By Doug Winter – www.raregoldcoins.com

Byron Reed was born in upstate New York in 1829. He moved to Omaha, Nebraska in 1856 and by the early 1860’s, he had become an important figure in this new settlement. After the end of the Civil War, Omaha became an important gateway to the West and its economy boomed. Reed, who was one of the major landowners in this city, became very rich and assumed a prominent position in the business and political affairs of both the city and the state.

Byron Reed began to collect coins (as well as art, manuscripts and other objects) in the mid 1870’s and continued his purchases until he died in 1891. After his death, the collection was willed to the City of Omaha and the Omaha Public Library. It was later placed in the Western Heritage Museum where part of it is now on display.
A portion of the collection was sold Spink’s/Christie’s in October 1996 in order to raise funds for the renovation, expansion and endowment of the Western Heritage Museum. As with all museum collections, the announcement of this sale was met with controversy. A decision was made to replace the coins that were sold with similarly dated but lower value examples.

The Byron Reed sale contained 407 lots of coins and it realized over $5 million. The strengths of the sale included proof gold coins and superb pre-1834 gold issues.

Highlights of the Reed sale included an Uncirculated 1796 With Stars quarter eagle that brought $232,000, a Gem Uncirculated 1864 quarter eagle at $132,000, a Gem 1828/7 half eagle that realized $159,500, a Gem 1829 small planchet half eagle at $374,000, a Gem 1832 twelve stars half eagle at $297,000 and a three coin partial proof set of 1875 gold issues that sold for $352,000.

Unlike some of the other great “name” collections that have been sold in recent years, the Reed sale represented just a small part of his holdings. There are many other great coins in this collection that are now on public display in Omaha and the estimated value of the entire coin collection is a conservative $25 million+.

The coins from the Reed collection are noteworthy for their originality. The silver coins from this collection were poorly stored and, unfortunately, they are so deeply toned that they have no eye appeal. The gold coins luckily avoided this fate and were characterized by nice color and good eye appeal.