Earlier this week (Tuesday, June 17) I received the early bird email notice of new items from Coin Rarities Online (CRO) around 10:59am. Usually I'm not somewhere where I can take a look at the offerings immediately, but yesterday I was lucky that I was. I saw one new offered piece there that just blew me away.
Something close to my heart, of course, in that it was a horse design. But, it has a lot more going for it than just that. It was also square (a Klippe), had amazing toning on both sides, and had a super-cool city scene on the reverse of the coin that I just fell in love with. All of this wrapped up in a coin about the size of a USA quarter dollar. A mere 8 minutes after I received the email, I shot an email off to John Agre at CRO, and within an hour (and a lunch break) after that the deal was sealed and paid in full.
I will just say that John is a class act. He entertained my request to see a slab shot so I could get a reference for the size of the coin. He answered a few questions I had immediately -- I mean, within minutes!! He was very straightforward with me, not pressuring me into making a decision but frankly and softly letting me know that the coin had been popular (a total of 6 calls to purchase if after mine!) -- and so he wanted to be fair in the first-come first-serve order of things. As my first buying experience with CRO, I would give it a 5-stars rating all around, and it even gets better...
The coin arrived at my front door 23 hours and 58 minutes after my first email to John. Yes, from Massachusetts to Minnesota in less than 24 hours, and with a cool CRO hat to boot!
I did get around to taking my own versions of images of this coin last night (posted below). I had the disadvantage of imaging it through plastic, whereas the CRO images (also shown) were pre-slabbing. It's delightfully lovely in hand!!
I have one more horse-related item on it's way to me, but then I'll be on a bit of a buying hiatus for a while.
Cheers,
-Brandon
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The original CRO images
My composite image, with NGC label and dimensions
Images including the slab/prongs (for reference of color and to see how it's holdered).
Some close-ups, with a small scale of 1 mm for reference
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I can't find much information about this particular issue so far. I did find reference to the coin / design in a 1765 work indexed on Google Books. It's pretty cool to find a reference to a coin you own in a book printed in 1765!! I also found reference to the coin in a book of German proverbs/wisdom published in 1877.
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Schwäbische Merckwürdigkeiten, oder kleine Abhandlungen, Auszüge und vermischte Nachrichten von Schwäbischen Sachen: zum Dienst und Vergnügen hoher und niedriger, gelehrt- und ungelehrter Personen. By Johann Jacob Moser, Ulm, 1765Page 408; item 277.
Square ducat.
Obverse: The city of Stuttgart. Below, "Stuttgardia."
Reverse: A stud, with a foal, and the surrounding text "Well raised youth makes one happy"And a scan of page 408 from the book (I added the yellow box highlighting the coin in question):
Posted 06/20/2014 12:31 pm
