Redfield And Binion

Fromms, welcome to the Community.

I personally find stories about hoards like these to be fascinating and enjoy reading about them. It would be great to own one of these coins, but I probably wouldn't go out of my way to get one.

If there isn't much of a premium I would say go for it. If it's being sold for double the price because of the holder then forget about it. If you can get it for a couple bucks over book value then why not? It all depends on your desire to own one.

You're gettIng into the area of collecting (and archaeology) called provenance. So many postings on the Classic forum end with "if only this coin could talk and tell us all it's seen!" Knowing the collections a coin has graced can be a partial answer to that question. Also, it's nice to know your coin was once chosen by a collector of exquisite taste, like Hesselgesser, for instance. If the "collector" was someone who just took bulk sacks of Morgans and dumped them down a coal chute, though, I don't think it adds to the coin's allure.

I am looking to add a coin from each of those to my collection. However, as mentioned, I am not going to pay a huge premium for them. Though that old Paramount holder IS pretty darn neat. To answer your question though, it depends on YOU. Anything you pay above fair market value for the grade of the coin is YOUR choice. This question gets asked about toned and error coins all the time, and its the same as for them. Value is in the eye of the buyer. Just be aware you may not get that back should you choose to sell the coin later.

A perfect example. I have an absolutely stunningly toned 72 Brown Box Ike still in the OGP. I paid a LOT more than the listed value of 20 bucks for the coin. Many people here would say I am an idiot for spending that much. Many would have done the same. To ME, it was worth every penny because I find the coin to be beautiful and interesting. Soooo, if you find the stories behind those hoards to be interesting and you want a part of that, then perhaps you will be willing to pay a little more.

I have one Morgan dollar from the Redfield hoard. It will probably be the only one I will ever own at least for now anyways. It is an 1879-S in the blue MS-60 holder. The coin grades a solid MS-63 and has, to me, beautiful toning which is one of the reasons why I bought it. I paid $100.00 for it which is over retail for this date in this grade but it is a piece of numismatic history.





Ed
ANA LM-3175

Thanks to all that have replied. It is nice to have a place like this to bounce ideas off someone. A few of my friends are collectors (sports mem., guns, etc) but no one I am friends with is a coin collector. Thanks for the input.

I like coins, coins are neat. Coins that have verifiable STORIES attached to them are REALLY neat. In the case of the Redfield dollars they have several stories that combine to form on BIG story. You have the stories about Redfield, what he was like and how he acquired his dollars, how he stored them, the robbery where he lost a fourth of them, trying to hide them in his estate, the discovery, the courtroom auction, and finally the marketing of them. Each is interesting by itself, but when you put them all together it makes the ownership of a Redfield in its Paramount holder right up there on my hit parade.

The Binion coins have a couple stories that can go with them too but to me they aren't as compelling and the fact that the holder isn't even that special takes away from it. It is just a standard NGC slab with a special label underprinting that isn't even exclusive to the Binion hoard. And frankly the three cowboys design doesn't really tie them in to Binion.