If you were given $1MUS and had to spend it on ONE coin....

[panzerman]

What would you get?

FDC AV 20 Dukaten from Sachsen 1610

[Sulla80]

It might be hard to find one of these to buy (~5 known) Roman Republic, Quintus Labienus Parthicus, Aureus, mint moving with Labienus in Asia Minor 40 BC, AV 8g (not my coin)

[Croatian Coin Collector]

This is a tough question, since 99,9% of coins cost way less that 1 million USD, and the few that could go for 7-figures, such as the Gold 20 Stater of Eucratides the Great, would likely be sold for significantly more than 1 million USD.

[panzerman]

11 hours ago, Croatian Coin Collector said:

This is a tough question, since 99,9% of coins cost way less that 1 million USD, and the few that could go for 7-figures, such as the Gold 20 Stater of Eucratides the Great, would likely be sold for significantly more than 1 million USD.

Actually there are tons that would go for 1M+ if they appeared in auctions. There are thousands of AV 20 D-100Dukaten with all odd denominations. Salzburg had tons of these. REcently that Danish AV 1496 Noble sold for 1M+ "Butter Baron" coll. Guess now I know why butter is so $$$$.

[shanxi]

I would choose any coin that I could sell immediately afterwards for more than 1M

[kirispupis]

I would buy a gold bullion coin from any country that sells such a denomination (AFAIK there are a few). Then, I may or may not hold it for a bit depending on what I think the price of gold will do, and then I'd sell it.

[rasiel]

1 hour ago, shanxi said:

I would choose any coin that I could sell immediately afterwards for more than 1M

I think the most expensive coins I'd want top out at about a quarter mil so, yeah, this ;-)

Rasiel

[ominus1]

...welp there'd be a problem cause i aint gonna spend a mil on one coin...:P

[Bailathacl]

There are worse problems to have!

[Dafydd]

I'm with @kirispupis on this one.

The Royal Mint classifies the following  as a coin. With a legal tender value of £15.000. It is 15 kgs or approximately 482 troy ounces of pure Gold. Don't drop it if edge knocks  bother you!

https://www.royalmint.com/aboutus/press-centre/the-royal-mint-unveils-its-largest-ever-coin-for-the-queens-platinum-jubilee/

In the UK there is no capital gains tax on legal tender coins and I guess some smart cookie who commissioned this worked that out as well.

I would commission the Royal Mint to make me a coin equivalent to £1 million in gold, hold it for a while and then sell it with no tax hit when I felt gold had plateaued or dropping.

I would then convert it into the best of everything that I enjoy collecting and then let my kids worry about the tax on them on disposal but splitting it into multiple lower values will help them or hopefully they may become interested in collecting and keep them.

I may even consider some Greek coins which attracts me but at my stage in life I have enough to do with my Roman and British hammered and milled coins with a side interest in shipwreck coins.  Ultimately I would convert the sale of about $1 million into maybe a dozen coins.

 

 

[Heliodromus]

24 minutes ago, Dafydd said:

I would commission the Royal Mint to make me a coin equivalent to £1 million in gold, hold it for a while and then sell it with no tax hit when I felt gold had plateaued or dropping.

A bit like this one, perhaps. A $1M CAD gold coin.

At least, it was worth $1M CAD when made in 2007, but thanks to inflation now about $4M.

They made 5 of them - one was on display in Berlin, but stolen !!

Edited December 8, 2024 by Heliodromus

[John Conduitt]

I mainly collect British circulating coins and anything worth $1m is a pattern or a modern concoction that I don’t even consider a coin. In fact, if I had to spend $1m on a single coin I would be envious of all the people buying the $10-50k coins I want.

[Ocatarinetabellatchitchix]

21 hours ago, panzerman said:

What would you get?

THIS ONE’S FOR YOU JOHN. PLUS IT’S A CANADIAN GROUP !

 

 

[AncientCoinnoisseur]

This one. Too bad for the double strike, otherwise it would be the perfect specimen:

 

It hammered for 750k CHF, so it should be just around 1M

Edited December 8, 2024 by AncientCoinnoisseur
Added link

[panzerman]

3 hours ago, John Conduitt said:

I mainly collect British circulating coins and anything worth $1m is a pattern or a modern concoction that I don’t even consider a coin. In fact, if I had to spend $1m on a single coin I would be envious of all the people buying the $10-50k coins I want.

You could bid on this.....I definately woulkd not sell it

[DonnaML]

3 hours ago, John Conduitt said:

I mainly collect British circulating coins and anything worth $1m is a pattern or a modern concoction that I don’t even consider a coin. In fact, if I had to spend $1m on a single coin I would be envious of all the people buying the $10-50k coins I want.

