December 22, 2011 – The Hispanic Society of America will offer its collection of rare coins as a single lot at Sotheby’s beginning December 22, 2011 and running until March 2012. The collection has been assembled by Archer Milton Huntington, the Hispanic Society’s founder, over a century ago and consists of almost 38,000 coins. It is considered to be one of the most significant collections of coins connected with Spanish history outside of Spain and is expected to raise between $25 million and $35 million.
Over fifty years ago Mr Huntington decided that the collection should remain at the American Numismatic Society (ANS) to be object of study and to remain intact. For this reason the ANS refused to restore the coins to the Hispanic Society. Since years the Hispanic Society struggles with economic problems and planned to sell the collection. Now a court decided that the Hispanic Society is the legal owner and can sell the collection.
You can read a more detailed article on this topic in the New York Times Online.
More information on the Hispanic Society of America offers its website.
More on the ANS and its services you will find here.
January 4, 2012. Corrigendum: Dr. Ute Wartenberg Kagan, Executive Director of the ANS, informed us in an e-mail that the news concerning the HSA is mistakable. The ANS never contested the HSA’s property rights of the collection. The ANS kept the coins always as loan. It was not ANS that went to court but the HSA and this is now two years ago.