THE VIRGIL BRAND COLLECTION

I didn't submit Virgil Brand as having the largest coin collection, as I figured there would be plenty of emails noting his collection.

He had over 130,000 entries in his journals (I believe there were 18 or more. Tony Terranova donated some to the ANS that Tony had purchased, I believe at auction).

Probably had over a million coins, as he had thousands of Civil War tokens and Cal Fractionals. I think the tokens were stored in beer barrels.

He had several bags of 1923-D double eagles (1 entry per bag).

I just recently saw that someone had purchased the last of his collection. Crates of medals.

He stored the boxes (often cigar boxes) in custom made leather satchels that weighed up to 250 pounds each.

I bought so many 1923-D double eagles from MTB in 1983 (they bought the "bullion" from the Jand Brand Allen estate) that Gerry Bauman gave me a Brand cigar box with dozens of brown "kraft like" envelopes used to store the 1923-D double eagles (each was marked with the inventory number and a unique number for each coin). These envelopes were approx. 2 by 3 inches.

I still have them and the cigar box. The box is labeled "Rarities 1-150" although I would have to look at it to see the exact number it held - it was 161 or some other number, not 150. One can only imagine what it contained. He owned 12 1827 quarters, 5 or 6 1884 Trade dollars, a couple of 1885 Trade dollars, two Brasher doubloons, and countless other rarities.

Greatest private coin collection of all time!

To read the earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
VIRGIL BRAND ESTATE TOKENS AND MEDALS FOUND (https://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v19n04a09.html)
TEICHMAN INDEXES VIRGIL BRAND LEDGERS AT ANS (https://www.coinbooks.org/v20/esylum_v20n19a07.html)
WHO HAD THE LARGEST COLLECTION IN THE U.S.? (https://www.coinbooks.org/v27/esylum_v27n06a15.html)

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