This was the capstone of a strong auction where two additional coins crossed the $2 million barrier, one of the sale’s five coins that exceeded $1 million.
The magnificent 1804 Capped Bust, Plain 4 gold eagle rarity is listed as BD-2 from the Bass-Dannreuther golden mention and Judd 33 in the pattern benchmark, and it’s the best of three known. The problem shares a good deal in common with the better-known Course I 1804 Draped Bust silver dollars because they were struck circa 1834 for addition in diplomatic demonstration Proof sets.
This eagle was a part of the Sultan of Muscat set introduced to Sayyid Sa’id-bin-Sultan. The offering at Dallas marked just its third auction look.
Its purchase made it the third most expensive U.S. coin on the market, according to the listing of the best 250 coins in the auction at the latest”Red Book,” following the famous 1933 Saint-Gaudens gold 20 double eagle that sold for $7,590,020 in a Stack’s and Sotheby’s auction in 2002.
First-runner up (in cost realized) at the auction belonged to some famed Judd 1 1792 Silver Center cent pattern rated Specimen 67 brown by Professional Coin Grading Service using a green CAC sticker that attained $2,520,000. It is the finest of a dozen known to collectors now from an unknown mintage. The silver plug at the center of the copper planchet allowed the Mint to strike a coin with a cent’s worth of metal at a much smaller and more manageable size than typical large pennies. The cost of copper dropped in 1793, making the invention of strange routines unnecessary, and they signify the creativity of the early Philadelphia Mint.
It was reportedly purchased by Simpson for about $ 5 million in 2012, based on Heritage.
The auction firm finds,”The light reddish-brown surfaces are improved by highlights of electric-blue, lilac, and rose patina, with a couple of traces of original red in sheltered areas.”
1885 Trade dollar
An 1885 Trade dollar rated PCGS Proof 63+ Cameo is the only example of the just five struck to have a green CAC sticker. It is characterized by its superb eye appeal, in which, according to the auction description,”Traditional lavender and lilac toning surrounds the peripheries, ceding to sunset-gold that warms the insides,” with some striking softness as noticed on the situation.
It is currently ranked as the third-finest example from the state census. More lately, the second-finest instance, graded Proof 64 by PCGS sold for $1,320,000 in Stack’s Bowers Galleries’ March 2020 auction of selections from the E. Horatio Morgan Collection, which makes the $2,100,000 the Simpson example brought seem to be a very powerful price by comparison.
The only famous 1943-D Lincoln cent struck on a bronze planchet rather than the zinc-plated steel planchets used for 1943 cents sold for $840,000. Graded Mint State 64 brown by PCGS, Heritage’s lot entry records which it had been bought by Simpson from Legend Numismatics in September 2010 for about $ 1.7 million.
Legend said at the time around the trade,”The 1943-D bronze cent is the most precious cent in the world and it took four years of aggressive discussions with the coin’s owner until he consented to sell it”
The prized cent’s earliest history is somewhat murky. It was discovered in 1979 as it was filed to ANACS for certification along with an oft-repeated story is that it was purposefully struck by John R. Sinnock — the Mint chief engraver renowned for his design of the Roosevelt dime — and was detected at the estate of a woman Sinnock was relationship in the 1940s.
John Wexler’s and Kevin Flynn’s Authoritative Reference on Lincoln Cents provides a more probable source. They write”The 1943-D Bronze penny was possessed by a former Denver Mint worker who is believed to have struck it. This coin has the strongest strike of any 1943 bronze cent. Speculation has it that the individual hand fed a bronze planchet into the coining press, then shattered it to bring up the layout, then retained it.”
Heritage place more stock in the Wexler-Flynn theory, while adding,”We see no signs that the coin has been struck twice and suspect the sharpness of the attack was a function of the relative softness of this bronze planchet compared to the harder zinc-coated steel planchets used for the remaining portion of the production run.”
1804 eagle in silver
Among other delicacies at the Simpson collection has been an 1804 Capped Bust, Plain 4 10 eagle pattern graded Proof 64 by PCGS that realized $288,000. The silver die trial is recorded as Judd 34, among just four examples understood. It’s first mentioned in the 1913 Adams-Woodin pattern reference publication and research continues to determine just when it was struck. It is the second-finest example understood, bested by a single on display at the Harry W. Bass Collection in the American Numismatic Association’s museum. Heritage concluded,”This coin unites the finest accessible technical quality, exceptional eye appeal, and extreme historic interest in one irresistible package.” The same could be said for many of the Simpson Collection offerings.
