As a follow-up to #2 Records have been broken in the Coin Collectors Blog Top 10 countdown, the Professional Numismatists Guild published a “State of the Industry” report that included the list of 12 U.S. coins that sold for over $1 million. One was a private sale while the others were sold at auction.
The eleven most valuable U.S. coins purchased by winning bidders at auctions in 2013 were as follows:
- 1794 Flowing Hair silver dollar, $10,016,875 (Stack’s Bowers Galleries)
- 1804 Type I silver dollar, $3,877,500 (Heritage Auctions)
- 1913 Liberty Head nickel, $3,172,500 (Heritage Auctions)
- 1880 Coiled Hair gold $4 denomination Stella, $2,574,000 (Bonhams)
- 1796 silver quarter-dollar, $1,527,500 (Heritage Auctions)
- 1792 silver half disme (early spelling of dime) $1,410,000 (Heritage Auctions)
- 1796 silver dollar, $1,175,000 (Heritage Auctions)
- 1783 Nova Constellatio Quint Type II, $1,175,000 (Heritage Auctions)
- 1852 Augustus Humbert $10 gold coin, $1,057,500 (Heritage Auctions)
- 1792 half disme, $1,145,625 (Stack’s Bowers Galleries)
- 1879 Coiled Hair gold $4 Stella, $1,041,300 (Bonhams)
The 12th U.S. rare coin that sold for more than a $1 million in 2013 was an 1894 San Francisco Mint dime that sold for over $2 million in a private sale conducted by David Lawrence Rare Coins.
A PNG survey of auction houses showed that they sold a total of $392.8 million in U.S. rare coins in public auctions in 2013. Based on the PNG survey, the sales scoreboard is as follows:
- Heritage Auctions, $236.5 million
- Spectrum Group International (Stack’s Bowers Galleries and Teletrade), $105 million
- Goldberg Coins & Collectibles, $21.1 million
- Bonhams, $13.5 million
- Legend-Morphy Rare Coins, $7.2 million
- David Lawrence Rare Coins, $5.5 million
- Scotsman, $2.8 million
- Krueger & Krueger, $1.2 million
All prices include the buyer’s premium, if any.
This survey did not include paper money or world coins. It would be interesting to see the impact of the currency and world coin market alongside the U.S. coin market.