John J. Ford Collection to be auctioned

[Sunnywood]

In what promises to be one of the major numismatic events of this generation, Stack's has announced that it will auction the entire John J. Ford collection of coins and currency in several auctions commencing in the fall of 2003. Ford worked at Stack's, then made his mark during a long career at the New Netherlands Coin Co. which revolutionized auction cataloguing and brought numismatic scholarship into the marketplace. Stack's describes him as America's foremost living numismatist ... pretty strong words with someone like QDB around, plus many other greats I can think of.

 

Furthermore, the collection is described as "deeper and broader" than Garrett, and containing more rarities than Norweb. Holy *^#$^% !!!!!! That's quite a statement. So here's my question:

 

Does anyone out there know anything about this collection? Does it truly rival or exceed Garrett and Norweb? That seems inconceivable. What can any Board members tell us about the Ford collection

 

Sunnywood

 

[GDJMSP]

A sample -

 

Nova Constellatio patterns of 1783 -

 

Mark or 1000 Units. This unique coin is listed as Breen 1099 and in Taxay as EP8.

 

Quint or 500 Units. Listed as Breen 1101 and in Taxay as EP9.

 

Bit or 100 Units. Two examples are known in twin olive leave edge varities. The coins are listed as Breen 1103-1104 and in Taxay as EP11-EP12 - Ford owns one of them.

 

5 Units. This unique coin was rediscovered in 1977 and is listed as Breen 1105 and is footnoted in Taxay.

 

One of the original four - Confederate half dollars.

 

 

You can read much more here - An Interview with John J. Ford

[EVillageProwler]

Thanks for the link to the article. I feel like I just spent an hour or so with a legend. My only gripe is that the article truncated the Eliasberg story!!!

 

EVP

 

[Sunnywood]

Thanks for the above link to Part II of Heritage's interview. Following is a link to Part I of that interview.

 

Heritage's Interview of John J. Ford, Part I

 

Sunnywood

 

[Coinosaurus]

Forget the coins, I just want to see what's in the library