Soviet Giant sucking sound...

[Bob]

http://www.numismatics.org/news/10_2006MortonEdenSale2.htm

[Ed_Haynes]

Wow, now imperial stuff too.

Comments, Paul, please????

[Guest Rick Research]

Sigh.

It must be nice to be Scrooge McDuck, so awash in vaults of surplus cash that One can simply BUY ...

anything.

No study.

No appreciation.

Well-- not the kind WE mean.

No, straight from one vault to another. Wait 2 minutes or 10 years and re-convert into more

CASH.

That's all it is.

They don't care. Pork bellies, oil futures, Britney Spears memorabilia....

There are a few of us young'uns (relatively speaking ) hanging on still breathing who Once Upon A Time actually knew either everybody at the top of late 20th century collecting, or knew some of them who knew the rest of them. The generation past was wealthy, relatively speaking, but not like these Aurich Goldfinger types.

Thinking of which, at least I suppose we should be glad they are not investing in more megalomaniacal projects like those Bond villains.

God knows, they've apparently got pockets deep enough.

But NOBODY "knows" these buyers because

they are NOT collectors

they are NOT future museum endowers (hmmm, to have some FUTURE "curator" toss their bequests out for some ready cash? )

they are financial speculators.

These prices-- a frightening thought-- probably amount to 1/2 of 1 percent of their soullessly indifferent "investment portfolios."

Anyone heard of private islands in the Caribbean getting a lot of inexplicable new construction?