The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 49, December 5, 2004, Article 6

ARTICLE DISCUSSES ELIASBERG COINS

The Associated press published a story this week
About the upcoming Eliasberg auction:

"When rare coin expert John Kraljevich holds a 2,400-
year-old gold coin in his hand, visions of centuries of 
drama, even intrigue and mystery fill his head.

Kraljevich and colleagues at a Wolfeboro company
are getting plenty of those visions lately, as they 
examine a treasure expected to fetch at least
several million dollars at auction next spring.

"We've got piles and piles of them around here," 
he said of the coins being examined at American 
Numismatic Rarities.

Kraljevich, the company's director of numismatic 
research, said the 2,800 coins from fabled collector
Louis Eliasberg are drawing so much interest because 
they include a huge variety from around the world and 
have been hidden away in a bank vault in Baltimore 
for more than 40 years.

Usually, he said, someone assembles a collection, 
holds it for 10 or 20 years, then puts it up for sale or 
auction. Parts of this collection were on display in the 
1960s, but much of it was put away and essentially forgotten.

It includes gold coins from ancient Greece and Rome,  
an extensive collection of gold from Latin America and 
rare items from Japan.

[Now referring to Dave Bowers...]
" He said the current generation of collectors had no
idea such a vast amount of rare items existed, let alone 
that it was going to come on the market

"It's just a fantastic collection, sort of like King Tut's Tomb 
or Ali Baba's cave," he said."

"It's dramatic," he said. "There's a reason why hidden gold 
treasure is a theme in so many movies. The idea of a golden 
treasure is one of those evocative images that anyone can identify with."

Eliasberg, a prominent Baltimore banker and philanthropist 
who died in 1976, bought most of the collection in the 1940s, 
and added to it into the mid-1970s. Part of it drew tens of 
thousands of spectators when on display at the Smithsonian Museum
in 1960. Elisasberg's family recently decided to put the collection up for auction.

Several dozen of the coins will be displayed at the Baltimore Coin & Currency 
Convention, this week and during the New York City International Numismatic 
Convention, in mid-January. All 2,800 coins will be auctioned in New York 
City on April 18 and 19."

To read the full article, see: Full Article

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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