$410,000 for 'one' silver coin, wow!
http://www.theage.com.au/executive-style/culture/rare-coin-sells-for-410000-20120827-24woz.html
August 28, 2012
The Hannibal Head Holey Dollar.
An extremely rare 1813 Australian coin with a hole in it has sold for a record $410,000 at a Melbourne(Australia) auction.
And previosuly an 1852 Adelaide(Australia) Pound coin sold for a record $370,000.
Also this was written on a thread on an Australian forum. I did not give the website link to it because I am not sure it is allowed by the rules of this forum?:
The coins in the auction were really badly damaged on the edges with some pieces looking like someone had taken pliers to the coins to deliberately damage them. The reason they were so valued was because the Holey Dollar in this auction was found in the early 1800's (not long after it had been made) and had a hand-me-down history of quite a few generations.
I wrote (here) about a guy I know that found a Holey Dollar at Hill End (NSW) with an X-Terra 705 quite recently. He said that someone laughed at him for not using a GPX before he rolled a rotting log out of the way with his foot and underneath was a strong signal. He had it in coin-mode and the detector responded with a number of '22'. The target, when he dug it out, was at a depth of 20cm.... and appeared to be a large, heavy 'black washer'. His wife told him not to put it in the car and asked him to leave it there. But he brought it home, dropped it in a jar of acid before he noticed the "New South Wales 1813" around the punched hole and immediately pulled it out. Whilst there was still some dark patina in the recessed areas, the coil was absolutely stunning to see. I own a few of the Spanish dollars that these things were made from and for reasons I can't explain, this Holey Dollar looked larger or seemed thicker for some reason. It was absolutely beautiful and, surprisingly, it had an impression where the tip of someone else's pick had struck one side, leaving a four-sided impression about 4mm wide on one side... so someone else had dug this thing before over the years and had then discarded it again. It had a full luster on the coin (the original shine was quite visible) and something else I noticed was that there was a thin metal band around the outside of the coin which had evidence of an old soldering at the top: This was a bezel that was used to allow the coin to have been worn as a pendant and it was still protecting the coin around the rim and could easily be removed. The old solder joint on the bezel had snapped free, which is probably how the original owner had lost it whilst digging for gold. I don't know if the bezel was removed later or if it was left around the coin.
He took it into Parramatta to the coin-dealer at Westfield shopping center who he said offered him $73,000 cash for it - which he declined. He then placed it into auction and the coin sold for somewhere between $100,000 to $200,000 (I'm guessing closer to the lower figure). The man is fairly private so it's not unusual to be a bit cagey about his finds. Now the auctioneer told him not to allow people to circulate pictures of the coin before the action because it could diminish the impact of the coin on the day for people likely to bid on an impulse. Perhaps this related to the pick mark (which was small) but I don't know as this was one of the first times he'd changed his mind in allowing me to photograph one of his major finds. For this reason, I regret that I don't have a photograph to share. He did however tell me that I could write about it here on the forum and someone replied to tell me they had found a Holey Dollar on a mulloch heap just North of the same area some years ago... and I think they may have said that it was still lying around at home being used as a desk display (paperweight?).
Did the cleaning in acid affect the price? Apparently (according to coin dealers), even handling these coins without gloves can affect the value. One that was found in a clothes hoist being used quite literally as a washer was said by coin experts to have lost $1000 value every time that hoist spun 360 degrees. The one I saw was literally breathtaking but it would not have been so if it were just a black coin. The details were all beautifully intact - and, as I said before, I own a few of the Spanish Silver reales coins (you can see one that I photographed below) that these Holey Dollars were made from. They're not terribly expensive unless you find one that had been converted to a Holey Dollar but they are large... about 40mm across with a unique pattern around the edge to deter coin clipping. If you got caught with a pair or clippers in your pocket during the early 1800s you could (and sometimes were) sentenced to flogging and death by hanging afterwards. It wasn't really until the early 1700's that they seriously stopped producing struck coins and replaced them with minted coins with 'reeded' or pattered edges to deter clipping. Quite a lot of fake Spanish silver dollars today have a reeded edge from a modern milling machine because it's so hard for the Chinese forgers to make the patterned rims that line up all the way around the coin.
