“PCGS experts examined this amazing coin and encapsulated it at the Florida United Numismatists (FUN) convention in Orlando, Florida, on dealer set-up day, January 7, 2009. It was truly awe-inspiring to see it in person,” said Don Willis, President of PCGS, a division of Collectors Universe, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLCT).

After certification by PCGS, the coin was placed on display at the FUN convention booth of early American copper specialists, Chris McCawley and Bob Grellman, alongside selected highlights from the large cent collection of Daniel W. Holmes, Jr., an ANS Trustee. It was the first time the coin has been publicly seen outside New York City since it was donated to ANS 63 years ago.

“The Trustees of the Society have loaned this coin to fellow Trustee Dan Holmes. We are very excited to have for the first time a display of a complete set of all large cent varieties. We hope many people see this exceptional display,” said Dr. Ute Wartenberg Kagan, ANS Executive Director.

The Holmes Collection will be offered in a series of auctions by McCawley and Grellman through Ira and Larry Goldberg Coins and Collectibles in Beverly Hills, California, beginning September 6, 2009.

“Many of the most important pieces in the Holmes collection have been certified and graded by PCGS, and are labeled with the Holmes pedigree on each holder,” said Larry Goldberg.

The 1793 Wreath cent with the vine and bars edge was delivered by armored car service from ANS in New York City to Orlando on Wednesday, January 7, where Grellman took possession and brought it to Willis for certification and grading by PCGS.

“We wanted to encapsulate the coin for security and protection purposes,” said Grellman.

The unique coin was donated to the ANS in 1946 by prominent collector George H. Clapp of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of the founders of ALCOA (Aluminum Company of America).

“The pedigree is a virtual who’s who of late 19th and early 20th century U.S. numismatics,” added Willis.

The earliest-known owner of the coin was New York dealer Edouard Frossard who discovered the variety in 1881. In his December 8, 1881 sale catalog, he described the coin as: “1793 Wreath Cent. Stem of sprig rises between the 7 and 9 of the date, the leaves slender and spreading. Rev. The same as rev. of last number: a combination mentioned neither by Levick and Crosby, nor Frossard. Unique. A splendid impression, proof surfaces.”

Later owners included Lorin G. Parmelee, Dr. Thomas Hall, Virgil Brand, and Burdette G. Johnson of St. Louis Stamp & Coin Co. who sold the coin to Clapp for $600 in 1942. Clapp donated it to ANS four years later, and it has been in the society’s collection ever since.

On September 7, 2009, the day after the auction of the Holmes collection, the Goldbergs will offer Part Three, the “late dates,” of the Ted Naftzger collection of large cents. The nearly 700 coins in the collection now are in the process of being examined, certified and graded by PCGS. The Goldbergs’ earlier auction of PCGS-certified “early date” coins from the Naftzger collection set record prices.

For additional information about PCGS, call (800) 477-8848 or visit online at www.PCGS.com.

For additional information about the American Numismatic Society, call (212) 571-4470 or www.numismatics.org.

For information about the Holmes Collection auctions, contact McCawley & Grellman, (972) 668-1575 or (407) 682-9592 or www.MandGauctions.com, or Ira & Larry Goldberg Coins & Collectibles, (310) 551-2646 or www.GoldbergCoins.com.

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Ms. Hahn is a trained librarian and completed a Master of Science in Library and Information Science from Long Island University. Her interest in specialized libraries compelled her to pursue a concentration in rare books and special collections as well as a certificate in archives, and she is particularly delighted about the extensive rare book collection at the Harry W. Bass Jr. Library at the ANS. When asked about her goals for the library, Elizabeth said that she is interested in updating the catalogs and databases in order to increase the efficiency of access to the collections. We live in a world where technology is constantly evolving and we need to keep up with those changes, she said. This is an excellent collection and it is important to convey the message to our members and the public of what resources we have and how they can be used.

