Regarding anonymous collections, the Financial Times did some digging.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/beed860e-2cb4-11e1-8cca-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1igeQVHJw
Cabinet W is Dr Peter Weiss USA
This may have been in the catalog, but the catalog has been pulled off the CNG website, so I can't check.
I am guessing it is the same Peter Weiss noted here
http://numismatics.org/About/2011Nominations
4to2CentBCphilia
Would you mind posting the text of the FT article. It is behind a pay-firewall for me (and presumably for others too) and I can't view the article.
Andrew
Here you go. BTW I got to it thru
Google http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/beed860e-2cb4-11e1-8cca-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1igmEkvvuGreek coin lot set to fetch millions
By Susan
MooreWhile investors across the globe are preoccupied by the
fate of
Greece’s currency, a British
collection of just a few hundred
Greek coins is predicted to fetch millions of dollars when auctioned next month in
New York.
Described by Paul
Hill of Baldwin’s, the
London coin dealer, as “the most important
collection of ancient
Greek coins to appear on the market in almost a quarter of a century”, the 642-piece
Prospero Collection will go under the hammer on January 4.
Arguably the rarest and most spectacular coin in the
collection is the facing
head gold
stater of
Pantikapaion, a colony on the Black Sea. An example has not been seen at
auction in living memory, and the coin bears a conservative estimate of $650,000.
Struck in the 4th century BC, the coin depicts a satyr or wild
man of the
woods, wide-eyed and dishevelled; on the
reverse is a
griffin standing on an ear of grain – a symbol of the city’s wealth.
The
collection is one of several due to be auctioned at the
New York International Numismatic Convention between December 31 and January 9. Kevin Foley, the convention’s chairman, said there was “a realistic chance” that its nine participating
auction houses staging 16 sessions of sales would realise $100m.
The week’s
star lot is a masterpiece of late 5th century Greek art, the so-called “
dekadrachm of
Akragas”. Produced in
Sicily, the coin appears to celebrate the
victory of Exainetos, a citizen of
Akragas, who won the
chariot race of Olympia in 412BC.
Only 12 such coins are known and this example has a starting bid of $2.5m.
“There have never been so many top
quality ancient coins on the market,” said Tom Eden, of
London auctioneers Eden &
Morton. “It is a sign that the market is very strong.”
The
dekadrachm of
Akragas is from the “Selections from Cabinet W”, a group of 18
Greek coins belonging to Dr
Peter Weiss, a US collector. It will also be sold on January 4.
While Baldwin’s declined to reveal the identity of the
Prospero Collection’s owner, it is known in numismatic circles to have been begun by Colonel Richard Seifert, the late architect of
London’s controversial Centre Point skyscraper and Tower 42.
After inheriting the
collection Col Seifert’s son, John, sold its English coins and focused on those of ancient
Greece and its colonies, a coinage unsurpassed in the beauty and artistry of its manufacture.
