Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Finding buried treasure is a fantasy that has become a reality for the specialist coin auctioneers, Numismatica Ars Classica (NAC). They have been entrusted to sell a single collection of about 15,000 mostly gold and silver coins spanning ancient Greece to 20th-century Britain and valued for insurance at more than $100mn. The bulk of its value remained underground for more than 50 years. In fear of the threat of a Nazi invasion of Europe, the collector — a Europe-based heir to a family business whose identity is not being disclosed — buried more than 10,000 coins in his garden, explains Arturo Russo, director and co-owner of NAC. Most were put into envelopes and placed in cigar boxes with the collection then sealed in about a dozen aluminium casings. The owner shared their location only with his wife and then, soon after the Nazis did invade, died of a stroke. He had begun what became “a collecting obsession” by buying gold bullion in the 1930s, when the Great Depression in the US meant “there was a loss of faith in the traditional banking systems so he looked at alternative ways to store value”, the London-based Russo says. “By the end of the 1930s, he was going to major auctions and making sophisticated, rare finds in the field around the world,” he says, going on to create what is now being dubbed the “Traveller Collection”. Come the mid-1990s, the traveller’s widow realised that, given her advancing age, it was time to unearth the treasure and subsequently called in NAC to produce an inventory and valuation. The buried coins were not revealed to the auctioneers until 2022 and have taken more than a year to catalogue, Russo says. Sifting through the treasure “was like going to a candy store every day for us”, he enthuses. Their finds have ranged from British sovereigns — which can sell for under £1,000 each — to a 100 ducat gold piece from the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III of Habsburg that weighs 350g, and which Russo describes as “a mythical coin”. This dates to 1629 and is now valued at the equivalent of $1.4mn, “though we expect much more”, he says. Back in 2018, a rare Polish gold 100 ducat coin, struck in 1621 for King Sigismund III Vasa, sold for $2.2mn in New York.The Traveller’s meticulous diary keeping means that most of the pieces have a provenance that goes back to the 19th centuryThe Traveller coins are so numerous — and their combined value the highest ever for the public sale of such a collection — that NAC plans to offer them in about 15 auctions, phased over four years. The first sale, on May 20, will be of the top British coins from the collection, which number about 200 and date from the first machine-struck coins of Charles II’s restoration monarchy in the late 17th century to those that marked the 1937 coronation of George VI, when the collector began buying in earnest.The mystery surrounding the traveller points to a characteristic of coin collectors, Russo says. “They are often private and reserved, as well as meditative, knowledgeable and very competent. You don’t get occasional buyers,” he adds, a distinct difference from the fine art arena.Certain engravers command higher values, such as the British Royal Mint expert and prodigious coin-maker William Wyon (1795-1851). The Traveller Collection includes examples of Wyon’s Una and the Lion £5 coins, struck in 1839, which show the young Queen Victoria as the calming, virtuous Una from Edmund Spenser’s 16th-century epic poem “The Faerie Queene”. A silver version is estimated at £150,000 and a gold coin at £250,000.Coins are also revered for the historic occasions that they commemorate, such as the ninth-century silver penny issued to celebrate Alfred the Great’s claim of London from Danish invaders — one of which is in the Traveller Collection, estimated about $11,000. Coins that never come into full circulation are particularly prized, such as those submitted for approval that often show off an engraver’s finest work — the Wyon coins of Queen Victoria are among these “very desirable objects”, says David Guest, who runs his own numismatic business and is consulting on the English and French coins in the collection. The highest price ever paid for a coin at auction is $18.9mn and was for a so-called 1933 “Double Eagle” coin, with a triumphant Lady Liberty on one side and an eagle in flight on the back, sold at Sotheby’s in 2021. This $20 coin was never circulated due to the financial crises of the Great Depression.Forgeries do exist, although there are “many ways to establish authenticity”, Russo says. “We see thousands of these objects all the time, our first impression is usually the right one,” he adds, while there are also systematic comparisons with public specimens, and die studies that reveal specific strike techniques.Metals such as the gold and silver in the Traveller Collection do not deteriorate — the decades underground have not impacted their condition, experts say. A couple of the boxes were broken and the paper failed on some envelopes, on which their owner had recorded their acquisition and other details. In general, though, his meticulous diary keeping and the specific nature of coin series mean that most of the pieces have a provenance that goes back to the 19th century, “much better than for most antiquities”, Russo says.Meanwhile, coins are currently benefiting from a general upswing of collectible categories on the art market. “It’s been buoyant for a while,” Guest says. “Covid helped as it is an area that lends itself to distance selling — you can get very good photographs, with a lot of detail. Price discovery is also much easier in a field where there are duplicates, and it is a very liquid asset.” Coins offer a piece of history that can be clasped in one hand. As Guest puts it: “Coins were the mediation between leaders and their subjects, a projection of image and power. They were a way to celebrate peace or war. They were the social media of their day.”arsclassicacoins.comFind out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning
