On January 8, 2011, numismatic booksellers Kolbe & Fanning will conduct a public auction sale at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City in conjunction with the New York International Numismatic Convention.

The sale features 500 lots of rare and desirable works of numismatic interest, including highlights from the superb Alan Luedeking Latin American numismatic Library, classic nineteenth- and early twentieth-century works on Russian coins and medals from the library of Dr. Ira Rezak, the Dr. Jeff Hosford collection of Crosbyana, key works on ancient coins, and great classic works on American numismatics, some from the library of the New Netherlands Coin Company. Additional consignors to the sale include Norwegian numismatist Jan Olav Aamlid, Minnesota dealer Allan Davisson and the estate of the late Northern California coin dealer Robert R. Johnson.

There are any number of rarities in the sale, covering the numismatic spectrum.

A printed catalogue may be obtained by sending $25 to: KOLBE & FANNING NUMISMATIC BOOKSELLERS LLC, 141 W JOHNSTOWN ROAD, GAHANNA OH 43230-2700. The catalogue is also accessible free of charge at Kolbe & Fanning website: www.numislit.com.

The sale features no fewer than seven original editions of Sylvester Crosby’s Early Coins of America, including two from the library of the author and five other quite special copies. Other American rarities include an original 1925 Browning work on quarter dollars annotated by Walter Breen; a nice 1921 John Story Jenks sale with original photographic plates; three Eckfeldt and Du Bois works featuring actual gold examples from the California Gold Rush; a superb deluxe leather-bound set of the virtually unknown 1881 edition of Loubat’s Medallic History of the United States; all three of James Mease’s extremely rare 1821-1838 works on United States numismatics, the earliest works on the topic written from a numismatic perspective; B. Max Mehl’s own set of Mehl’s Numismatic Monthly; George Woodside’s own annotated copy, with plates, of the 1892 sale catalogue of his collection of United States pattern coins; the unique and extensive numismatic archive of Chicagoan Michael A. Powills, a noted coin collector prominent in American Numismatic Association affairs and the leading numismatic book dealer of his time, containing many thousands of letters from the key movers and shakers in American numismatics, circa 1930-1980; papers relating to the Dr. John E. Wilkison collection of United States pattern gold coins; and a deluxe edition of Valentine’s famed 1924 work on fractional currency, annotated by Walter Breen.

Classic works on medieval and modern coins and medals include a superb set of the 1791 Beskrivelse over Danske Mynter og Medailler from the library of the Prime Minister of Denmark, along with other classic works on Scandinavian numismatics including the extremely rare supplement to the Beskrivelse; a number of rare and important 16th- and 17th-century merchant guides, often termed “Coin Books”; several very rare works on coining technology; rarities on Scottish and English numismatics from the Allan Davisson library; the first 21 volumes of Rivista Italiana, 1888-1908; the firm’s own annotated copies of over 300 Glendining & Co. auction catalogues, 1966-1986; and two leather-bound presentation volumes on Canadian numismatics written by Alfred Sandham. (more…)

Kolbe & Fanning Numismatic Booksellers announce their 119th auction sale, closing on November 18, 2010. The 60-page, 588-lot catalogue comprises a diverse selection of interesting and elusive works on ancient, medieval and modern numismatics, and is particularly rich in rare and unusual works on American numismatics.

Featured in the sale among the many interesting lots of American interest are: the Currency Act of 1764, a rare British Parliamentary Act regulating American colonial paper money, the severe restriction of which provided in part the justification of the American Revolution; the Wayne Homren collection of some fifty early American newspapers with numismatic content, including a 1787 description of Fugio coppers, Birmingham coppers in 1752, a 1788 account of the Massachusetts Mint, George Washington’s 1792 comments on the establishment of the U.S. Mint, a contemporary account of 1794 dollars, early Mint Reports, a contemporary account of the 1851 Lewis Roper sale, and the 1857 loss of the S.S. Central America; nice examples of the first two coin publications of Q. David Bowers, issued in 1955 and 1956, and specially bound combined presentation editions of both the Garrett and Norweb collection sales; a special hardbound edition of Barney Bluestone’s famous Grinnell paper money sales; a 1914 letter from S.H. Chapman to William H. Woodin, discussing plated Gable sale catalogues; Evelyn’s 1697 Numismata, which includes the earliest illustration of the St. Patrick’s coinage; Sanborn Partridge’s rare 1979 article on Vermont coins, hand-annotated by the author; the famous 1878 Adolph Weyl sale of the Fonrobert collection of over 6,000 American and Canadian coins, tokens and medals; a nice first edition, first printing of the Red Book; a rare antebellum children’s guide book with currency tables, published in 1857 in Charleston by William Babcock; Confederate States of America publications on currency; a nautical almanac for the year 1803 signed by early American naval hero Thomas Truxtun that may well have accompanied Truxtun when he captured the French frigate L’Insurgente in 1799 and during the successful encounter in 1800 with La Vengeance, which resulted in President Jefferson presenting Truxtun with the first Congressional medal made in the United States; an interesting collection of American numismatic literature from the Civil War years; and two of the rarest limited editions of the Red Book: the 2008 ANS sesquicentennial and 2008 NLG Bash volumes, limited to editions of 250 and 135 copies respectively.

