By Mike De Falco – www.numisvision.com

An extraordinary and very important collection of high quality Deep Mirror Prooflike and Prooflike Morgan Dollars were sold on August 1, 2008 at the Heritage ANA Signature Sale held in conjunction with the ANA World’s Fair of Money Convention in Baltimore, Maryland. The collection, named “A Gift of Undeserved Favor”, was assembled by a passionate Northern California collector over the last ten years. I had the privilege of working closely with this collector since 1997 and I sold him quite a number of the coins in his collection and I am very pleased to be able to discuss and analyze the results with you.

In my humble opinion, the overall quality and eye appeal of this collection would rival that of any set of DMPL and PL dollars heretofore sold at public auction and I’ve seen all of them, as a full time dealer in this specialized field for over thirty-five years.

To be sure this was an extremely important event in the realm of the Deep Mirror Prooflike dollar market with many exciting and memorable moments establishing numerous price records. Although the results of the sale were quite impressive overall — realizing a total of $1.4 million plus, this auction did fall a bit short of my pre-sale estimate which was a touch over $1.6 million. Regardless, there’s absolutely no denying that the very finest, most eye appealing specimens and/or rare dates were the subject of very strong demand and spirited bidding. These are precisely the type of coins that are capable of generating tremendous excitement and very high prices when offered for sale.

Following is a date-by-date analysis of this sale including opening bids, hammer price and total price realized including the buyer’s premium (BP). Moreover, I will share my personal assessment of each coin in relation to grade, designation and eye appeal based on firsthand examination of every single lot while in Baltimore. Although I sold many of the coins contained in this collection to the consignor there were a number of specimens that I had not seen prior to lot viewing at the ANA so I was treated to a few surprises — both ways. Some were even nicer than I had anticipated and some were a disappointment, so without further adieu following is my date-by-date commentary. (more…)