My first word to the readers of this preface has to be: “Congratulations”! Congratulations on being among the select group who just happen to be alive at a time that allows them to participate in the sale of Lars Emil Bruun’s collection of Scandinavian coins.
I remember when, as a 14-year-old in the mid-1970s, I visited the founding IAPN member Johan Christian Holm’s cozy shop in the center of old Copenhagen. Here I was, for the first time, introduced to the then almost 50-year-old catalog of Bruun’s collection. With a mixture of awe and excitement, I bought the catalog, and as soon as I got home, I threw myself at the introduction, which stated that the collection would be released for sale at auction on November 21, 2023, which date incidentally (or maybe not?) happened to be my birthday. Some quick arithmetic combined with a sober calculation of probability, made it seemed likely that my chances of still being alive on that date were quite good, and I have kept my fingers crossed ever since.
Although no person alive has cataloged as many and as valuable Danish coins as I have over my long career as a professional numismatist (or perhaps precisely because of this), I can confidently say, that apart from the royal collection in the Danish National Museum, and regardless of which parameter you use, be it value, condition, rarity or numismatic and historical significance, there has never existed a collection of Danish and Danish/Norwegian coins as exceptional as that of L. E. Bruun. I therefore didn’t need much time for reflection when I was contacted by Stack’s Bowers Galleries asking if I would be interested in being the head of cataloging of L. E. Bruun’s collection as a director of Stack’s Bowers Galleries in a new office in Copenhagen.
The present catalog – Part I – presents a string of highlights of Scandinavian coins, starting with the birth certificate of “modern” Danish numismatics, and one of my personal favorites: the gold Noble by King Hans minted in 1496. But it makes little sense to highlight the individual pieces in a preface such as this. As this inaugural sale offers only almost priceless treasures, it is evident that not all collectors should get their hopes up to acquire a piece from this auction. However, there is no reason to despair, because L. E. Bruun was, in the best sense of the word, a classic numismatist for whom nothing was too big, nothing too small, and absolutely nothing uninteresting. For those with a historical interest but perhaps not the deepest pockets, I take particular pleasure in relating that in the coming years Stack’s Bowers Galleries will be offering around 20,000 different Scandinavian coins from the Viking Age to the early 20th century. Although they are all fine, carefully selected and interesting pieces, some are bound to sell for prices low enough that even a 14-year-old’s pocket money would allow acquisition of a coin, medal or banknote from this fabled collection.
However, whether you collect Danish Portugalosers or Norwegian quadruple Talers (and who doesn’t?), this is the auction not to be missed. Several of the pieces are so rare that they have not been offered for sale in the last hundred years or more; the cliché that this is a “once in a lifetime” opportunity is in this case simply an understatement. The condition of the individual specimens is also consistently so sublime that they cannot be found finer in private ownership. Keats’ famous sentence “A thing of beauty is a joy forever” suddenly becomes a very concrete truth. I encourage everyone, regardless of whether their starting point is numismatics, historical interest or investment, to seize the day, knowing that such an opportunity will not even come again in 100 years.
