FEDERAL COIN EXCHANGE CATALOGUE MYSTERY SOLVED?

The Martin Gengerke and John Adams auction catalog references both list a Federal Coin Exchange sale #1 of April 21, 1946, but being “not seen”. The date of this sale seems questionable, given that that was an Easter Sunday, as well as being in close proximity to FCE sale #2, which was held on May 24, 1946.

Since Charles Davis’ cataloguing of the Armand Champa Library Sales in 1994-1995, we’ve known that the first standalone Federal Coin Exchange catalogue was actually dated February 23, 1946. (Champa Part 4, 11/28/95, lot 3462). Karl Moulton also confirms that his Prices Realized List for this sale states “Auction #1”.

I recently had a chance to study an FCE sale having the date of Saturday April 21 & Sunday April 22. No year was given, but I first assumed it was the missing 1946 Gengerke/Adams sale. However, the sale contained several coins dated 1950, and Saturday did not fall on April 21 in 1946. The only nearby year that contained a Saturday April 21 was 1951.

I believe that this April 21-22, 1951 sale was incorrectly reported to Gengerke/Adams as a 1946 sale, and that the record should be re-written as:

#1 2/23/46 (32pp, 1333 lots) (per Davis & Moulton)
#2 5/24/46 (as in Gengerke)
##3 11/23/46 (as in Gengerke)
##4 1/18/47 (as in Gengerke)
##5 4/26/47 (as in Gengerke)
##6 10/25/47 (as in Gengerke)
##7 2/21/48 (as in Gengerke)
##(7a) 4/21/51 (18pp, 866 lots)
##(8) 11/01/52 (as in Gengerke)
#…

Given the big date gaps of the above, are there even more unrecognized FCE sales out there?

Thanks to David Fanning, Karl Moulton, and Charles Davis for their assistance.

Wayne Homren, Editor

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