拍品描述： [Green, Colonel Edward Howland Robinson]. Boyd, F.C.C. Appraisal of the Colonel E.H.R. Green Estate Collection of Coins, Medals & Tokens, and Paper Money. New York City. F.C.C Boyd, Appraiser, (1937).

Original red cloth-backed stiff brown card covers. 35.5 by 45.5 cm. (2), 442 leaves of original carbon typescript on pre-printed sheets, ruled in blue, with pencil computations. Front and back covers neatly detached, otherwise Fine with all interior pages intact. Of the highest importance as a contemporary record of one of the greatest American collections, accomplished by another of the greatest collectors of the early 20th Century.
The son of financier Hetty Green, popularly known as the "Witch of Wall Street," Colonel E.H.R. ("Ned") Green (1868-1936) spent astonishing sums in the 1920s and 1930s on his hobbies. Arthur H. Lewis's biography of Green, The Day They Shook the Plum Tree, tells the remarkable story of the miserly mother and her profligate son, who, upon Hetty's death in 1916, indulged his enormous appetite for yachts, coins, stamps, jewels, orchids, and exactly the sorts of women one assumes Hetty warned him about at length. The average annual income in the United States in 1916, when Hetty Green died, was a bit over $700; in 1936, when Col. Green died, it was something over $1,700. Lewis estimates that Col. Green spent as much as $3 million a year on his various pastimes. He vies with Egypt's King Farouk as perhaps the most eccentric coin collector of the twentieth century.

Green's numismatic holdings were amassed on a scale exceeded by few, and the truly remarkable inventory present here confirms it. The first sheet comprises a "Recapitulation of Coins, Medals & Tokens" with a face value of $126,409.13 for 51,018 pieces, valued at $376,799.64. The second sheet features a "Recapitulation Paper Money" with a face value of $839,688.92 for 62,434 pieces, valued at $858,122.18. Thereafter, the inventory sheets feature columns for Trunk / Book / Page / Date / MM / Denomination / Remarks / Face Value / Good / Very Good / Fine / Very Fine / Ex. Fine / Unc / Proof / Total Pieces / Value. Since the items are listed by the trunk in which they were stored, the arrangement is not always orderly. The result is similar to Virgil Brand's ledgers, which are arranged by date of acquisition. All the good things are there, but serendipity may be required to find them quickly.

Green's American holdings are comprehensive and laden with rarities, from colonials to pioneer and federal gold issues, half cents to silver dollars, from Hard Times tokens to patterns to encased postage stamps. The foreign portion is hardly less impressive: the collection features extensive world gold, especially rich in Mexican, Central and South American pieces, but running the gamut, including platinum and other Russian coins. While the face value of the paper money predominates, nearly ninety percent of the 442 pages are devoted to listing coins, tokens and medals. Indeed, $198,256.00 of the various "bank notes extracted from various trunks," were "delivered to the Redemption Department of United States Treasury, Washington, D.C. and destroyed." This said, the face value and appraised value of the paper money differed only to a small degree in 1936. However, the content listed on pages 439-441 of the appraisal include more than 3,200 original six-subject sheets of 1929 National Bank Notes, putting the astonishing vastness and modern-day significance of the holdings into perspective.

In American Numismatic Biographies, Pete Smith sheds light on this amazing inventory: "On October 25, 1936 [Green's] collection was transferred from South Dartmouth to the First National Bank of Boston. The move required eight armored cars, sixteen private guards and seven state policemen. At the time the value of his coin collection was estimated at $5 million... In 1937 F.C.C. Boyd was asked to make an appraisal of the collection. The courts determined that the value for tax purposes was $1,240,299. His total estate was valued at more than $40 million."

Col. Green's obituary in the July 1936 issue of The Numismatist summarizes his collection well: "Although he kept his personality well in the background in numismatics, he had been for a number of years one of the largest and most active collectors in the United States, and when his collection is disposed of-if it is, publicly-even those who knew him well will probably be surprised at its size. He had several agents among the dealers who were always on the lookout for rarities for him, and for whom he was always a desirable customer." Green's inventory is of the highest importance because no catalogue of his monumental numismatic collection was ever made. The coins, medals, tokens and paper currency were gradually dispersed privately, and the lack of a formal catalogue is a serious impediment to provenance research.

This was F.C.C. Boyd's own copy of the Green inventory, which was acquired by John J. Ford, Jr. along with Boyd's own extensive collections of colonial coins, tokens, medals and colonial paper money. It last sold in the 2004 Stack's-Kolbe Sale of the John J. Ford, Jr. Reference Library, Part I, lot 518, where it brought $42,550. To our knowledge, only one other example of the Green inventory has come to market: the Green Estate's copy, sold in Kolbe & Fanning's 2012 New York Book Auction, lot 287, which sold for $40,250 and is now a part of one of the finest American numismatic libraries ever assembled. It seems highly possible, if not likely, that only these two copies are extant, though a third (the original typescript) existed at one time. The present copy is from the library of John J. Ford, Jr., who obtained it from the estate of the appraiser, F.C.C. Boyd. Another copy may never come to sale.

Provenance: From F.C.C. Boyd; John J. Ford, Jr., Our sale, in association with George Frederick Kolbe Fine Numismatic Books, of the John J. Ford, Jr. Reference Library, Part I, June 2004, lot 518.


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