Let me ask you, my friend, how many times have you seen a precious item and wished you owned it, but couldn't because of its high price? I personally faced this situation many times! But there is a partial solution: knowledge….
Knowledge! Knowledge of the coin in front of you is the fundamental difference between one collector and another. If you were an Egyptian coin collector and someone offered you a few millieme coins at a fixed price, and you found some of them to be milliemes from 1933 and 1932, your knowledge would be useful because your previous reading of the catalog helped you realize that these issues are rarer than others. The same applies if you were a stamp collector and someone offered you a set of boats with and without the Port Fouad inscription!
Science or knowledge has levels, and you will find it very useful the more you delve into it. It will also help you to identify errors and rarities, and most importantly, it will help you to avoid pieces that have been cleaned previously or counterfeit pieces, etc.
Let me tell you an example; a short while ago I found this envelope for sale in a stamp auction group, and the seller described it as follows: “February 1, 1944, Abdeen Palace - a large envelope printed with the cliché of the King’s Private Secretariat, addressed to the coin dealer “Max Mehl” in Texas, with stamps worth 279 milliemes stamped with the palace seal and the registration seal, in addition to the King’s official seal - arrival stamp on the back for Texas on February 27.”
The letter sent from Abdeen Palace on February 1st
The auction started at £38, but I placed a maximum bid of £200 and won the envelope at the opening price of £38 due to lack of interest.
The reason I was determined to win it was that I realized this speech was important in American history, because by checking the dates I was able to prove that it reached Max Mehl in the same week he sold the American 20$. Double Eagle 1933 for King Farouk!
The famous twenty-dollar double eagle coin
This particular piece is considered legendary in the world of American coins, as it was minted by mistake and a decision was made to destroy all the pieces. However, one of the mint workers managed to steal some of them, and one of them was offered for sale in a regular auction. But the most famous stamp dealer, Ernest Kahr (and it is a strange coincidence that Kahr was a specialist in Egyptian stamps and had several interesting books about them), alerted the authorities.
However, just 3 days before he was alerted, the king actually bought one piece legally and officially for $5,500 (which is my ongoing argument with my American friends who believe that he smuggled it to Cairo!). The authorities were able to confiscate all the pieces except this one, and the FBI asked the government for help in recovering the piece, which was on foreign soil. The matter was escalated to the US State Department, which in turn refused the Egyptian king’s demand for the piece, especially at this time, for fear of upsetting an important ally during World War II.
Following the events of July 1952, the Ministry finally decided to respond to the FBI's insistence and officially requested the artifact from General Muhammad Naguib. Naguib welcomed its withdrawal from the Qubba Palace auction in 1954 and its return to America as a token of friendship between the two countries. The artifact was indeed withdrawn during the auction. However, events in Egypt were unstable, as Lieutenant Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser was on the verge of succeeding in overthrowing Naguib. Relations quickly deteriorated after the failure of Egyptian-American arms talks and the financing of the Aswan High Dam.
Image from the book cover: The Bimbashi and the King – The Child
The piece officially disappeared from 1954 until 1995 when it appeared in London through a famous Egyptian jeweler who was selling precious coins on the instructions of the heirs of one of the second-tier Free Officers. An English trader - armed with knowledge - bought it for $220,000 and was able to find a buyer for it (a famous trader) in New York in 1996 and they agreed on $850,000, who in turn had a rich buyer who offered to buy the piece for $1,650,000!
While the deal was being finalized at the luxurious Waldorf Astoria Hotel, police officers—who had been monitoring the two traders hoping to recover the coin for the US government—raided the premises, seized the valuable currency, and stored it in a massive vault in the World Trade Center. It was moved shortly before the tower's destruction. Following the seizure, the seller sued the government, and the coin was ordered to be sold at public auction.
Ali had to share the profits with the government, which is what happened, and it was sold in 2002 for a fantastic price at the time, which was $7,590,000. It is enough to mention that the auction was held entirely for this unique piece alone, and a very luxurious catalog was issued for it (attached is a picture of the catalog and some books related to this piece from my private library).
Returning to the envelope, once it was shown to a few American coin enthusiasts, the asking price reached $800 due to its crucial importance to their growing history! Arm yourself with knowledge.
Moheb Rizkalla
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