MORE ON THE CASTORLAND HOARD

 

Like Alan Weinberg, I too have heard the stories of and read the articles and snippets of the Merkin Castorland hoard. But after talking to a few people that worked closely with Merkin and even were active Castorland Jetton Collectors at the time.

The so-called Merkin hoard of originals out of France or otherwise never materialized and is clearly not present in the extant population that has been researched so far. Several have been working on a census of so-called Simon pure Castorland Jettons (a name assigned by John J. Ford from the Sussana Centlivre's play A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1718) referring to something of untainted purity or integrity).

The pure originals with essentially no spalling or die breaks (see last blog post) are still quite rare in Silver or Copper. There was one piece illustrated in the October 2007 MCA issue from the curator of Rochester Numismatic Association allegedly handed down from the Duvivier family. But certainly no hoard.

That does not mean a hoard can still not exist. But Auction records, articles going back decades and present collections (American and French) don't reflect any such hoard.

If one of your readers knows of such a hoard (IRL), I would greatly appreciate hearing about it.

I was delighted to read Alan V. Weinberg's story about the Old French Family Hoard of Castorland jetons. He told me about the Hoard in 2014, and reading his comment refreshed many pleasant memories.

My Castorland involvement began in 1965. I was a GI on leave in Paris when I bought one as a souvenir. Many years later, 2014, I showed it to a dealer who suggested I consult Sydney Martin, editor of the C4 Newsletter. Syd helped me write an appeal for research assistance. He ran the notice in the C4 Newsletter and it attracted good responses, not the least of which was Weinberg's story about the Old French Family Hoard. Syd's notice also garnered an invitation from Tony Terranova to view his personal specimens, and that coincided nicely with my first visit to the C4 annual meeting in Baltimore. A club member opined the Castorlands were cool coins but they never went up in value. Another member said mine was a token. Another said it might be a restrike. Then a man tipped me there were three Castorlands on eBay, offered by a seller in France. That seemed to confirm Alan's French Hoard story, whetting my appetite. The man said the French seller was actually a woman, fiercely private, who absolutely would not allow him to reveal her identity. This would've been material for a novel and if I'd known who she was or where she was I would've gone to find her.

My souvenir coin became an obsession. I studied photographs of Castorland jetons in the Heritage Auction Archive. I pored over catalogue descriptions comparing them to the eBay specimens which were: PCGS 653.58/2963922, 653.60/2963920, and 653.61/2963921. Those eBay coins didn't sell as a trio. Later they were offered individually, and in time they stopped showing up on eBay so I figured someone bought them. By then I was actively following European auctions and I saw them in a Maison Palombo Geneva auction (21/11/2015), but they didn't sell. I contacted Maison Palombo. After a lot of wheedling, I got contact information for their consigner and tracked him down. He'd consigned them to a Delcampe Auction (Feb. 16, 2016). Again, they didn't sell.

The consigner, M. Saadallah, was not a reclusive French woman from an old family. He was a congenial eBay merchant living with his wife and two sons in Jouques, France. He told me he'd bought the Castorlands raw in a bric-a-brac auction where they were listed as Three Old French Coins. He had them certified by PCGS, and apparently neither their consignor in the bric-a-brac auction nor the auctioneer knew what they were.

Were they remnants of the French hoard? Who was their owner, perhaps someone who found them in a grandparents' desk? Or maybe the consigner to the bric-a-brac auction was a notary settling an estate. What did M. Saadallah pay for them? Not much I suppose, but I didn't think it appropriate to ask. I remembered the C4 member's observation that Castorlands don't go up in value. Maybe. A survey of Heritage Auction sales shows the highest price fetched by a Castorland jeton was $16,100.00 on June 3, 2007. That coin sold for $11,500.00 on May 29, 2008, and it sold for $12,075.00 on June 7, 2010, which is a 25% percent drop from its high. Who knows where it is now--maybe the Hoard story lingers, depressing the market.

To read the complete article, see:
NOTES FROM E-SYLUM READERS: DECEMBER 18, 2022 : Castorland Silver Originals (https://www.coinbooks.org/v25/esylum_v25n51a08.html)

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