FAROUK SALE LOT 1751 BUYER SOUGHT Público Deposited
The E-Sylum: Volume 9, Number 40, October 1, 2006, Article 5
FAROUK SALE LOT 1751 BUYER SOUGHT
R. V. Dewey writes: "I am attempting to research information contained
in a book sold at the Bowers and Merena Armand Champa numismatic
literature sale: Lot# 493; Sol Kaplan's "sales room copy" of the Palace
Collections of Egypt, Sotheby's 1954. On page 162 of Sol's copy, who
does he attribute Lot# 1751 to?"[Dave Bowers forwarded this request to The E-Sylum; he does not have
a photocopy of the catalog. I checked my copy of the sale (from the
Dr. James O. Sloss library) and the lot 1751 description is as follows:"1855, small one dollar, silver and brass, A.W. 194?; flying eagle
cents in nickel, copper, copper nickel, bronze, composition, bronze
with a smaller wreath, A.W. 195, 197, 199, 200, 201, 201 A.
Mostly extremely fine."The lot is in a section of United States coins. The lot appears
to consist of eight U.S. pattern coins - A.W. stands for Adams-Woodin,
the 1913 reference. AW 194 is a gold dollar pattern listed as rarity
14 (2 to 3 known). The remaining coins are Flying Eagle Cent patterns.The later U.S. pattern references (Judd and Pollack) do not seem to
list this piece; an Adams-Woodin to Judd conversion table published
by Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine does not list a Judd equivalent for
AW 194. I checked with pattern guru Saul Teichman who writes: "Many
of these off-metal gold pieces listed in Adams & Woodin turned out
to be fakes, which is why you could not find them in Judd."The lot sold for $30. The buyer of the lot? It is listed in Sloss'
copy as "H. Schulman", but there is also a neat "X" next to the name.
Some of the other lots have a similar "X", but I don't know what it
signifies. -Editor]Dave Bowers adds: "Hans Schulman was owed several hundred thousand
dollars by King Farouk when the latter was ousted by the military
junta in 1952. When the coins came up for sale, Schulman pressed his
claim, and the new Egyptian government allowed Schulman an appropriate
credit to spend at the sale. As Hans did not need that many coins he
gathered bids of other dealers and collectors and bought them under
his number, giving them a slight discount in the transaction.
Accordingly, the name of H.M.F.S. as a buyer has little meaning
except as noted."- 2006-10-01
- 9