On May 10,2019 two suspects, male and female, entered Willard Coin Exchange in Mansfield,Ohio and requested to see gold coins from a showcase. While the male suspect looked at the gold, the female browsed in the shop. Both suspects spoke in what was described as Spanish sounding language.

After looking at the gold coins the male suspect joined the female and they continued to walk throughout the shop. During this time, the store became busy and after the suspects left video footage showed the suspects gaining entry into the gold show case and removing over $60-70,000 in gold coins slabbed and raw.

Partial listing of stolen coins:

• 1808 US $5 Gold PCGS AU58 #36273582
• 1801 US $10 Gold PCGS AU details #35058963
• Misc US and Foreign gold raw (2×2’s) and slabbed

NCIC is reviewing the footage in an attempt to identify the suspects. The two suspects may have been traveling from shop to shop in the Ohio and surrounding States.

Anyone with information contact:

Doug Davis
817-723-7231
Doug@numismaticcrimes.org

In a very rare opportunity, vintage coin board collector and dealer David W. Lange has negotiated the purchase of more than 400 antique coin boards from the 1930s and ’40s. Far from a random hoard, this collection represents many years of careful selection by a discriminating individual in the Midwest. It is from this source that Lange has dubbed the assemblage the “Midwest Collection.”

Included are pieces from all seven publishers of the original 11″ x 14″ coin boards that predated the folders widely used today. Even the very rare 1940 coin boards of New York City’s Gramercy Stamp Company are present. In a truly remarkable opportunity, the collection also features a single board from the exceedingly rare publisher Earl & Koehler of Portland, Oregon. To date, just over a dozen boards have surfaced of this obscure brand that was in production for just the single year of 1939.

Although many of the boards will be familiar to veteran collectors as among the more commonly seen brands and titles, the collection is particularly rich in “vendor stamped” boards that are highly prized for their historic associations. It was the practice of many retailers to rubber stamp or sticker coin boards with their name and address. Most such vendors were in the Upper Midwest, which was the home turf of the earliest coin boards after this product’s invention by Joseph K. Post in 1934. It was these inexpensive and widely distributed coin boards that put coin collecting on the map and made it an “everyman” hobby between 1935 and 1940. When the current coin series became too long to fit on a single-panel board, the more adaptable coin folders began to replace boards starting in 1939.

“I’m still going through these hundreds of pieces to determine which items are new varieties or upgrades to my own collection,” Lange observed. “I’m an eager collector of vendor stamps myself, as they have the local appeal that has attracted so many collectors of tokens and national bank notes.” The other boards will be placed first with those having want lists with Lange, while the remaining pieces will be included in future price lists. Lange has produced 40 such lists since 2008, and he sends these out along with his quarterly publication Coin Board News, which recently celebrated its 50th issue. In addition, he maintains a website devoted to vintage board collecting: coincollectingboards.com.

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The Midwest Collection is the second largest assemblage of coin boards that Lange has acquired in his nearly 40 years of searching for vintage pieces. Still the record holder is the Karl Manthei Collection that Lange purchased in 2006 on the eve of publishing his book, Coin Collecting Boards of the 1930s & 1940s: A Complete History, Catalog & Value Guide, which is available for purchase at his website.

A collection of 26 rare vintage Chinese coins certified by NGC realized $1,361,660 in April 2019 when it was sold by GreatCollections.

Dubbed the Cherrywood Collection for the small cherrywood box that held the coins for decades, the collection included bronze and silver patterns dating from the time when China’s Imperial Era was ending and its Republic was beginning. The coins have not been seen in the marketplace in over a century.

The top lot was a Year 3 (1911) Large Tailed Dragon Silver Dollar Pattern, L&M 33, graded NGC PF 65, which realized $511,875. This was the first example of this variety to appear in any major auction in over 10 years, and it is the finest certified by a full two grading points. Meanwhile, a Year 3 (1911) Long Whiskered Dragon Silver Dollar Pattern, L&M 29, graded NGC SP 64, realized $199,687.

All 26 coins in the Cherrywood Collection were certified by NGC. They were stored in manila envelopes within the cherrywood box, giving them an attractive, original toning.

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