A few of the important works on ancient, medieval and modern numismatics include: a fine copy of John Evelyn’s 1697 Numismata, the first substantial work on English medals, once in the libraries of Rogers Ruding, Matthew Young and Edward Hawkins; a set of the Forni reprint of Babelon’s Traité des Monnaies Grecques et Romaines; a handsomely bound sales room copy of the iconic 1974 Zurich Kunstfreundes sale of superb ancient Greek coins, with buyers’ names and prices; a nice selection of Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum fascicules; the first 15 volumes, 1960-1989, of Numizmatika i Epigrafika; Medina’s classic 1924 Medallas Europeas Relativas à América; Cayón’s 1990-95 four-volume Compendio de las Monedas del Imperio Romano; the seldom-encountered Forni reprint of Imhoof-Blumer’s Die Antiken Münzen Nord-Griechenlands; and Éditions Spéciales of seven Victor Gadoury works on French coins.

A printed catalogue may be obtained by sending $10 to: KOLBE & FANNING NUMISMATIC BOOKSELLERS LLC, 141 W JOHNSTOWN ROAD, GAHANNA OH 43230-2700. The catalogue is also accessible free of charge on the Kolbe & Fanning website at www.numislit.com. (more…)

During September of this year, Kolbe & Fanning Numismatic Booksellers will conduct two notable auction sales. The first, closing on September 12th, 2010, is comprised of the collection of early printed numismatic books formed by the late Anders Frösell of Sweden. Forty-eight works are featured, dating from the early 1500s to the late 1700s, with over half dated before 1600.

Condition covers the spectrum, allowing numismatists on modest budgets the infrequent opportunity to add a work to their libraries dating from the cradle period of numismatic printing. The roster of famous early numismatic authors represented in the sale includes Father Augustín, Anselmo Banduri, Guillaume du Choul, Sebastian Erizzo, Hubert Goltz, Johann Huttich, Adolph Occo, Fulvio Orsini, Onuphrio Panvinio, Charles Patin, Guillaume Rouille, Johann Sambucus, Ezechiel Spanheim, Jacob de Strada, Gabriel Simeoni, Jean Foy-Vaillant, Aenea Vico and others.

The second sale, closing four days later, on September 16th, features the outstanding and extensive numismatic library formed by the well-known ancient coin dealer, auctioneer and numismatic photographer Robert J. Myers. Devoted to works on ancient coins, art and antiquities, the 108-page catalogue of the Myers library features over 1300 lots. It is comprehensive in its coverage of ancient Greek numismatics, and also features a wealth of important reference books on Roman coins and ancient art.

Included among the truly important and often quite rare works in the Myers library are: a set of the Numismatic Chronicle, largely complete from 1881 to 2009; an attractive set of Mionnet’s sixteen volume 1806-37 classic Médailles Antiques, Grecques et Romaines; many rarely offered numismatic excavation reports, among them all of the Olynthus volumes featuring coins (and virtually all of the other volumes in that series), including a fine example of Robinson and Clement’s The Chalcidic Mint; a fine original set of the famous Jameson collection; original sets of the McClean, Hunterian and Weber collections; a comprehensive collection of Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum volumes; seldom encountered classic die studies such as Herzfelder on Rhegium, Ravel’s Vlasto on Tarentum, Regling on Terina, Boehringer on Syracuse, Calciati on Sicily, Imhoof-Blumer’s Antiken Nord-Griechenlands, May on Ainos, Calciati’s Pegasi on Corinth, Ravel on Corinth, Svoronos on Athens, Seltman on Olympia, Le Rider and Svoronos on Crete, Waddington on Asia Minor, Cahn on Knidos, Lederer on Nagidos, Naville on Cyrene and Svoronos on the Ptolemies.

Classic works on Roman coins include Mazzini and Robertson on the Hunter collection; a complete set of the series by Bastien and others of Numismatique Romaine; C.H.V. Sutherland’s set of Alföldi on contorniates; Burnett on Roman Provincials; and a fine original Dattari. The extensive selection of auction catalogues featuring ancient coins is perhaps highlighted by the first twelve fixed price and auction sale catalogues issued by Jacob Hirsch, one of the most notable ancient coin dealers of all time. All are Hirsh’s unique annotated sales copies, generally recording information about the coins in the sales and the collectors who acquired them that may be found nowhere else. Among other key auctions catalogues in the sale are all of Hirsch’s Ars Classica sales devoted to ancient coins; his other key ancient coin and medal sales, including Rhousopoulos, Weber I & II, and Löbbecke on medals; a nearly complete set of Leu ancient coin sales, 1971-2009; and classic sales by Cahn, Egger, Florange, Ciani, Hamburger, Helbing, Adolph Hess, Münzhandlung Basel, Santamaria, Sotheby’s and many others. (more…)