( I wrote this post last year, I forgot to share with
Forum)
Normally I am just an armchair archaeologist, but this is a tale of a
bit of coin sleuthing. This is about a pair of coins that I acquired at
auction that came with their original tags. These coins were my first entry into making serious acquisitions into a more expensive level of collecting.
The two coins I acquired were
Byzantine Hyperpyron gold coins. The coins were acquired at a European
Auction and they were said to be from an old Swiss collector with original tickets.
I was happy with the coins sitting in my
collection with the original envelopes from the dealer J
Schulman. Something that made them special.
JACQUES
SCHULMAN NUMISMAAT
Keizersgracht 448
Amsterdam-C
Ticket numbers 2117 and 2104
I could have stopped there but in a moment of free time I looked up the original dealer on the internet. To my surprise I found this article.
http://www.numismaticmall.com/numismaticmall-com/schulman-jacquesIn the article I found not only tells the
history of the dealership, a fascinating story however it also says the original files were meticulous and were donated to the
ANS is
New York in 1987. So, I wrote to the
ANS..
The next day I received a nice reply from David
Hill, Francis D.
Campbell Librarian
American numismatic Society.
“I believe there has been some confusion in the past, based on an internet claim that the
ANS has these materials. When I looked into it years ago, I believe what I found was that HANS
Schulman’s card system went to the
ANA in Colorado.”
thanked him for
his reply, and I proceeded to contact the
ANA.
I then wrote to the
Library at the
ANA, their response was slower, I sped it up with a phone call, I spoke to a very nice gentleman there David Sklow, the
library director at Dwight N. Manley Numismatic
Library. He
had no knowledge of the
library having the notes of the Hans
Schulman but said he would research the
library and get back to me, he did and once again the response was negative.
So with both the
ANA and the
ANS libraries checked and neither having the files I was looking for I was left with one piece knowledge; They both knew of the prestigious firm.
So that told me perhaps the firm was
still in existence, the firms name was valuable enough to have been sold. I was right , after an internet
search I found the current firm doing business in Amsterdam under that name and on their web page they make mention of how valuable the notes were and alluded to the fact that they did indeed
still have them, a basic
catalog of sales that would
help my
search for
Provenance.
http://www.schulman.nl/about_us.phpI contacted them and a gentleman Tim Poelman very politely replied, requesting photos of the original tickets and they would look up what I was seeking.
I was in delay in getting photos of the tickets because the locked up with the coins and I was traveling, but I did manage to get them the photos they requested.
I did not have to wait long, the reply did give me one match, My Alexius coin. The other, the
John II coin was a miss.
“In
Auction 226 of 30 jan. 1956, no. 2117 we sold an Alexis I.
Solidus (Large
flan).
cf. BMC 7;
Ratto 2059. (Estimate: 150 Gulden;
price realized: 105 Gulden). Consignor: unknown, sold to: '
Basel'. (no known other
pedigree)”
The other ticket that contained the
John II coin was not a match.
“Unfortunately, I cannot find the
John II piece, however, in the same
auction as mentioned above we sold under nr. 2104 a
Solidus of
Arcadius (Sab. 11; To. 6;
Ratto -).”
So the Alexius coin I will keep with the ticket and I will very much appreciate how lucky I was to find its ownership from the mid 1950’s .
I am sure somewhere down the line someone put the
John II in the wrong envelope. I did ask if it could have been from an earlier time in the dealerships long
history, Mr. Poelman let me know that the pre war envelopes were made of a different paper and my envelopes were used until the 1980’s.
I
hope you enjoyed my sharing of the
search. Bellow is the coin with the winning ticket.
