Stack’s Bowers Galleries’ and Sotheby’s May 19 auction of 128 coins from the D. Brent Pogue Collection was the first of seven auctions that will place hundreds of rare coins in the marketplace. Here are three coins that represent different facets of the diversity and quality of his holdings. 

The Coin 
1797 Draped Bust, 13 Stars Dime, MS-64

The Price 
$176,250

The Story 
So many of Pogue’s coins were part of other famous collections in the past, including this 1797 Draped Bust, 13 Obverse Stars, dime graded PCGS MS-64. It opened for a bid of $90,000 and ultimately sold for a bid of $150,000 (or, $176,250 with the buyer’s fee) just topping the estimate of $120,000 to $175,000.

While the coin itself is impressive as one of just two such graded coins of this issue at PCGS with none finer, it has also served as a plate coin for several references in the field and has a noteworthy ownership history.

Before 1887 it was in the Thomas Cleneay Collection and was sold in 1890 as part of S. Hudson and Henry Chapman’s sale of that collection to an unknown buyer. It appeared in B. Max Mehl’s 1946 auction of the William Cutler Atwater Collection and in 1966 sold at a Lester Merkin sale for $7,250. In 1980 Stack’s offered it as part of the Charles Kahn Collection and Stack’s again sold it in 1990 for $26,000 at the Allen F. Lovejoy auction. It passed through more hands before being purchased by Pogue at Heritage’s sale of the Ed Price Collection in July 2008 where, graded NGC MS-65, it brought $402,500, proving that in even the greatest collections, not all coins appreciate in value between auctions.

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