Gold tops Scotsman sale
Hot Chinese lots helped power Scotsman Auction Co. to achieve prices realized of $2,939,175 July 29 at its Midwest Summer Sale held in St. Charles, Mo. Cataloger John Bush said a 1995 Chinese Year of the Pig 12-ounce gold 1,000-yuan coin graded Proof-68 Ultra Cameo by Numismatic Guaranty Corp. was bid to $120,750. This price and all others include a 15 percent buyer’s fee.
Hot Chinese lots helped power Scotsman Auction Co. to achieve prices realized of $2,939,175 July 29 at its Midwest Summer Sale held in St. Charles, Mo.
Cataloger John Bush said a 1995 Chinese Year of the Pig 12-ounce gold 1,000-yuan coin graded Proof-68 Ultra Cameo by Numismatic Guaranty Corp. was bid to $120,750.
This price and all others include a 15 percent buyer’s fee.
Another Chinese lot brought $115,000. It was a Year of the Dog gold coin of the same denomination and weight also graded Proof-68 Ultra Cameo.
In all, 65 Chinese coins in the 1,291-lot auction fetched $805,087.40, Bush said.
American coins also attracted bidder attention.
“I was very pleased,” Bush said about the sale results. “I thought a lot of the early type did very well. At the peak of the auction, we probably had 200 people in the room.”
Gold also did well in the U.S. section of the auction.
Contributing significantly to the prices realized was a $40,825 bid for an 1801 Capped Bust $10 gold piece. The coin was graded MS-62 by the Professional Coin Grading Service.
That bid sailed over the pre-auction estimate of $33,000-$38,000.
Attracting a bid of $39,387.50 was an NGC XF-40 Wass, Molitor and Co. $50 gold piece.
The catalog description said, “A coin of the size and heft of a $50 slug is assured of receiving and delivering substantial contact during use and the obverse displays a few scattered, prominent contact marks. None is individually distracting, and for that matter, they are pleasantly distributed throughout the field space, rather than concentrating a distracting effect into one area. The reverse shows rather prominent impressions of reed marks from other coins, and judging by their width, it seems likely that they were other $50s!”
Bringing $19,262.50 was a gilt copper die trial of a $10 Clark, Gruber & Co. Territorial gold piece dated 1860.
The piece was graded Proof-62 by NGC.
This piece also attracted a bid higher than the top end of its pre-sale estimate of $15,000-$17,000.
“Here’s a surprise,” Bush exclaimed as he was reading down the list of prices realized.
He said a 1952-S Washington-Carver half dollar graded MS-67 and in a first-generation holder of the Professional Coin Grading Service was bid to $7,187.50, many multiples of uncirculated prices in slightly lower grades.
A 1796 half cent with pole graded by PCGS as genuine realized $13,800.
An 1834 half cent graded NGC Proof-64 Brown fetched $9,487.50.
Another featured lot was a Myddelton token struck by the Britain’s Soho Mint in 1796 in silver.
According to the catalog, “Myddelton wrote to (Matthew) Boulton in January 1796 outlining his plans for a token, and describing a rather less than usually imperial Britannia: with her head lowered, her spear reversed.”
It sold for $14,662.50 on an estimate of $10,000-$12,000.
Scotsman’s next auction is slated for Oct. 21 at the Silver Dollar and Rare Con Expo. Visit www.scoins.com for more information.
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