A collection of 15,000 historical coins, known as the Traveller Collection, is set to be auctioned by Numismatica Ars Classica (NAC), with experts estimating its value at over $100 million, according to The Economic Times.
The collection features coins from more than 100 territories around the world, spanning centuries and including extremely rare coins in exceptional preservation condition, with some traceable to the greatest collections of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as reported by CNN.
The original collector, whose identity remains undisclosed, began amassing coins in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. By the late 1930s, he and his wife had traveled extensively across Europe and the Americas, acquiring coins and meticulously documenting their origins. Fearing a Nazi invasion during Hitler's rise to power, he buried his coin collection, a decision made in the face of growing unrest on the continent. He carefully packed his acquisitions into cigar boxes, sealed them in aluminum wrappers, and buried them deep underground, where they remained for over five decades. Not long after the Nazis occupied parts of Europe, he died of a stroke. Only he and his wife knew the location of the buried coins, which included more than 10,000 coins hidden in their garden.
In the mid-1990s, the collector's widow, now elderly, decided to retrieve the buried treasure, realizing it was time to unearth the collection. She enlisted the expertise of Numismatica Ars Classica (NAC) to oversee the sale and produce an inventory and evaluation.
What NAC uncovered was extraordinary, and it took more than a year to catalog the coins. "It was like being in a candy store every day," said Arturo Russo, NAC's director, according to Terra.
"The vast range and superb quality of the coins offered, the sheer number of great rarities, and the fascinating story of the collection's formation will make these sales a landmark in the history of numismatics," Russo said.
Numismatic expert David Guest described some British coins from the Traveller Collection as "completely unrecorded" in modern auctions. "When it came to cataloguing the British coins from the Traveller Collection, I had to keep pinching myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming," Guest said. "Not only was the quality exceptional, but many of the coins before me had not been offered for sale in over 80 years."
The collection will be sold over the next four years with approximately 15 separate sales, the first of which is scheduled for May 20 and will include the finest British machine-struck coins and medallions.
Among the notable pieces in the Traveller Collection is a 100 ducat gold coin of Ferdinand III of Habsburg, minted in 1629 when he was Archduke of Austria, King of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia. The coin consists of 348.5 grams of pure gold and is one of the largest denominations of European gold coins ever minted, The Economic Times noted. "It is a mythical coin," said Russo.
Also in the collection is a rare set of five Tomans, minted in Tehran and Isfahan during the late 18th and early 19th centuries under Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar. Only five such sets are known to exist, with one housed in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, The Economic Times stated.
Experts predicted individual pieces from the collection could fetch record-breaking sums, according to The Economic Times. The rarity of the coins and the unique history of the Traveller Collection make it a once-in-a-lifetime event for collectors and historians.
"Coins were the mediation between leaders and their subjects, a projection of image and power," Guest explained, according to The Economic Times. "They were a way to celebrate peace or war. They were the social media of their day."
The article was written with the assistance of a news analysis system.