21-10-2013 – 01-01-1970
Auction 8
Eukleidas led Nomos 8 auction with 500,000 CHF
For an auction to do well a number of factors have to combine: the material has to be really good, the estimates have to be rational, and the time has to be right. Well, this is exactly what happened with Nomos Auction 8!
The sale opened a very successful auction week in Zürich (including auctions from Tkalec AG and Hess-Divo): the atmosphere was buoyant and there were dealers and collectors from Europe, America and Asia both in the room and on line. This meant that there was a great deal of competition and excitement: many coins went for dramatically more than their estimates. Lovely and rare coins with old pedigrees did especially well: the Metapontine nomos with Dionysos from Leu 33 and Hess-Leu 28, soared to 28,000 (lot 19, est. 10,000); the Katane tetradrachm (38, est. 12,500) went up to 52,000; the Leontinoi (42), which seemed high to many at its est. of 25,000 went for 50,000; and the spectacular facing head tetradrachm by Eukleidas from Syracuse (52) went up from its est. of 75,000 to an astonishing 500,000!
Anyone who would like to can check through the prices realized to find more exciting results (including quite a number of bargains too!), but there are a few more pieces that ought to be pointed out. The dramatic looking Ainos (64, with a pedigree back to the Chakowski sale of 1908) more than doubled its est. of 8,500 and reached 19,000; a lovely little obol of Perrhaiboi (136) soared to 10,000 (est. 3,000); an Athenian tetradrachm of the early 4th century (155, est. at 2,750 and with a pedigree going back to 1897) was so heavily fought over that it finally sold at 32,000 – a truly amazing price for a wonderful coin. Yet a very attractive and unique denarius of Severus Alexander (238, est. 4,250), sold well under estimate to a lucky floor bidder at 3,600!
In the weeks before the sale took place many people came to view the coins: this is important both for prospective buyers and for us, since we learn from their comments. A perfect example of this is lot 15, a lovely nomos from Metapontum. During viewing a well-known and perky European dealer carefully examined the coin and discovered it had been very skillfully repaired: no one else had seen it but thanks to the viewing we could announce this fact before the sale (and it still went for 7600 to a floor bidder)!
Overall, it was a very successful sale with coins that had total estimates of 1.1 Million CHF selling for 2.2 Million!
Highlights
To browse through the whole auction 8 catalogue please click here.
Consignments to Nomos Auction 9 in May 2014
If you are interested in consigning material to Nomos, or would like to explore a direct sale, or merely need numismatic advice, you certainly can contact the Nomos team.