Oct 25, 2007 | auction, legal, medals
Newsday was alerted earlier this month that a Pulitzer Prize gold medal won by the newspaper appeared for sale on the eBay auction site. Although that medal turned out to be a replica, reporters found listing for three gold Pulitzer Prize Medals for auction at Heritage Auction Galleries.
Officials from Heritage Auctions listed the 1953, 1970, and 1974 medals that were awarded to Newsday which Heritage deemed as genuine gold award medals. These were the first three of 19 Pulitzer Prizes won by the newspaper. Heritage President Jim Halprin alleges that the medals were consigned from a Long Island coin dealer who claims to have purchased them from an estate sale. The coin dealer has hired an attorney and has not commented.
Newsday executives believed the original medals were stored in a safe in the newspaper’s Melville (Long Island) corporate offices while authorized replicas are on display at in their New York City offices. Executives opened the safe where they thought the medals were stored and found a locked box. When a key could not be located, Newsday hired a locksmith to drill the lock open. The box was empty.
Company officials contacted the FBI to report the theft. The FBI recovered two of the medals that were sold to someone in Florida who is cooperating with the investigation. The other medal will be returned from Heritage Galleries’ offices in Dallas, Texas. All three medals will undergo authentication by the Medallic Art Company, who created the medals for the Pulitzer Foundation.
Halprin defended the auctions claiming that it is Heritage’s policy to verify consignments, especially when they are from someone they have not done business with in the past. He noted that their procedures have been in place since 2001 after previous problems. Halprin did not comment further on this consignment except to say that Heritage will perform an internal investigation into this transaction.
Acquiring an original Pulitzer Gold Medal that was awarded to a newspaper still in existence should be suspicious. One would expect a firm like Heritage would scrutinize the attempt to consign such a prestigious award. Investigating the pedigree of this medal be easy. Since the name of the newspaper is engraved on the medal, the first first act would be to call Newsday to verify the medal’s pedigree. Heritage was probably so ecstatic to obtain such a prize that their eyes probably glazed over and rushed it to auction without doing their due diligence—at least this is how it appears!
Aug 16, 2007 | auction, gold, RCM
Have you ever wondered what a million dollars looks like? The picture to the right is Ian Russell, President of Teletrade, holding a one-ounce gold coin while leaning over the unique C$1 million coin. Yes, that large disk is a coin. In early May, the Royal Canadian Mint announced the production of a 100 kilogram (about 220 pounds, or 3,215 troy ounces) .99999 fine gold coin. With the price of gold as I type this currently at $666.60, its melt value is over $2.14 million!
Teletrade, a division of Spectrum Numismatics International, is using the coin to advertise a new service for investors to purchase precious metal bullion coins. Not only it is the first coin of its type, but it is the most expensive coin offered in an Internet-only format. Teletrade displayed the coin being auctioned at the American Numismatic Association World’s Fair of Money recently held in Milwaukee.
As I type this, the current bid is $1.65 million. If you cannot find that much money between the cushions of your couch, you can get special financing from Collateral Finance Corporation, also a division of Spectrum. Happy bidding!
Image courtesy of Teletrade
Jan 18, 2007 | auction, notaphily, scripophily
An area of numismatics that some find interesting is scripophily and notaphily. Scripophily is the collection of study of stock and bond certificates. Notaphilly is the collection of paper money or bank notes. Checks, while commonly classified as scripophilly is actually a part of notaphilly. Both areas spotlight the beauty of the engraving and the originality of the vignettes that adorn these paper items.
Just like other areas of numismatics, there is no “correct way” to collect scripophilly. Collectors look for items based on theme, age, historical significance, signatures, printer of the paper, paper quality, type of engraving, the beauty of the engraving, and so on. Themes can be developed for any collector to appreciate. For example, I own examples of the Monopoly railroad stock set. Other popular themes are automobile companies, high tech companies, popular food service companies, beverage companies, and more.
I was introduced to other areas of notaphilly when someone gave me US Military payment certificates (MPC) that would be used in the on-base post exchanges (PX). While historically interesting, I was intrigued by seeing a check signed by then New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt to pay a bill from an Albany-area merchant.
A common theme of these paper examples were the use of fine engraving to better secure the documents. The fine engraving attempted to discourage hand copying and be too fine for the evolving technology of photography from being able to image this paper. The idea was why create mundane designs when they can be made beautiful. This resulted in people wanting to collect these items for their beauty, history, and the function they represent.
The American Banknote Company is this country’s oldest security printing company. Tracing its history back over 200 years, ABN produced the country’s first postage stamp, US and world banknotes, and stock certificates for many companies. Some of the most beautiful and interesting security printing was created by ABN. ABN has maintained an archive of the items they have printed over the years. Now with the advent of new technologies, including digital printing services, ABN has been selling its archive in public auctions.
This week, H.R. Harmer, the auctioneer who sold Franklin D. Roosevelt’s stamp collection, announced they will be auctioning the final lots from the ABN archive. The auction will consist of over 1,400 lots of stock certificates and samples from world bank notes that will include examples from many well know companies.
The auction will be held January 31, February 1 and 2 in West Caldwell, New Jersey and as a live auction on eBay. You can view the items for auction on eBay or via H.R. Harmer’s catalog website. This should be fun!
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