As I go through my retirement years, my thoughts invariably begin to focus on what I leave behind, both the tangible and the intangible. Among the intangible is my legacy. Among the tangible is my coin collection. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in relatively good health. Furthermore, I want to live as many years as I can. But in the end, someone will get the coins I spent a good portion of my life to acquire.

That said, my children are not particularly interested in inheriting my collection. Therefore, I asked my children to pick the coins they wanted to keep. I intend to gradually sell the other coins they don’t want. Beginning now, I’m testing the waters to see how to navigate through auctioning and selling my coins. I’ve also started giving my children part of their inheritance with the coins they want and some they missed that I think they will like.

There was no better time to start gifting my coins than when my son and daughter-in-law treated my wife and me to dinner to celebrate my birthday (May 9) and Mother’s Day. Among the coins my son seemed to want were a few dollars from my Morgan Dollar collection. I chose two Morgan Dollars for him, which I have owned for nearly 50 years. One is the first Morgan Dollar I purchased, an 1881-S PL, and the other, an 1885-CC MS-64 Morgan with a Levere Redfield pedigree. I suggested that my son treat these two coins as family heirlooms. Interestingly, The 81-S isn’t much more valuable than when I bought it. On the other hand, the 85-CC is 10 times more valuable.

Based on where my daughter-in-law loves to go and an activity she loves to do, I gave her an SP-69 2018-P Apostle Islands 5 oz. Silver “America the Beautiful” quarter. The activity she loves to do is kayaking. This is featured on the coin as a kayaker on the Devil’s Island shoreline of Lake Superior.  As I expected, she loved it. Also, my son loved to hear me tell the stories behind the Morgan Dollars that are now his. I enjoyed seeing the expressions on both their faces as they received their inheritance. I think I will enjoy many more times like these as the years go by!

This brings me to my first consignment to Heritage Auctions. Deciding which piece of my collection to auction first was not that difficult. With gold on the rise and a small 11-coin set I completed in 2016, I chose my Netherlands Wilhelmina 10-Gulden set.

I started “Gary’s Golden Wilhelmina Guldens” in 2009. Over the next 7 years, I enjoyed locating coins that met my objectives for the set until all the coins were either MS-65 or MS-66. I also enjoyed researching my coins and doing write-ups for each coin. This set was awarded “The best-presented set” in 2017 by NGC. Since then, I have not examined any of these coins since well before the pandemic. As they say, “Out of Sight, Out of Mind.” Still, it’s hard to give up on something you once enjoyed.

I hand-carried the coins to Heritage Auctions at the Central States Numismatic Society annual coin show. They received the coins, and I signed the corresponding paperwork. However, before consigning them, I re-imaged each coin for the best possible picture. Then, I copied the write-ups with the images into a PDF-formatted document I will continue to enjoy perusing in the future. For now, I’ll save the auction proceeds in safe investments and not delete the set from the registry until after the auction. The coins will be auctioned on August 20. I’ll have much more to report on the auction after it closes. Until then, if you are interested in bidding on my coins, they may viewed in my set by following the link below.

https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/81837/