I have been browsing the catalogues for the auctions at Long Beach, California in June. One of the biggest shows, with many hundreds of millions of dollars on display, we always has a good show.
One lot jumped out at me, and is an amazing story, one that was similar to a story I heard form a Dutch client. My client had told me years ago that he was originally from Poland, and one of the only assets his family had managed to keep was their coin collection.
Now it is important to think about the major upheavals of the past 100 years, specifically from Eastern Europe. During the war, his grandfather had hidden the coin collection by sealing it into the wall of their house using a covering of plaster.
When the Germans came, they managed to survive without selling any of the coins. Once the German invaders left and the new Russian invaders took their place, he felt it time to leave. Gathering together everything they could carry, they started their journey, which eventually brought them to Rotterdam. Having only the coins, the collection was sold and the money used to start their new life.
Now this brings me to the Heritage auctions catalogue, whereby a similar take has been repeated, in which $1,500 worth of gold will be auctioned in June. I predict that this item will easily reach $50,000, and could be substantially more. As heritage explain:
1921 $20 AU53 NGC. First, The Story
We wish we had a gold dollar for every time we have thought, "If only this coin could talk!" Well, this one -- a 1921 double eagle, graded AU53 by NGC -- practically does. It tells a fascinating story:
The consignor is a young man in Eastern Europe who wants a copy of the printed auction catalog for his grandmother. His great-grandmother's family obtained the coin originally from a relative who sent or brought it back from America in the 1920s. The family retained the coin over the years, even after the Communist government, decades later, made it a high crime to hold onto anything made of gold. The consignor's great-grandmother and grandmother courageously held on to the coin to benefit their family, possibly facing the risk of a long prison term.
When Communism fell in the country, the grandmother passed the double eagle on to her grandson, a young electrician. He learned English in school and is the first generation of his family to have internet access. The young man found an online coin forum where someone suggested that he contact Heritage Galleries to see if his coin is genuine and, if so, to sell it for him.
Lacking the money for a trip to one of Heritage's American offices, the young man contacted Heritage via the internet. Managing to catch a ride with a friend who was driving to the German Rhineland, he set up a visit with a Heritage representative at the office of a local coin dealer in Düsseldorf with whom Heritage is on friendly terms.
The young man still feared that the piece might be a fake, but the Heritage agent assured him that the coin was genuine and that he had seen more than a million U.S. gold coins in his career, including a dozen or so 1921 double eagles -- no fear of "bad news" down the line.
Given the grim economic situation in his home country, Heritage offered generous terms for the consignment. We encourage active bidding on this piece, as this memorable story attaches to it; in addition, the coin is an extremely attractive specimen in its own right. We have written many times about the tens of thousands of American double eagles "repatriated from Europe" over the decades, but this piece carries one of the most heartwarming tales of such a coin we have ever encountered.
