Julian had one of those (or possibly that exact coin that had sold in 2007), and the prospect of actually buying and inventorying something like that was not very interesting to me. Still, not wanting to be impolite, I told Julian I’d come by and take a look at it during the show.
And then I got busy and forgot all about it.
Until Saturday morning when Julian came to my table and said “Hey are you going to look at this or not?” as he handed me a raw coin in a plastic flip that very nearly caused me to either faint, or drop dead right then and there. It was indeed a Maryland Denarium, but not a ground find at all. It was a new discovery – a nice chocolate brown coin that looked like a high VF to me and was thus the second finest known example, exceeding the 3rd finest by a country mile, and just the second gradable specimen of this type. And of course a coin that was indeed of very high interest to me.
And then what happened next was even more shocking: Julian told me to take it home and study it.
So I did. And after a few days I concluded that it was 100% real and of course something I had to have. So I called Julian and asked how much, and he managed to shock me for a third time by saying “Oh, it’s not for sale”.
Rather than ask him why he wanted me to take home a coin that wasn’t for sale, I went ahead and made him an offer anyway, and a few days later he called back to say that we had a deal.
Which at that time was certainly the coolest thing I’d ever purchased, and when I revealed it a few weeks later, a complete shock to a whole bunch of advanced colonial collectors (including the one I sold it to), none of whom knew it existed.
So, from that moment on, whenever I walk through a hotel lobby and someone says they have a coin I might want, I drop everything and immediately go look at.
