In 1974 in Dallas, a profitable actual property developer named Mack Pogue introduced dwelling a present for his 10-year-old son Brent—a bag of Lincoln wheat pennies.
Mack had purchased the bag of cash from his brother Jack for $100 and needed to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit in his son. So, he gave his son Brent an “possibility” to purchase the bag of pennies from him for $110 inside one week.
Brent dutifully took the bag together with a replica of the coin Information Guide and commenced inspecting the pennies one after the other. He quickly stumbled on a shiny 1915 cent that regarded shiny as new. Brent found within the Information Guide that it was price $65!
“I used to be instantly hooked,” Brent mentioned later.
That additionally opened the door to his curiosity in exploring American and numismatic historical past. “My first thought, since there was no mintmark, was ‘How did this penny make it from Philadelphia to Dallas? Then I requested myself ‘who was the president of america in 1915? What else was taking place that 12 months?’” Brent mentioned.
He rapidly instructed his father that he would “train his possibility” and bought the bag of pennies. From there, the remainder is numismatic historical past as a real genius adopted his ardour.
Over the following 35 years Brent Pogue amassed a unprecedented assortment of over 650 early American federal cash from 1792 to the late 1830’s period in one of the best accessible situation. Merely put, numismatics believed his assortment was the finest-ever. Brent himself described it as “a set representing our nation’s financial beginning.”
Brent turned a scholar of numismatic historical past, conducting in-depth analysis about every U.S. coin sequence in an effort to soak up as a lot information as attainable. Brent moved far past the Information Guide in his analysis efforts and constructed an intensive reference library of numismatic books and catalogues to assist his ongoing schooling.
Exterior of cash, Brent adopted in his father’s footsteps and made a profession in actual property. He used lots of his finely tuned negotiation and entrepreneurial abilities from the enterprise world in his numismatic pursuits.
“You must be opportunistic, and you must have guts,” Brent mentioned. At one public sale Brent bid $4.1 million on the legendary 1804 silver greenback—within the best situation of eight identified. At the moment, that quantity was twice as a lot as had ever been paid for any coin at public sale.
Whereas Pogue handed in 2019, his assortment lives on within the numismatic world at present. By a sequence of gross sales that started in 2015, his assortment of excessive calibers, uncommon U.S. cash has fetched over $140 million.
The in depth and spectacular Pogue assortment included a wonderful collection of early American cash from half dimes to quarter eagles to half eagles to three-dollar gold items to silver {dollars} to massive cents and even early American paper cash. The sheer dimension and scope together with the high-quality of the Pogue assortment is unmatched in numismatic historical past.
A famend numismatist mentioned on the time of his loss of life that “Brent was the very definition of a unprecedented numismatist, a connoisseur. A cautious scholar with a superb library at hand, he researched each coin he hoped so as to add to his assortment.”
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