What about the Queen Anne 1703 Vigo AV £5 coin? Would that qualify as a "coin" in your opinion? I believe there are also one or two medieval English gold coins that have sold for the requisite amount, or close to it.

[jdmKY]

[ominus1]

8 hours ago, Bailathacl said:

There are worse problems to have!

...ahahaha...Amen to that Friend! ^^

[savitale]

The first ancient coin I thought of that I would spend $1M on is a solidus of Olybrius. Apparently there are only four known. They may all be in institutional collections, I'm not sure. This one in the British Museum is the only one I could find.

https://www.bmimages.com/preview.asp?image=00195018001

 

But I would also take this one.

https://www.biddr.com/auctions/nac/browse?a=4517&l=5379546

 

Or this one

 

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=476840

 

 

 

 

[John Conduitt]

7 hours ago, DonnaML said:

What about the Queen Anne 1703 Vigo AV £5 coin? Would that qualify as a "coin" in your opinion? I believe there are also one or two medieval English gold coins that have sold for the requisite amount, or close to it.

To be fair, those are indeed coins! I wouldn’t want to buy an Anne 1703 Vigo 5 guineas (or more accurately, I wouldn’t value it at $1m for myself) because I can get an Anne 5 guineas and I can get the history of a Vigo coin for considerably less (and two coins). The combination of 5 guineas, Anne and Vigo doesn’t mean anything to me other than rarity. I already have coins that are just as rare and mean more. I suppose this is why I don’t usually go for rare dates.

I appreciate my collecting goals colour my opinion - I don’t generally collect gold as it doesn’t circulate in the sense of being used for everyday transactions, it is more for bullion. I prefer tokens over bullion for that reason. So I would have my Edward III double leopard and be thinking, that money could buy a lot of tricky circulating coins I’d prefer to have.

Edited December 9, 2024 by John Conduitt

[panzerman]

14 hours ago, DonnaML said:

What about the Queen Anne 1703 Vigo AV £5 coin? Would that qualify as a "coin" in your opinion? I believe there are also one or two medieval English gold coins that have sold for the requisite amount, or close to it.

Right you are Donna!

There are these.....

AV 5 G Anne VIGO

AV Double Leopard Edward III

AV Penny Cuno Saxon King

AV Henry III coin

[panzerman]

13 hours ago, ominus1 said:

...ahahaha...Amen to that Friend! ^^

I would say if a super rich person donated 1MUS for me to finally get a dream coin/ thats the best high one can have.

Out of thousands os 1M$ coins/ the choice would be hard to make. Those 17th century moon & star shaped 10/ 20 Dukaten are dreamy coins/ so is the aureus Alexander of Carthage/ or solidus Glycerius. THat ugly Canada monstrocity (stolen German museum) would not make my list.  Here is AV 20 Dukaten Hungary Museum

[jdmKY]

16 hours ago, jdmKY said:

Well, it just hammered for $1.7M so this one’s out!

[panzerman]

Yeah! I bet there are over 15000 M+ coins right now/ way thing are going 150K by 2030. Still a long way to go to catch up  to US coin market. Average AV 10 Dukaten were under 60K  ten years ago/ now some are in 1M zone. There are thousands of 10D -100D  denominations. Coin News had an article that maybe coins are a dead hobby since younger generations are more into tech. Well once these GEN X/ Mill. wise up they too will start collections. There will always be more demand then the tiny supply. However, there is not much interest in the modern crappola mints are producing today. Not like in good ole days when mints were producing works of art like "moon shaped AV 10 Dukaten Michal Apafi 1668 Transylvania ! Although this 1969 Ugana AV 1000 Shilings part of 69 Proof set was a nice design/ I won that set in 1`990 for $850US. THe 1000 S is my modern version of classic 40 Dukaten/ both weigh 140g.!

[AncientJoe]

1 hour ago, panzerman said:

Yeah! I bet there are over 15000 M+ coins right now/ way thing are going 150K by 2030. Still a long way to go to catch up  to US coin market.

Even adjusting for inflation, this is an extremely inaccurate statistic.

Gathering some quick figures: across world + US + ancient coins, Heritage Auctions has sold 136 coins for >=$900K US. Stacks Bowers has sold 80. In CoinArchives (which will have many duplicates of the above), in ancients, there are 37 ancients above $700K US and 61  world coins above $700K.

That's 314 coins in total across world/US/ancients that have sold for around $1M, certainly not 15K, and not dramatically less in World vs US.