Ms Hahn trained as an archaeologist and numismatist and has extensive library and museum employment experience. She holds a Master of Arts degree in maritime archaeology and history from the University of Bristol and a Master of Arts degree in classical art and archaeology from the University of Virginia. She is fluent in Italian and has a reading knowledge of German, French, ancient Greek and Latin. Elizabeth has worked on various excavations both on land and underwater in Sicily, Israel, and North America and spent a summer working at the Numismatic Museum in Athens, Greece. The ANS has played a fundamental role in my graduate studies, Elizabeth said, commenting on the research she conducted for a Masters thesis on the Greek coinage of Sicily and southern Italy. I have used the collections and resources in the past and I am thrilled to have the opportunity now to be a part of how those resources develop.

The ANS librarian position became vacant after Frank Campbell retired after working at the ANS for over half a century. During his tenure the ANS library grew enormously to a world-class library in numismatics. We are very fortunate to have found such a well educated librarian as Elizabeth, who has experience in libraries and numismatics. I am sure that the Bass Library in the new headquarters will be a popular place for academics, students and collectors, said Dr. Wartenberg Kagan, Executive Director of the American Numismatic Society.

The American Numismatic Society is celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2008. With its numismatic collections and library it is generally recognized as one of the foremost centers for numismatic research and education in the world.

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Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press, in NYC: News Analysis

NEW YORK, August 6 — Under a leaking ceiling on 155th Street in West Harlem, paintings by Goya and Velasquez hang in near obscurity in the Hispanic Society of America. Surrounded by the vacant shells left by museums which have decamped to lower Manhattan, and with controversial airline investor Frank Lorenzo now taking a leading role on the board of trustees, the Hispanic Society has taken to selling off the treasures collected by its founder, Archer Milton Huntington. Last year a 13th century Koran was sold in London.

On August 6, Sotheby’s began cataloguing for immanent auction a collection of 38,000 coins which Huntington lent to the American Numismatic Society. The HSA’s board of trustees have assumed unfettered discretion to under-promote, under-protect and ultimately sell off Huntington’s collection, in a process some analogize to Lorenzo’s treatment of airlines during his heyday.

“This is to cry,” a Spanish art lover sighed during a recent visit. It didn’t have to be this way — and the coin sale could still be stopped. Potential bidders should be aware of the history, particularly how the sale may run counter to not only the spirit but also the letter of Huntington’s intent.

Despite Huntington’s transfer of the coins to the American Numismatic Society being described as a “permanent” loan, the HSA has fought and litigated to regain the coins, but only for the purpose of selling them, not for display. In early 2007, the HSA drafted a Loan Agreement which gave it the right to cancel Huntington’s transfer. In response to persistent questions from the New York correspondent of the Madrid newspaper La Razon, HSA management denied the intent to sell the coins. But in a contemporaneous series of court filings and letters to the New York State Attorney General viewed by Inner City Press, the HSA refers to its board of trustee’s January 23, 2008 resolution to “deaccession” the collection — museum terminology for selling off. Then Sotheby’s today began cataloguing the coins for sale.

During an August 6 visit to the American Numismatic Society’s new location at 75 Varrick Street, Inner City Press observed a team from Sotheby’s and a spin-off company specializing in coin sales, Morton & Eden, preparing to catalogue the coins, which number 38,000. A sworn affidavit by Sotheby’s David Redden spells out the auction house’s demands during the cataloguing process: a separate, carpeted room to which they will have their own key, Internet access and, strangely, the right to bring in their own food. Once catalogued, the coins will be sold the highest bidders. Pending a legislative proposal in New York State, A995A, which would limit the uses of “deaccession” profits, the Lorenzo-led Hispanic Society of America could put the proceeds to any use whatsoever.

Lorenzo is best known for the bankruptcy of Eastern Airline; he has been described as, among other things, a “vulture investor.” Now, museum sources say, he is applying to same slash and burn philosophy to the Hispanic Society of America, moving to sell off anything that is not nailed down. “It’s a social club for a handful of businessmen,” one well-placed source complained, describing these “gentlemen’s” jockeying to meet Spanish royalty and other European dignitaries and titans of commerce.

