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Late Dallas oilman’s $60 million rare coin collection to be auctioned

The collection of Harry W. Bass Jr. had been on display at a money museum in Colorado since 2000.

A collection of rare U.S. gold coins and die patterns assembled by late Dallas oilman and philanthropist Harry W. Bass Jr. will be sold in a series of auctions beginning in the fall.

Dallas-based Heritage Auctions will sell the collection of 450 gold coins over the next year, with proceeds benefiting dozens of North Texas nonprofits supported by Bass’ foundation. The coins, which date to the late 1700s, are estimated to be worth more than $60 million.

The collection, which Bass began assembling in the 1960s, has been on display at the American Numismatic Association’s Edward C. Rochette Money Museum in Colorado Springs, Colo., since October 2000. Earlier this year, the foundation’s trustees voted to sell the collection in order to boost its annual charitable giving from $2 million to at least $5 million.

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“We’ve had to say no to so many deserving groups, and with the sale of this collection, we can now expand our funding and reach a lot more people,” said F. David Calhoun, the foundation’s executive director, in a statement. “The pandemic has exposed how much need there is. It has been a very trying and challenging time for the nonprofit sector, especially in education, and it has magnified many times the needs of the underserved populations of Dallas.”

The collection includes some 450 rare and valuable coins.
The collection includes some 450 rare and valuable coins.(Courtesy of Heritage Auctions)

The foundation hired Professional Coin Grading Service co-founder and numismatics expert John Dannreuther to manage the collection’s sale, including selecting an auction house and third-party graders.

Heritage Auctions, founded in 1976 by Steve Ivy and Jim Halperin, was selected in early July. Heritage Auctions bills itself as the largest fine art and collectibles auction house founded in the U.S. and the world’s largest collectibles auctioneer. Besides Dallas, it also has offices in New York, Beverly Hills, Chicago, Palm Beach, London, Paris, Geneva, Amsterdam, Brussels and Hong Kong.

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Bass and his brother, Richard, inherited the Goliad Oil and Gas Corp. in 1970 from their father, Harry W. Bass Sr. In addition to amassing a rare coin collection, Bass also invested in Colorado ski resorts in Aspen and Vail, and was the main developer of Beaver Creek Resort. He died in 1998.

The Bass foundation has supported Dallas organizations primarily focused on youth and education for several decades. Among its more than four dozen recipients, the foundation counts Frazier Revitalization in South Dallas, Head Start of Greater Dallas, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Dallas, the Momentous Institute, Bachman Lake Together in northwest Dallas and Readers 2 Leaders in West Dallas. The foundation’s grant recipients can be found here.

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