high rollers is holdin' out on us?!?!
Press Release - June 19, 2006
Heritage sets record 2 notes sold for $2.1 million each!
Dallas, Texas: Currency was once one of the most overlooked areas of numismatics, but has captured the interests of many collectors. Less than one year after the first piece of currency to smash the $1 Million sales mark was sold, Heritage Auction Galleries of Dallas, Texas (
www.HeritageAuctions.com) has more than doubled that record price, and has accomplished this feat no fewer than twice.
An East Coast collector has purchased two notes, a Fr. 379-c Series 1891 $1000 Treasury Note along with a Fr. 1166-c Series 1863 $100 Gold Certificate for $2.1 Million each. The 1891 $1,000 Treasury Note and the 1863 $100 Gold Certificate are rarities not only for their respective issue, but also for their type, as no other examples of these two types are available to collectors. Both notes have been off the market for more than two decades, having resided during that time in the collection of Dr. and Mrs. Edward Dauer. Both of the notes are illustrated on the front cover of the Dauer's award winning book American History as Seen Through Currency, published in 2003.
In the mid-1980's Dr. and Mrs. Dauer purchased the Series 1891 $1,000 Treasury Note for more than double the previous record for highest price paid for a single piece of currency. It is only fitting that this note again sold for nearly twice the record for most expensive note. Only two notes of this design are known; the other, which features a different signature combination, is permanently impounded in the Smithsonian Collection. This note's first public sale was in 1944 as part of the Albert A. Grinnell Collection of U.S. Paper Money where it realized $1,425, a mere $75 more than the 1890 $1,000 "Grand Watermelon" Treasury Note in the previous lot.
The second $2.1 Million note is the Series 1863 $100 Gold Certificate, which is the finest of only three examples known and the only one in private hands. The other two examples are permanently impounded in the Smithsonian's collection and unavailable to collectors. The U.S. Treasury also released $500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 Series 1863 Gold Certificates with only single survivors of the $1,000 and $5,000 notes known. Since both the $1,000 and $5,000 notes also permanently reside in the Smithsonian, the $100 also holds claim to the highest denomination available to collectors.
These two notes, which are unique in collector hands, are required to form the ultimate collection of U.S. Currency and it is again unknown how long they will remain unavailable to other serious collectors attempting to achieve the same goal. The buyer has indicated that he will now try to complete a set of large currency by type and design, as he now has two of the key pieces that make such an achievement possible.
Images of both notes are available on Heritage Auction Galleries' currency website
