The recently concluded Heritage sale was not really a stellar offering from this firm. Falling after the outstanding array of coins sold at the 2011 FUN auction and occurring before what is likely to be a solid group at the Central States sale in late April/early May, the Sacramento auction did, however, contain a few really interesting coins.   
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With less fanfare than in past cycles, the super high end of the art market has suddenly gone ablaze. In the past few months, two iconic works have broken records. On May 4th, Christie’s sold the Picasso painting “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” for $106.5 million. This painting was owned by the Lasker estate and it was fresh to the market, not having been offered in many decades.   
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Until a few years ago, the vast majority of coins that sold at auction were purchased by dealers. It was a safe bet to say that the prices realized at auctions were wholesale and collectors could assume that they would typically pay 10-20% more than what coins were selling for at auction. But this has all changed.   
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For a period of around seven years (1986-1993), Superior became one of the major forces in the United States coin auction market. During this time, they conducted a number of extremely impressive sales which included some of the more interesting specialized collections of this era. Today’s generation of collectors seems to have little knowledge of these Superior auctions and this is a shame as some of them are invaluable references.   
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One of the more interesting (and lesser known) gold coin auctions that I’ve attended was the sale of the Stetson Collection which was conducted by the old Bowers and Merena in May, 1993. This was an instance where the back story (or stories in this case) was nearly as interesting as the coins themselves. Beginning in 1992, an amazing hoard of gold coins started to quietly enter the market.   
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One of the most ambitious collecting projects ever undertaken was the No Motto half eagle set assembled by Chicago dealer Ed Milas. Not only did Mr. Milas attempt to assemble a complete set of these rare coins (struck between 1839 and 1866) but he did it, for the most part, in the highest grade possible. After working on this set for the better part of two decades, Milas sold his coins at auction through Stack’s in May, 1995.   
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