Kwartje becomes most expensive Dutch coin ever sold
An 1891 Netherlands 25 Cents or kwartje sold for €1.045.000 (about $1,130,376) at Heritage Auctions Europe-Cooperatief (an affiliate of Heritage Auctions) on Monday, May 13, 2024, becoming the most expensive Dutch coin ever sold. The previous record for the most ever paid for a Dutch coin was €700.000 ($757,190) paid in 2021 for an 8-fold gold rosenobel; the best result for a Netherlands Kingdom (1806-present) was the €200.000 paid last year for an 1867 gold double ducat.
“This coin was the cover piece for our catalog, but we expected a hammer price between €300.000 and €400.000,” says Jacco Scheper, Managing Director of HA-Europe. “Nobody expected this world record.”
Bids came in quickly for the coin in Lot 358, which opened at €300.000 before soaring to its record result in a matter of two minutes. The 1891 quarter is considered the pinnacle of “Kingdom coins”. This record-setting example, which Scheper called “the Holy Grail for coin collectors” in RTL Nieuws, was the only one available on the open collecting market, and has had just four owners in the past century.
The record price for this 1891 Netherlands 25 Cents continued a successful week for World and Ancient coins at Heritage, whose CSNS World & Ancient Coins Platinum Session and Signature Auction brought $11,904,407 as part of Heritage’s Central States Numismatic Society (CSNS) auction events that reached a combined $52,341,143.
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