CONSIGNORS’ BIOGRAPHIES

 John Pullin

John’s passion for collecting Spanish American coins began in 1957 at age ten, when the Hardy Boys book Secret of the Tower Treasure planted the seed in his young mind. His father had a copy of J. Frank Dobie’s book Coronado's Children (about buried treasure) on his library shelf, which John read and re-read. John’s older brother also had a passion for treasure and bought an illustrated pulp book covering lost treasure, including a section on Robert Marx and his Florida shipwreck discoveries. The illustrations of treasure coins in that book were John’s first visual exposure to what would become a lifelong pursuit of collecting coins. In John’s words, “once I read it, I was hooked.”

 In 1965 the bug bit even deeper with the National Geographic article about Kip Wagner and the "Drowned Galleons." John subsequently purchased a first-edition Pieces of Eight book by Wagner, which fed his fascination with coins. He also made a trip to the Smithsonian in the early 1970s to see some of the gold doubloons recovered from the 1715 Fleet. There he stood agape, looking and dreaming: These were the real thing!

 As a broke college student, John saw his first “pillar” coin in a shop in South Orange, NJ, a Mexican 2 reales, heavily corroded, dated 1741. For the grand sum of $1, he started his collection. John’s second purchase was a 1715-Fleet 8 reales from the famous Schulman auction of November, 1972—his first piece of eight! He still owns both of those coins, the 8R now as black as coal. Gradually, as he paid off the debts of his undergraduate and law-school education, John began to collect in earnest. His focus was Spanish colonial only, Potosí cobs and Mexico City cobs, pillars and busts. Some of the many dealer names on his coin flip inserts include past and present heavyweights from the 1970s forward, like X. & F. Calicó, Dr. George Vogt, Pat Johnson, Henry Christensen, Douglas Weaver, Almanzar’s, C.E. Bulowa, Richard Long, Louis Collins, Freeman Craig, Bowers and Ruddy, Mike Dunigan, Louis Hudson, Ponterio & Associates, Paul Karon, Paul Brombal, and many others. John retained all the old catalogs and purchase receipts and still sneezes from the moldy paper every time he opens the boxes!

 Eventually John's collections became extensive, and now, after retiring from decades in sales and marketing in the furniture industry, he is in the continuing process of thinning down and concentrating his collecting interests. That said, his current numismatic collecting passions are the same as when he first began, namely treasure coins, specifically from the 1715 Fleet and the Atocha (1622). In John’s words: “As collectors we are merely students and custodians of these historical objects; there comes a time when the coins must change hands.”

Estate of Karl H. Goodpaster

 In this auction we present hundreds of 1715-Fleet silver cobs from the estate of Karl H. Goodpaster, a conservator for the Real Eight Co. in the early 1960s, when some of their first finds were made. Like many of the Real Eight people, Karl worked for NASA (safety engineer in the Launch Support division) and hunted for treasure in his off hours. While we do not know much about Karl’s official role with Real Eight, we do know that he devised their coin-cleaning techniques and also did some early marketing and promotion.

 When the first finds were made on the 1715 Fleet, the salvagers had little idea as to how to clean and preserve the coins and artifacts, but Karl came along with a proprietary technique and chemical formula. While we do not know what his formula was exactly, we can tell you that the coins in his estate demonstrate some skill, as almost all of them show a lovely “gunmetal” toning, kind of a chrome color, dark but shiny at the same time, that is rarely seen but highly sought today. It appears Karl also had the “pick of the litter” in terms of quality of coins to start with, as every coin in his estate is full weight (or nearly so) and uncorroded, with a preponderance of visible mintmarks, assayers, denominations and even partial dates, not to mention interesting planchet shapes. Perhaps he acquired an entire chest and cleaned it all himself. Whatever the situation, the fact is that fresh offerings of choice coins with early Real Eight connections like this do not come around often any more, and the popularity for such coins has skyrocketed in recent years.

 Mr. Goodpaster’s documents also reveal his role in early marketing and promotion, as he went to New York to check out Stack’s and Schulman (the latter of whom eventually held one of the most important 1715-Fleet auctions of all time) and some private dealers, most of whom told him that nobody cared about cobs at that time. After that, naturally his next stop was jewelers closer to home, but unfortunately we do not have any further connection between him and the marketing efforts.

 The documents in Karl’s estate also show that he contacted the State of Florida on his own behalf for the rights to a 1715-Fleet site within one of Real Eight’s lease areas. Karl had found some coins “on the beach” (including what has to be the world’s finest Mexican 8 reales 1702) and wanted to do his own salvaging; it is unclear as to whether he was still involved with Real Eight at this point. As we have seen time and again, when you get into the real “behind the scenes” aspect of treasure hunting, you tend to see some real drama!

 Above it all, it is clear that Karl had a genuine passion for the 1715 Fleet. Among his non-coin possessions offered here is a slide show with notes that he used for talks and demonstrations. He was very organized and meticulous, and his slides include some incredible specimens, like a 1714 Royal 8 escudos. You can almost relive his presentation today from what he left behind.

Mark Bir (1961-2009)

 Conspicuously absent from the Chicago International Coin Fair last year was world-coins dealer Mark Bir. Unbeknownst to his colleagues, Mark had suffered a heart attack just prior to the show, not long after completing a favorable “pre-show” coin deal. Sad as we all are to lose a colleague, let alone one who was so honest and likeable, at least we know Mark died doing what he loved.