Silver being so conductive, I'd say it would be hard to miss these coins with a metal detector although having a hole in the middle will generate a new anomalous results.
http://www.theage.com.au/executive-style/culture/rare-coin-sells-for-410000-20120827-24woz.html
August 28, 2012
The Hannibal Head Holey Dollar.
An extremely rare 1813 Australian coin with a hole in it has sold for a record $410,000 at a Melbourne(Australia) auction.
And previosuly an 1852 Adelaide(Australia) Pound coin sold for a record $370,000.
Also this was written on a thread on an Australian forum. I did not give the website link to it because I am not sure it is allowed by the rules of this forum?:
The coins in the auction were really badly damaged on the edges with some pieces looking like someone had taken pliers to the coins to deliberately damage them. The reason they were so valued was because the Holey Dollar in this auction was found in the early 1800's (not long after it had been made) and had a hand-me-down history of quite a few generations.
I wrote (here) about a guy I know that found a Holey Dollar at Hill End (NSW) with an X-Terra 705 quite recently. He said that someone laughed at him for not using a GPX before he rolled a rotting log out of the way with his foot and underneath was a strong signal. He had it in coin-mode and the detector responded with a number of '22'. The target, when he dug it out, was at a depth of 20cm.... and appeared to be a large, heavy 'black washer'. His wife told him not to put it in the car and asked him to leave it there. But he brought it home, dropped it in a jar of acid before he noticed the "New South Wales 1813" around the punched hole and immediately pulled it out. Whilst there was still some dark patina in the recessed areas, the coil was absolutely stunning to see. I own a few of the Spanish dollars that these things were made from and for reasons I can't explain, this Holey Dollar looked larger or seemed thicker for some reason. It was absolutely beautiful and, surprisingly, it had an impression where the tip of someone else's pick had struck one side, leaving a four-sided impression about 4mm wide on one side... so someone else had dug this thing before over the years and had then discarded it again. It had a full luster on the coin (the original shine was quite visible) and something else I noticed was that there was a thin metal band around the outside of the coin which had evidence of an old soldering at the top: This was a bezel that was used to allow the coin to have been worn as a pendant and it was still protecting the coin around the rim and could easily be removed. The old solder joint on the bezel had snapped free, which is probably how the original owner had lost it whilst digging for gold. I don't know if the bezel was removed later or if it was left around the coin.
He took it into Parramatta to the coin-dealer at Westfield shopping center who he said offered him $73,000 cash for it - which he declined. He then placed it into auction and the coin sold for somewhere between $100,000 to $200,000 (I'm guessing closer to the lower figure). The man is fairly private so it's not unusual to be a bit cagey about his finds. Now the auctioneer told him not to allow people to circulate pictures of the coin before the action because it could diminish the impact of the coin on the day for people likely to bid on an impulse. Perhaps this related to the pick mark (which was small) but I don't know as this was one of the first times he'd changed his mind in allowing me to photograph one of his major finds. For this reason, I regret that I don't have a photograph to share. He did however tell me that I could write about it here on the forum and someone replied to tell me they had found a Holey Dollar on a mulloch heap just North of the same area some years ago... and I think they may have said that it was still lying around at home being used as a desk display (paperweight?).
Did the cleaning in acid affect the price? Apparently (according to coin dealers), even handling these coins without gloves can affect the value. One that was found in a clothes hoist being used quite literally as a washer was said by coin experts to have lost $1000 value every time that hoist spun 360 degrees. The one I saw was literally breathtaking but it would not have been so if it were just a black coin. The details were all beautifully intact - and, as I said before, I own a few of the Spanish Silver reales coins (you can see one that I photographed below) that these Holey Dollars were made from. They're not terribly expensive unless you find one that had been converted to a Holey Dollar but they are large... about 40mm across with a unique pattern around the edge to deter coin clipping. If you got caught with a pair or clippers in your pocket during the early 1800s you could (and sometimes were) sentenced to flogging and death by hanging afterwards. It wasn't really until the early 1700's that they seriously stopped producing struck coins and replaced them with minted coins with 'reeded' or pattered edges to deter clipping. Quite a lot of fake Spanish silver dollars today have a reeded edge from a modern milling machine because it's so hard for the Chinese forgers to make the patterned rims that line up all the way around the coin.
Silver being so conductive, I'd say it would be hard to miss these coins with a metal detector although having a hole in the middle will generate a new anomalous results.