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HARDCOVER EDITION HIGGY COLLECTION

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:65.00 USD Estimated At:125.00 USD
HARDCOVER EDITION HIGGY COLLECTION
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Kosoff, A. [Numismatic Gallery]. CATALOGUE OF THE MICHAEL F. HIGGY COLLECTION, COLUMBUS, OHIO. UNITED STATES GOLD, SILVER AND COPPER COINS, FOREIGN GOLD AND CROWNS, COLONIALS, PATTERNS AND PRIVATE GOLD. New York, Sept. 10–11, 1943. 4to, original green cloth, gilt; original printed covers bound in. 86, (2), (4) pages; 1852 lots; portrait; illustrated; prices realized list. Top edges sunned; spine head bruised. Very good. The Special Hardbound Edition, ex Henry Grunthal, with his name impressed in gilt on the base of the front cover. Diminutive B.A. Martin, Bookbinder, label affixed at base of rear pastedown. Adams page 184: “Good fortune, which had been smiling on Numismatic Galleries, was to become more generous yet. In 1943, Kosoff was given an opportunity to bid on the Michael F. Higgy Collection, featuring strong U.S. material in unusually fine condition. Jim Kelly, the high bidder, was immediately classified 1-A for the draft, so Kosoff won the collection by default. However, from this point on he made his own luck: sensing a reawakening in the coin market, he prepared an elaborate catalogue and promoted it heavily; bidders responded enthusiastically, setting new records in almost every case, many by factors of two or three. With justifiable pride, Kosoff pointed to this sale as the beginning of the modern coin market.” Kosoff pioneered the widespread distribution of special hardbound editions as a promotional tool and, later, as a source of income. For whatever reason, however, he did not employ the special hardbound Higgy catalogue for this purpose, apart from the collected hardbound edition of his first twenty-eight sales issued in limited numbers. Accordingly, copies of the Higgy sale bound in green cloth, as here, rarely come to market; indeed, it may be the most difficult hardbound catalogue to obtain in the entire series.