Good Notes for Baltimore

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

The American collectors of coins cannot be unaware of Baltimore Coin and Currency Conventions, which are held several times per year.

During the next meeting, it will be as at accustomed the auction house of Bowers and Merena which will be in charge of the auction sale associated with this event. This sale, which will proceed from 4 to 7 June, will disperse 3000 lots, for which the biddings already started on the Web.

This sale will be an important one for American coins, but I did not see a lot likely to approach the highest prices obtained in this category, in particular by Bowers and Merena and by Heritage Auction Galleries.

I thus chose to announce you two currency items instead.

As lot 2537 there is one Legal Tender Note of 10$ of 1901, in very nice condition, estimated 75 K$. It is a full specimen, in very good condition although having circulated, of the very first emission of an United States note intended for legal payments. It is illustrated of a bison, in the center of the recto.

The other important note of this sale is lot 2630, a Silver Certificate Star Note of 5 $ of 1923, in superb state, estimated 30 K$. This specimen is characterized by its exceptional quality of printing. The image is with the effigy of Lincoln.

So, these are here two exceptional currency items which, although not having vocation to realize the highest prices of this sale especially devoted to the coins, allow us a first approach of this particular topic of collection which is the paper money.

[Pierre Tavlitzki]

The results of the two lots that I had identified are low: the note with the effigy of Lincoln has not been sold and the rare Legal tender note only reached 80.5 K$ fees included.

This bleak impression is indeed strengthened by the fact that the third lot that I mentioned in my blog is also unsold. It was a coin, which had been well described in the press release announcing the sale.

To go forward in this area that I do not know well, I revisited the site of Heritage Auction Galleries. I found there an exceptional auction result, $ 2.2 million fees included in December 2006, on a 1,000 dollars note from the type curiously nicknamed Grand Watermelon. The note was issued during the Civil War.