Kansas Collection Offers Beautiful Bread and Butter Coins

While there are plenty of Netherlands based coins in the Kansas Collection, as well as many coins of Belgium, these two handsome pieces present a melding of the two. Begun as the Austrian Netherlands in 1713, the territory from which these coins arose passed from Spain to Austria to France to the Kingdom of the Netherlands during the 18th and 19th centuries before becoming Belgium in 1830. The Brabant Revolution of 1789-1790 against Hapsburg rule produced eight insurrection types, including these two beautiful examples in such remarkable states of preservation.

When I first started in numismatic publishing, coin dealers used the term “Bread and Butter” coins to denote those coins that were the heart of their business. Not too cheap and common, but also not too scarce and expensive. Over the years I have heard many different peoples ideas of a price range for “Bread and Butter” coins. Depending on the business and changing over time, the term has coverd anywhere from $25 to $2500, but for this article, lets just say the “Bread and Butter” coins of the Kansas collection are plentiful and of perfect picking quality.

The Kansas Collection is focused on European coinage and is being offered in the Nov. 14 Showcase Auction #61236 at Heritage. If your interest is piqued already, I’d suggest you go right to the Heritage website at www.ha.com after reading this article and get registered to bid.

Swiss Shooting Talers are one of the nice pocket areas in 19th and 20th century collecting. You could call it a niche, but it’s one of the larger ones in numismatics. The Kansas Collection contains a few pieces and among them is this matte proof Fribourg 5 Franc of 1943. While the business strike is around, you don’t often encounter the matte proof, which had a recorded mintage of just 650 pieces.

The sale is set up for just one session and contains just over 400 lots, mostly single coins, most higher grade for their type and many right in the heart of “Bread and Butter” coin country. We are only five days out from closing and many lots are under $100 and glistening with the morning dew of a good bargain.

I’ve picked just a few coins to highlight here to give a taste of some of the less encountered items, but I have no doubt that most any reader will find interesting coins in this beautiful little Kansas Collection. It’s a treaure trove of eye appeal at price levels I think you may find very attractive.

The Kansas Collections offers a good selection of coins of the Netherlands both provinces and united. The coin which caught and held my interest in this section was a remarkably sharply struck 10 Stuivers of 1749 from Holland graded MS65+ by NGC. What a wonderful example of this three year type and it’s only bid to $310 with just five days until closing.

The Swedish coins of the Kansas Collection offer examples of many types in the mid-MS grades. Most of these 19th and 20th century circulation types had long date runs, the coins really circulated well and finding them at this state of preservation is quite difficult. In the mix I noticed this 1896 2 öre graded PR65 by NGC. This is the KM746 which had issues from 1877 to 1905, crossing the century mark. However, among all of these dates and through most of the small circulation coins in this era of Swedish coinage, I don’t recall seeing any proof strikes. This coin is a beauty.

Tom MichaelAuthor