Breathtaking not only for its scale, quality and sophistication but also for its fascinating backstory, the Traveller collection of approximately 15’000 coins was created in the 1930s by an anonymous collector who used the sizeable fortune made by selling his shares in his family company to travel the world with his wife, acquiring coins at historic auctions and privately from the most illustrious coin dealers of the time.
Charmingly, almost every purchase was meticulously documented by the Traveller not only in a diary along with details of the collectors and dealers he met, the grand hotels where they stayed and the restaurants where they dined, but also on the handwritten envelopes in which the coins were stored (unfortunately not all of them survived).
The collection of mostly gold and silver coins spans all time periods; from Ancient Greece to the early 20thCentury and covers over 100 territories around the world. The formation of the collection ended abruptly with the outbreak of the Second World War. Faced with the threat of imminent invasion by the Nazis, the Traveller decided to bury the majority of the collection in his property, the remainder having been stored in three different locations on three different continents.The Traveller died of a stroke shortly after the Germans arrived. The collection remained buried for decades until the 1990s when his widow, conscious of her advanced age, divulged its secret location to family members and instructed them to unearth it.
Thanks to attractive prices following the Great Depression, a distinct lack of competition in the market and his ability to travel the globe building privileged relationships with the established coin dealers and collectors of the time, married with his fervent commitment and intricate knowledge of coins, the connoisseur was able to create a collection like no other, containing numerous numismatic masterpieces not seen in living memory and rarities which do not exist in auction records.
We invite you to browse the website to explore this magnificent collection and fully appreciate its beauty and wonder.