 Born in Indiana, Mark reportedly swallowed a penny when he was very young and launched a lifelong attachment to numismatics. While he was still young, Mark’s family moved to Tucson, Arizona, where he began attending the local annual coin show there from age seven. At age 14 Mark earned a scholarship for a free coin-grading class through the ANA in Colorado Springs. Shortly after graduation from high school, Mark set up his first dealer’s table and began his professional career in numismatics. Soon he became an acknowledged expert in the challenging field of Mexican cobs and other Spanish colonial coins, as well as anything odd and curious, particularly primitive African money. He was also a skilled visual artist and vocalist in his parish choir.

 As a full-time coin dealer, Mark had a unique advantage in putting together his own type collection of Spanish colonial coins, which he later focused into cob 1 and 2 reales by date. Quietly and modestly, Mark assembled one of the best and largest silver cob collections we have ever seen, which we had no choice but to split into two auctions, starting with our Treasure Auction #6 in October 2009 and continuing (along with other Spanish colonial issues) with the present auction. Almost all his coins, whose pedigree is clearly indicated in our listings, reflect Mark’s keen eye for detail.

 Mark’s greatest asset, however, was his big heart. Mark was always there to lend a hand to those in need, ranging from donations to odd jobs, expert advice or just a compassionate ear. Most of Mark’s charity work was through the Catholic Church, specifically the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Tucson. Back in numismatics, Mark’s reserved but cheerful spirit earned him the title of Sir Mark of the Joyful Countenance in fellow dealer Allen Berman’s light-hearted fantasy Kingdom of Bermania. We used to kid around that he was the only coin dealer in the world whose first and last names were both coin denominations (as in German marks and Ethiopian birrs). It was impossible not to be his friend.

 The motto on the back of Mark’s business cards says it all: “Make love your greatest treasure and you will lack nothing.” In that sense and in many other ways too, Mark died a very rich man indeed.

Frank Sedwick, Ph.D. (1924-1996)

Dr. Frank Sedwick is best remembered as an educator, both in his first career as a college professor of Spanish and Italian and in his second career as a dealer in treasure coins, but especially in his lifelong passion of writing. He was a pioneer in the art of selling coins by educating collectors, something most dealers of his time (and some still today) considered tantamount to giving away a proprietary asset. Even a concept so simple as showing prices on tags was revolutionary: When an old sign he had made for his booths at coin shows advertising FIXED PRICES turned up years later, he resignedly admitted he had been “out to change the world.” Fortunately his forthrightness endured.

 Frank’s numismatic life actually had a typical start. He began collecting US coins as a kid, then shelved collecting for a while to grow up, get married, pursue a career, have children. Then the latent collecting bug returned with a focused passion along with the wherewithal to make something of it. It was sometime during his years as Director of Overseas Programs at Rollins College in the 1970s that Frank began collecting post-colonial gold coins of Colombia, a country he visited often with students. In the process of assembling a highly respected collection of these coins, he got to know the community of Latin American coin dealers, both in the US and in South America, a tight-knit fraternity that did not accept new members easily when Frank decided to join their ranks full time after tiring of about 35 years of academe.

Again, Frank brought to the field of Latin American numismatics a freshly pedagogical perspective, but it was his literary contribution that had the greatest impact. Throughout the early 1980s he wrote many articles for various numismatic publications while he channeled his expertise into an arcane area that would soon attract a major public following: Spanish colonial “cob” coins from shipwrecks. In 1987, just two years after Mel Fisher announced the discovery of the 1622 Atocha “mother lode,” Frank published his landmark guide The Practical Book of Cobs, an award-winning book that has sold tens of thousands of copies in four editions. Frank also continued to add to his nearly complete Colombian gold collection, and in 1991 he published The Gold Coinage of Gran Colombia, another accurate and very practical guide for a difficult area of numismatics.

 To most of the newly numismatically-involved treasure people, however, Frank was stubbornly old-fashioned. Divers and investors frequently brought him fresh finds from shipwrecks with the confidence that his offers were always fair and his checks were always good, but they winced at his unwillingness to try promotion, investment, innovation and technology to push the values of what they felt were rare commodities. At coin shows, when someone brought him an item and asked for an offer, Frank would often temper his offer with the warning that if the seller walked away to get more offers from other dealers, the deal was off and Frank would not buy the item simply on principle. As a champion for fair prices, several times Frank became an adversary against the treasure industry by testifying for the IRS against inflated tax deductions based on “glamour market” prices, and for the SEC against an exaggerated appraisal for a publicly-traded salvage firm’s assets. In seminars he often expressed disdain for treasure salvagers’ general lack of numismatic expertise, something he considered especially scornful when all they had to do was read his book.

 When it came down to it, Frank was always, well, frank. He spoke his mind, efficiently and calmly, and he did not really care whether you liked what he said or not. Even if he was not your favorite person, you had to respect him for his ethical principles and his fairness and wisdom. And to those who were willing to listen and learn, with nothing expected in return, Frank generously offered the powerful gift of knowledge.

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While Frank generally considered it a disservice for dealers to withhold the best pieces from their clients, he did save a number of gold cobs from the 1715 Fleet that he found particularly choice or important, as instinctively he knew that some day they would be fully appreciated. That day has come, and starting with this auction we are selling Frank’s gold cobs little by little. His post-colonial Colombian gold collection remains intact until the day when those coins, too, are recognized for their rarity and importance. As Frank often said, “The time to sell is when you have a willing buyer.”