Archer Milton Huntington, himself the adopted son of a railroad magnate, stumbled into appreciation of Spanish art after reading a then-popular book about gypsies, George Borrow’s The Zincali. He traveled to Spain and bought art works and coins. The museum opened in 1908, on land he purchased from naturalist James Audubon. Huntington gave 30,000 of the coins he had collected to the Hispanic Society and then, according to a HSA-printed biography, “in 1946 placed [the coin collection] on permanent loans with the American Numismatic Society.”

But in the years after Huntington’s death in 1955, the Hispanic Society museum drifted from its mission. By 1993, the Commissioner of New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs, Luis Cancel, accused the HSA’s board of trustees of failing to engage with the museum’s largely-Hispanic neighbors. The Society’s then-director responded that the area would soon be gentrified, which largely has yet to happen.

A visit to the museum by this reporter on a recent Sunday found only a handful of tourists and two security guards. The Society’s library was closed to the public, and 16th century wood carvings sat under a leaking ceiling with peeling paint. Upstairs, rare ceramics sat on the floor next to electric fans of the type sold in discount stores, protected only by a two-foot high strip of plastic or Lexan. Even though no direct comment was offered for this initial story, it emerged that the HSA’s trustees have also considered leaving 155th Street, but concluded that space lower in Manhattan was too expensive. Whether the subprime crisis changes that, or explains the shameless sell-off, is not yet clear.

It is noteworthy, as least in coin and ceramic circles, that the Euphronios-painted “hot pot” that the Metropolitan Museum of Art had to return to Italy was purchased in 1972, with proceeds from the Met’s controversial sale of its coins, which had been on loan to the American Numismatic Society. Call it karma or a cautionary tale.

A review of tax returns of the Hispanic Society of America lists the HSA with $29 million. But if the Society’s representations in its legal papers about the small percentage of its assets made up by the coins are true, its assets would be up to thirty times higher. Marcus Burke and Patrick Lanaghan are listed as annually receiving $65,000 and $63,000, respectively, along with $30,000 each in deferred compensation. Other trustees beyond Frank Lorenzo include William R. Harman, Miner H. Warner and George B. Moore, who signed the Trojan horse revised loan agreement, and who works at Merrill Lynch.

None of these were present on Wednesday when Sotheby’s began final cataloguing of the coins at the American Numismatic Society. The Sotheby’s group were behind a locked and secured door, presumably with the lunch they had brought in. Archer Milton Huntington, one imagined, was rolling in his grave. Will his voice and intent be heard, before at Frank Lorenzo’s direction, Huntington’s hard-won collection disappears into the hands of the highest bidder?

Inner City Press intends to continue covering the move to sell the Hispanic Society of America’s coin collection, and would welcome any information about the collection and related issues, to the author .matthew.lee [at] innercitypress.com

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They didn’t exactly hire two guys with a truck to secretly move one of the world’s largest and most valuable coin collections over the weekend in Manhattan. But they did use five standard-issue moving vans.

No armored-car convoys. No helicopter gunships. No National Guard outriders flourishing automatic weapons. Just sweaty movers, in blue shirts with their names stitched at the front, schlepping 425 plastic packing crates that were filled with treasures trussed in humble bubble wrap and garden-variety vinyl packing tape.

Yes, the New York Police Department provided an escort, but during more than eight hours on Saturday, one of the great hoards of coins and currency on the planet, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, was utterly unalarmed as it was bumped through potholes, squeezed by double-parked cars and slowed by tunnel-bound traffic during the trip to its fortresslike new vault a mile to the north. In the end, the move did not become a caper movie.

“The idea was to make this as inconspicuous as possible,” said Ute Wartenberg Kagan, executive director of the American Numismatic Society. “It had to resemble a totally ordinary office move.”

The collection of 800,000 coins, bank notes, medals, commemorative badges, pins, historic advertising tokens, campaign buttons and other artifacts has been amassed during the 150-year existence of the nonprofit society.

It was transported from the society’s high-security headquarters at 96 Fulton Street, in the former Fidelity and Deposit Company building at the corner of William Street, to its future home, a secure $4 million vault and exhibition space 22 blocks away, on the 11th floor of One Hudson Square, at Varick and Canal Streets.

Read Full New York Times Article Here

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