The two year wait for the coin that I won.

In 2013, I told the story about the auction that I participated in where I saw the lot hammer at my pre-bid price. Later, I found out that a floor bidder had the lot reopened, but by then I had stopped watching the on-line feed so I didn't get the opportunity to counter-bid (I would had gone at least one increment higher).

Now I can tell the rest of the story. That same coin came up for auction in the Rudman Collection of Mexican Coins, Part II. It had never been entered into Isaac Rudman's NGC registry set so I had no idea that he or his agent had successfully lobbied the auctioneer to reopen the lot that I won. The good news is that on the second go-around, I won the lot for a few dollars shy of my pre-bid price from 2013.

My goal in seeking out this coin was to bring together a nearly complete set of Charles III pillar dollars to complement my portrait collection. I was in second place to Mr. Rudman in that category but I have a few coins in my set that he did not; I was hoping to win enough to improve on his completion ratio. As it turned out, the truly rare varieties got impressive bids. Curiously, several of the scarce overdates hammered for twice what I expected -- and these were all in details grade, too. I guess they looked much better in hand or someone else felt the overwhelming need to fill in those last slots. In the end, I picked up three new examples for my set and one nice upgrade but fell short of my completion goal.

I fully recognize that the medium grade varieties that I've acquired will be poor investments, however I see more value in making sets like these available for public view. The internet, and sites like the NGC registry, let us publish our own virtual catalogs, giving collectors an alternative to "buying the book". Not that I'm suggesting you don't acquire the key references in your chosen field but some of those classic 8 reales references are out of print and quite expensive!

Here's the link to my previous post:

http://coins.www.collectors-society.com/JournalDetail.aspx?JournalEntryID=14583

And here's my second chance lot (photos by Heritage Auctions)

~jack

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