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WESTERN HAN: stone mold (partial), VF

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / Chinese Coins - Ancient Start Price:850.00 USD Estimated At:1,000.00 - 1,500.00 USD
WESTERN HAN: stone mold (partial), VF
SOLD
900.00USD+ buyer's premium (180.00)
This item SOLD at 2024 Sep 19 @ 18:09UTC-07:00 : PDT/MST
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WESTERN HAN: stone mold (partial), 180mm x 60mm, part of stone mold for casting ban liang coins, VF, ex Arthur B. Coole Collection (Lyn Knight Auction June 2011). The well-known American collector of Chinese coins, Arthur B. Coole (1900-1978), was a Methodist missionary. He and his wife Ella served in northern China between 1924 and 1947. In fall of 1963, he prepared an inventory of his collection and published about 15 copies for various friends and the Kansas City-based coin dealer Jack Klausen. He then sold his collection of Chinese coins and paper money to Klausen the next year on the condition that Klause does not break up the collection sell it intact. Klausen agreed and hoped to sell the collection to a museum. He was unable to do so, and in 1977-1978 sold the collection to a Taiwanese coin dealer, J. S. Lee. Years later it turned out that Lee did not buy all of the collection. There were some parts on which apparently they could not agree on a price. In 1988 Klausen consigned the coin trees, coin molds, and paper money printing blocks and seals to a Taisei sale, but they did not sell (despite published prices realized for those lots). We believe he consigned them to a different sale in the early 1990's (perhaps Pacific Coast Auctions). Whether they sold at that time or not is unclear, but the material was donated to a museum in Texas, either by the 1990's buyer or by Klausen's estate after his death in 2006. The collection was then consigned to Kansas City coin dealer, Lyn Knight, and offered in his Memphis Paper Money Show auction in June 2011. Bruce W. Smith was the cataloger for part of this collection, which included about two dozen coin molds (some in bronze, some clay and some in stone) dating to about 300 BC to about 200 AD.