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Dom Pedro I, 1822-1831
From Stack's March 2006 Auction, Session 1 on Mar 7, 2006
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 Dom Pedro I, 1822-1831. 6,400 Reis, 1822 R. Rio de Janeiro. Coronation Commemorative. Laureate bust l. with Latin title PETRUS. I. D. G. BRASILIAE. IMPERATOR. Rv. Royal crown over large shield bearing a circle of stars around an Armillary Sphere and the cross of the Order of Christ with the abbreviated Latin motto IN HOC SIG VIN (In this Sign shall You Conquer) in the angles. Flanking the shield is a wreath of coffee and tobacco, no mark of value appears on either side. Designed by Zephirin Ferrez, professor of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rio. Fr.108, KM 131, Type Meili Plate I:1.
The charismatic Dom Pedro was the eldest son of Dom Joao VI who, as Regent for his mother the Mad Queen Maria, brought the Portuguese Royal Family to Brazil in 1808 to escape the Napoleonic invasion of the homeland. Joao and his son realized that Portugal and her vast New World colony were destined to separate and the King advised Pedro to take personal control of the independence movement. Dom Joao returned to Portugal in 1821, leaving his son as Regent of Brazil. As expected, the Lisbon government soon attempted to return Brazil to colonial status. Dom Pedro responded on Sept. 7, 1822 with the Grito (Cry) of Ypiranga, ''Independence or Death!'' Brazil's Senate proclaimed him ''Constitutional Emperor and Perpetual Defender of Brazil.'' He was crowned on December 1 with the high-domed crown of the new Empire.
The Rio Mint commemorated the Coronation with this distinctive gold coin. To the horror of both designer and Mint, the new Emperor expressed outrage at the design. He found the portrait florid and undignified, took issue with the omission of ''Constitutional'' and ''Perpetual Defender'' from his titles. The coin's version of his titles suggested Absolutism, to which Dom Pedro was totally opposed. Then too, the crown on the reverse was the old Portuguese Royal crown, rather than the new Imperial insignia. Finally, it was regarded as heraldically improper to place the motto IN HOC SIGNO VINCES inside the shield, rather than around it as a legend. Only 64 pieces were struck, and the exhaustive notes prepared by South American numismatic authority Harry F. Williams state that 57 were melted, leaving seven pieces extant despite imperial disapproval.
Four examples are positively identified in Williams' notes: the coin owned by the National Library, preserved in the Banco de Brasil; the Julius Meili Collection piece, now in the Swiss National Museum at Zurich; the Auguste de Souza-Lobo Collection coin, which long resided in Rio; and the coin, formerly in the collection of Manoel Ramos of Bahia, which failed to meet its reserve in the 1910 sale conducted by Amsterdam's Jacques Schulman, but was later bought by Harry F. Williams and later sold to Waldo C. Newcomer and Louis Eliasberg. This is the coin offered in the present sale. In 1973, the late Abe Kosoff made passing reference in his column ''Abe Kosoff Remembers'' to another in a Spink London sale in 1969 that realized $15,000.
Besides these, Spink and Son of London sold a nearly Extremely Fine coin in June 1986 at $87,000. That coin was traced back to the Raul David Collection, earlier from Alvaro de Salles Oliveira, purchased from the great Brazilian dealer Santos Leitao in August 1930. Spink America sold the Choice Very Fine Norweb piece at $82,500 in 1997. The Souza-Lobo coin noted above might have been one of these Spink examples. Based on this census, it appears likely that about six examples of this historic coin exist in 2006.
Careful study of the Williams-Newcomer-Eliasberg coin reveals a faint mounting trace at 12:00 and light wear consistent with jewelry use. Both the Norweb and Banco de Brasil coins exhibit very similar characteristics, showing that roughly half the surviving population endured some role in jewelry over the past 184 years. No example has appeared at public sale in the last 71 years, making it as true in 2006 as it was when Williams sold his Latin American collection to Newcomer around 1918, that ''Unquestionably [the 1822 6,400 Reis] is the rarest and numismatically the most important coin of Latin America, few coins of any series outranking it in either rarity or value.'' Very Fine in strict terms of wear and detail. (Est. $50,000-$60,000)
Ex Louis E. Eliasberg Collection (American Numismatic Rarities, April 2005, lot 1262); previously in the J.C. Morgenthau (Wayte Raymond) sale of the Waldo C. Newcomer Collection (February 1935, lot 129); John H. Clapp Collection.
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