Sunday, January 30 will see the first dedicated Showcase sale from Heritage Auctions featuring offerings from The Long Island Collection, a wide-ranging collection of US and world coinage.
This initial offering will feature European coinage, most notably from Great Britain and the Netherlands, ranging from medieval issues through the early 20th century. Future auctions will cover French coinage, Latin American coinage, and American issues from both the colonial and US Mint periods.
One of the fascinating coins in this auction is a Russian Aleksei Mikhailovich Counterstamped 1/2 Yefimok (Jefimok), graded VF30 by NGC.
The coin features counterstamps with the tsar on horseback and the date 1655 on a cut host Lion Daalder from Zwolle. Presenting dove toning and well-defined motifs, this example showcases a very interesting type: not the usual Yefimok, but the scarcer 1/2 denomination. These issues were part of the unsuccessful reforms made by Tsar Aleksei in an attempt to reconstruct the Russian monetary system, as noted by Spassky in The Russian Monetary System (1967).
The pair of countermarks would have revalued a Taler to 64 Kopeks, while already cut hosts such as the present coin would have been revalued at 32 Kopeks. According to Spassky, these Daalders only contained 38 Kopecks-worth of silver, which, while making them unsuitable for the countermarking program, led the Russian government to acquire them primarily for use in jewelry. This likely explains why so few survive down to the present day.
As such, this coin is an elusive offering that is sure to garner much attention from Russian type collectors.
Just a few of the other highlights of this collection include:
- German East Africa: German Colony. Wilhelm II gold 15 Rupien 1916-T MS61 NGC, Tabora mint, KM16.2
- Brunswick-Lüneburg-Calenberg-Hannover. Georg III gold Pistole 1803-C MS62star Prooflike NGC, Clausthal mint, KM418, Fr-620
- Saxony. Friedrich August III gold 10 Taler or Doppelter August D’or 1795-IEC XF40 NGC, Dresden mint, KM1029, Fr-2878
- Great Britain: Henry VII (1485-1509) gold Angel ND (1499-1502) AU55 NGC, Tower mint, Anchor mm, S-2187
- Great Britain: Henry VIII (1509-1547) gold Angel ND (1509-1526) AU55 NGC, Tower mint, Portcullis mm, First coinage, S-2265
- Great Britain: James II gold Guinea 1685 AU53 NGC, KM453.1, S-3400
- Great Britain: William & Mary gold Guinea 1692 XF45 NGC, KM474.1, S-3426
Bid on the coins in this auction through Sunday, January 30 at Coins.HA.com. The concluding live session is scheduled for 8 PM CT.