A Truly Magical Coin Collection Is Finally for Sale

It will be the "most expensive international coin collection ever sold," per CNN. And it's one that has been patiently waiting to hit the auction block for a century. As the network explains, it belonged to Danish butter magnate Lars Emil Bruun, who specified in his will that the 20,000 coins, notes, and medals he'd collected should serve as an emergency reserve for the Royal Danish Coin and Medal Collection for 100 years. With the knowledge of what transpired in World War I, Bruun feared the national collection could potentially be bombed or looted one day. In such an event, his collection would be a stand-in. If not, it could be sold to benefit his descendants 100 years later.

Bruun died in 1923, and the first chunk of his collection was sold Tuesday in Copenhagen for $16.5 million. The collection is insured for around $72.5 million, and auctioneer Stack's Bowers Galleries characterized Tuesday's sale of 286 lots as "truly a landmark event for the world coin market." Subsequent auctions will follow over a period of several years, and Reuters expects "some of the world's wealthiest people" will bid on it. Per the auction house, the collection includes "pieces from Denmark and related territories, Norway, Sweden, as well as medieval coins from the era when Danish kings ruled in England."

The collection was originally held within the walls of Frederiksborg Castle, then was kept by the Danish Central Bank in Copenhagen. Since 2011, it has "remained securely stored in a secret location." Deutsche Welle gives examples of just how rare some of the coins are: a 15th-century gold coin known as a "Hans Noble" that sold for $1.3 million is one of three known to exist in the world.

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CNN pulls this colorful quote from Bruun that was reprinted in Stack's Bowers' catalog: "The good thing about collecting coins is that when you are upset about something or you feel unsettled, then you go and look at your coins, and then you calm down by studying them again and again, pondering the many unsolved problems they present. People who are exclusively devoted to their business make a great mistake. I, for one, could never imagine thinking about nothing but butter until my dying days." (More coins stories.)