Collectors Empty Their Pockets to Snap Up Ancient, Rare Coins

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A recent sale held by Beverly Hills dealers and auctioneers Ira and Larry Goldberg turned out to be one of the largest coin auctions that ever took place in Los Angeles.

The Memorial Day Auction at the Crown Plaza Hotel on South Beverly Drive featured about 1,150 ancient and rare coins that fetched a total of $23 million. They made up the Millennia collection, which was built over five years for one of the Goldbergs’ Southern California clients, who was not identified. It featured coins minted in ancient Greece, Rome and Judea as well as more recent rare coins from Europe and the Americas.

Over the following two days, a number of smaller collections netted the Ira and Larry Goldberg Coins and Collectibles auction house an additional $11 million. That brought the three-day coin auction total to $34 million, ranking it as one of the largest ever held in L.A.

The highlight of the auction was the $923,000 paid for a gold coin in the Millennia collection minted in 223 AD during the reign of Roman Emperor Severus Alexander: It’s one of only two coins known to exist that depict the ancient Roman Colosseum on its reverse side. “We believe that’s the highest price ever paid for a Roman coin,” Ira Goldberg told the Business Journal last week.

An equally rare coin minted in 42 BC for Marcus Junius Brutus the Roman aristocrat who conspired to assassinate Julius Caesar and then made his own unsuccessful bid for power sold for $630,000. A gold coin minted during the reign of Alexander the Great and featuring the helmeted warrior king sold for $230,000.

And a rare bronze coin from ancient Judea minted during the Bar Kochba rebellion of 132-135 A.D. fetched around $130,000, the most money ever paid for an ancient Judean coin, according to Ira Goldberg.

Numismatic experts say the Millennia collection auction was a significant event in the world of coin auctions.

“There have been auctions of U.S. coins around the country of a similar order of magnitude in recent years, but the world coins and the ancient coins on sale at this auction were particularly noteworthy,” said Dave Harper, editor of Numismatic News.

One reason the Goldbergs advised the client to bring the Millennia collection to market was the recent surge in commodity prices that saw gold top $1,000 per ounce in March.

“The high prices for gold are bringing out more buyers, so that makes it a good time to bring a collection of that size to market,” said Barry Stuppler, a professional coin dealer in Woodland Hills who also serves as president of the American Numismatic Association.

In the United States in recent years, the largest coin auctions have typically been of high quality American coins, especially early coins from the colonial era, Stuppler said. Some of these auctions have netted up to $50 million.

The U.S. market for ancient and world coins is considerably smaller, Stuppler said. “That’s what makes this Millennia collection auction stand out.”

A more typical sale took place the same week, organized by rival Beverly Hills auction house Superior Galleries, which netted $2.9 million. The star of that auction, which centered on American coins, was an 1879 $4 gold U.S. coin that sold for $402,500.

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Howard Fine
Howard Fine is a 23-year veteran of the Los Angeles Business Journal. He covers stories pertaining to healthcare, biomedicine, energy, engineering, construction, and infrastructure. He has won several awards, including Best Body of Work for a single reporter from the Alliance of Area Business Publishers and Distinguished Journalist of the Year from the Society of Professional Journalists.

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