The Garrett Collection Sales Part 2 March 26 -27 1980 w/ List of Prices Realized

Demy folio, [27.75cm/11inches], paperbound with pictorial covers, pp. 193; Lots 1195. Fully illustrated with b-w halftone plates. Please feel free to inquire as to particulars and/or additional photographs. . The Garrett Collection was begun by T. Harrison Garrett in 1860 while he was a student at Princeton. He was also an avid collector in other fields, including manuscripts and autographs. He owned several folios of Shakespeare and had a collection of signers of the Declaration of Independence. After his untimely death in a boating accident in 1888, the coin collection passed to his son, Robert. Robert Garrett was an athlete who received the very first American gold Olympic medal, when he won the discus throw at the 1896 Athens Olympics. He also took first place in the shot put, as well as second place in the broad jump and high jump. While Robert added some pieces to the collection, he traded it to his brother, John Work Garrett, who seemed to have inherited the collecting gene from his father. The collection continued to grow through John’s death in 1942, at which time it went to Johns Hopkins University, along with the Garrett mansion, Evergreen House, and many other important collections. After Alice Garrett’s (John’s wife) death in 1952, the coins were put on display at Evergreen House. However, security costs became too much, and the University moved them to a bank vault. In the late 1970s, Johns Hopkins determined that the coin collection, which was in a vault and not on display or particularly available for scholarship, should be sold and the proceeds directed to other areas of the university. As noted, the sales were a phenomenal success, and the Garrett Collection pedigree is still coveted, adding not only history and interest, but often value as well. Quentin David Bowers is an American numismatist, author, and columnist. Beginning in 1952, Bowers’s contributions to numismatics have continued uninterrupted and unabated to the present day. He has been involved in the selling of rare coins since 1953 when he was a teenager.…