Old Auction Catalogue Madness!

[Steve Moulding]

Very nice finds Curtis! Excellent work.

...Many people are chasing after pre-1970 provenances.  There aren’t many illustrated FPLs from this period.  There seems to be little interest in FPLs from later — and perhaps that will give us a chance to obtain FPLs cheaply for now....

I've also been quietly accumulating older plated FPLs and have a few boxes of them now. I do need to get them organized, if only I can find the time to go through them and get at least their basic information into the rnumis databases.

My latest buy was around 150 of the Monnaies & Medailles SA Listes...some nice coins there and provenances are sometimes noted, which is helpful. I also like that there's a theme in each one...they're not just lists of 'everything'.  Currently I'm scanning those.

There are some amazing Fixed Price Lists pre-1970 but there are also many which are just so-so, like auction catalogs I suppose.  FPLs without plates I skip, and I also see that even the plated ones often don't bother with coin weights (though M&M and Leu do, from what I've seen so far).

Steve

[helvetica]

Not terribly old catalogs, just going back to ca 2001 - all the gorgeous Künker catalogs can be found on their archive site:
Künker auction archive
https://www.kuenker.de/de/auktionen/katalogarchiv
Click on "Katalog im Internet" to the right of the catalog you want, then the pdf link.
There are a number of lovely collections including the Rainer Pudill collection and the Samael collection of ancient Jewish coins (the main sale then an addition sale a bit later)

[Curtis JJ]

Did anyone buy catalogs from the recent Lanz Library sales? I’ll limit myself to just a few here…

A major theme in my library/collection is “object biography” (provenance), so I went for stuff that was interesting specifically for being ex-libris Lanz.

(Note: Everything but Lanz 88 & Kunstfreund is available online in some form [Lanz 94 & 100 via ACSearch only]; links included in bibliographic info on my Catalog Collection pages [LINK].)

1. Custom Hardbound Leo Benz (Lanz 88, 94, 100).
(More notes & bibliography on my "Catalog Collection Favorites" page: [LINK].)

Leo Benz (1906-1996) was the most important collection of Roman sold in the era of Hubert Lanz – that is, after the deaths of Hubert’s brother Ernst (1945-1989) and their father, Hermann Lanz (1910-1998), who founded the firm in 1947 (and co-founded the IAPN in 1951).

Three catalogs: Lanz 88 (Republican), Lanz 94 (RIC 1) [646 lots, ACSearch], Lanz 100 (RIC 2) [682 lots, ACSearch]. I have one coin (Lanz 88, 407), a “biga of cupids” denarius from “Cousin Julius” Caesar (Craw. 320/1).

I’d never heard of HARDCOVER Leo Benz catalogs before. Anyone else? There was one other set [Lot 3435 LINK] (but partial, only 2 of 3 hardbound, "special edition in full cloth using the covers and spine of the paperback editions" [EDIT, 5Mar23: Apparently LAC now has the partial, listed for sale, no mention of provenance.]).

 


2. Hand-Named Kunstfreund Sale ([Gillet], Bank Leu w/ M&M, 28 May 1974).
(More of my notes/biblio: [LINK].)

Most buyers’ names hand-written on the pre-sale “estimated prices” list. I “hand-redacted” my photo since many buyers are still living, so you’ll have to take my word for it. (If I’m wrong & they’ve already been published, this is much less interesting!)

I wonder if Hermann Lanz or one of his sons, Ernst or Hubert, made the annotations? (Need to compare handwriting…)

I may never have a Kunstfreund coin myself, but if anyone else has one, maybe I can say who the next owner was.

Kolbe & Fanning (Sale 165, Lot 10) [Lot 10 LINK] just sold another (much nicer!) copy that was also partially hand-named. If the winner sees this: Maybe we have one complete list between us! Call me!

The only complete copy I’m aware of is the one sold at the second sale of BCD Library Duplicates [LINK]. (The lot had a very dramatic description!) BCD emphasized the need for secrecy…




3. "Sammlung Kommerzienrat H. Otto, Stuttgart," Hess 207 (Frankfurt, 1 Dec 1932), with Hermann Lanz’s library stamp & number.
(My "Slg. Otto" notes [LINK] and Stack's 1979 "Sawhill/JMU" annotations [LINK].)

I have one coin illustrated in Slg. Otto, a Messenia AR Hemidrachm/Triobol from Antony & Cleopatra's Greece shortly before Actium. The coin was later in BCD Peloponnesos, Part II [Lot 2327 LINK], but the provenance was lost before BCD bought it. Naturally, I was especially excited to recover that one. (BCD bought the coin from Stack’s in 1979, from the Sawhill/James Madison Univ. Coll. Incidentally, my copy of the Sawhill/J.M.U. sale [LINK] is ex-BCD Library!)
 
Lanz never handled the coin in question, but they did BCD Corinth & BCD Euboia. I love all the network of connections across the “object biographies” related to that coin!
 


4. Munzhandlung Basel 6 (Steger & Waldeck), also w/ Hermann Lanz’s “Bibliotheksstempel.”
(My annotations, biblio, coin photo, etc. [LINK])

My favorite thing about the Steger-Waldeck catalog is the lovely French annotations on the plates. They seem familiar, anyone else seen these before?
(Triptych, larger annotated plates [LINK].)
 

In addition to Hermann Lanz’s stamp, it has the signature of a previous owner. (Not necessarily the annotator.) Does anyone recognize the name?

[Curtis JJ]

I am pretty excited to add this to my Alexandrian sale catalogs subcollection (the 3 attachments are greatly reduced, for higher resolution plates or a ref. check, contact me or see [imgur LINK]:

Ch. Dupriez (Brussels). Catalogue N. 97 (n.d., 1909). MONNAIES IMPÉRIALES GRECQUES EN POTIN FRAPPÉES À ÁLÉXANDRIE D’ÉGYPTE.
53 (3) pp., 1027 lots, 2 plates (black & white, 50 one-sided coins).
Later hardcover, green full imitation leather, gilt spine.
[Fitzwilliam, A-D [LINK]; Spring –; BCD 2018, 2592 [LINK].]

“A note from BCD: … Especially interesting is catalogue 97 with its descriptions of no less than 1027 tetradrachms of Roman Egypt, a selection of them illustrated on two plates.”
(Jacquier 44 [13 Sep 2018], 2592, part of [LINK])

“Perhaps the largest listing of its kind in this specialized area, with two fine plates depicting examples of this debased third-century coinage. Very scarce.”
(Kolbe-Fanning 155 [1 Feb 2020], 34 [LINK])

I haven't been mentioning my new catalogs on the discussion boards unless they're scarce or there's something special about them.

I've seen a few other copies for sale, but this one seems to be in better condition. Usually they're torn & chipped. Luckily the plates stood up very well. My copy was in 3 prior Bertolami Fine Arts e-Auctions [ACSearch LINK], incl. EA 71 (in 2019), "Una collezione di cataloghi e listini" (I wish I knew whose!).

BnF's online catalog (Gallica) has other digitized Dupriez sales, but no entry for this one at all. It should be public domain now, so I'm attaching an image of the plates.

The catalog itself doesn't give weights, but briefly describes each rev. type and the regnal year. (I've never seen a coin provenanced to this sale, but no doubt some are floating about.) There's a nice 2-page intro.