STAN KESSELMAN INTERVIEW, PART THREE

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V27 2024 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 27, Number 27, July 7, 2024, Article 11

Greg Bennick's latest interview for the Newman Numismatic Portal is with New York dealer Stan Kesselman. Here's the third part, where Stan talks about collectors Mack and Brent Pogue, and the 1815 half eagle. -Editor

GREG BENNICK: Would you say that that's your favorite coin you've ever handled? Or are there other coins?

STANLEY KESSELMAN: Well, I didn't really handle it. I mean, I had it in my hand. My favorite coin I ever handled. There was a collector called Mack Pogue and his son. Do you know them? He owned the Lincoln property. And I met Pogue in Dallas. And the first time we met him, we had a bunch of coins on the table. He never bought a coin in his life. And we had a set of Stellas. We had an 1857 ten in Proof, which came from Garrett. I haven't seen one since. There's supposedly two known. But I guess maybe the government has the other one.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: And he looks around what we have and said, you know, I never bought a coin before. What should I buy? And I said, you should buy everything. And he started to laugh. He says, you're some salesman. He said, buy everything. He ended up buying the 1857 Ten. Maybe $60,000 for it.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: You know, again, I have not seen an 1857 ten in Proof since then.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: And his son got interested in coins. I met his son when he was eight years old. Brent Pogue. And we went to the Penny Arcade together. And I financed his Penny Arcade, you know, 10 cents here, 25 cents there. And he got very interested in coins.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: And the father would do whatever the son wanted. And they ended up putting together the best condition collection of gold coins in history.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: So, then the story, I'm answering your question, what was my favorite coin?

STANLEY KESSELMAN: So, the next thing that happens, there was another client in Dallas. His name was John Morrell. I don't know if you ever heard of John Morrell.

GREG BENNICK: I don't know if I have. I don't know if I've heard of John Morrell.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: John Morrell was, he owned DeGolyer and McNaughton. They were geologists for oil. So, they knew everybody in the oil business. Now, Harry Bass, going back to him, he got his money from his father. His father was a partner of this guy called Hunt, who also had a lot of very rich sons. They were wildcatters and they struck it rich. And there's so many stories.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: So, for some reason, John Morrell called up Michael and said he wanted to sell his early fives. John Morrell never sold a coin. The stipulation was, you're going to get some secrets here. We could not sell the coins to Harry Bass. We had a promise. I don't think John Morrell liked Harry Bass at all.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: And that's what my guess. We were not allowed to sell. So, John Morrell gave us all his early fives.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: That's right. And we honored, of course, what we said we'd do. So, my favorite coin in the bunch was a 1798 $5 gold piece. EF to AU with the small eagle on the back. I've never seen one before.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: So, we paid roughly $125,000 for the coin. And we didn't have to pay John Morrell. John Morrell was an unbelievable gentleman, until we sold the coins. We pay him out of the proceeds. And John Morrell had a complete collection of coins. Just about, he had coins in his collection that we did not know existed. He had an 1844-O $5 gold piece in proof.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: And he had a lot of unbelievable coins. I don't know where he bought them. He bought them from people before me. And he had an unbelievable collection. But he was selling his early fives. So, I took the 1798 five and we sold it to Pogue. And we sold it to him maybe $325,000. And Pogue got extremely angry. He thought he was being taken advantage of.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: Pogue was smart, but he didn't trust coin dealers, which may show you how smart he really was. He kept on going from coin dealer to coin dealer from coin dealer. He never stayed in one place. He did business with us. Then he went to David Akers. Then he went to Larry Hanks. And once he went to somebody else, he wouldn't go back and do business with you anymore. David Akers sold them a lot of beautiful coins. Never took advantage of him. But for some reason, he'd always find fault with something.

So, the 1798, he always had under his craw that we took advantage of him. In the auction, I was the underbidder of the 1798 five.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: Yes. I didn't end up buying it. It went something like a million one something. Maybe a million two. And since then, it's gone for two million two. Since then. So, the fact that he was unhappy, it wasn't really justified. But you couldn't argue with him.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: But he bought some of those coins. Then we needed money to pay John Morrell. We went up to Paul Nugget at MTB, and we sold him a few coins. And then Ted Naftzger bought the rest. Didn't know a thing about early fives. Didn't care. He bought the rest.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: Well, the last 1815 half-eagle that appeared before this was 1956. That's before I was collecting coins. This was 1976, roughly speaking. The coin had not appeared at auction for 20 years. And all of us made deals with Harry Bass that we would not bid against him at auction, because he was our best customer. And we didn't want to run him up at all.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: So, the 1815 was in the auction. And I said to myself, this coin has not appeared for 20 years. I've never seen another one. The coin was beautiful. It was graded to 64. And then they upgraded it to a 65 holder. And it had beautiful color to it. So, I bought the 1815. I paid $75,000 for it, which I thought was very inexpensive. Harry Bass was the underbidder. When he found out I bought it and I outbid him on the coin, he wouldn't speak to me for three years.

GREG BENNICK: I was going to ask about that. Yeah. I was wondering where that was going.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: So, I took the coin and I sold it to Ted Naftzger. He bought it. And then Ted Naftzger put together a beautiful set of fives. And he calls me up again and said he needs money. And I couldn't handle all his fives together. It was just too much money. So, I called David Akers up and David Akers put out a catalog with Ted Naftzger's fives. And Pogue bought most of them from David Akers.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: Where I made absolutely nothing, but I was happy because Ted Naftzger got his money. And David Akers made some money. And Pogue was happy because he got all the coins.

STANLEY KESSELMAN: And Harry Bass eventually started to talk to me. And he bought another 1815 five someplace else. It was no big deal.

About the Interviewer
Greg Bennick (www.gregbennick.com) is a keynote speaker and long time coin collector with a focus on major mint error coins. Have ideas for other interviewees? Contact him anytime on the web or via instagram @minterrors.