Numismatic Information is Worth How Much?!

Serious coin collectors still exist. Very serious ones.

In a recent case before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, an individual expert coin collector had offered to sell his knowledge regarding a “Brasher Doubloon” to a rare coin wholesale company for $500,000. A Brasher Doubloon is a $15 dollar coin minted by goldsmith Ephraim Brasher in late eighteenth-century New York. These rare coins are extremely valuable today. (The case is Swoger v. Rare Coin Wholesalers, 803 F.3d 1045 (Ninth Cir. 2015).

The parties met at a trade show to further discuss the coin collector’s theory that the coin in question was “the first United States coin issued for circulation … under authority of an Act of Congress.” The Act in question was “An Act Regulating Foreign Coins, and For Other Purposes,” chapter 5, 1 Stat. 300 (1793). The Act provided that certain “foreign gold and silver coins shall pass current as money within the United States, and be a legal tender for the payment of all debts and demands.” The Act also specified which countries’ coins qualified, how much the coins were required to weigh, etc.

The coin collector believed the coin to qualify under this provision because Spanish and Spanish colonial coins qualified at 27.4
grains per dollar. By analogy, the expert thought, that would require a Brasher Doubloon to weigh 411 grains. The coin collector reasoned that because the coin in question weighed 410.5 grains (oh, so close), it must have been minted pursuant to the Act. The wholesale coin company, however, refused to pay the collector for his information, not believing it proved that the coin really was minted “pursuant to the Act.” The expert brought suit, alleging fraud, breach of contract, and asserting damages under a theory of quantum meruit, among other things.

The appellate court found that the collector could not recover because he did not provide the information required under the contract. The Act, said the court, pertains to foreign coins only, not American ones.

Appellant also asserted a new theory on appeal: that because the coin was struck to “conform” to the weight in the Act for Spanish coins, it was used in commerce; in other words, “passed current as money” under the Act. That argument got swift treatment as well: the collector had promised information showing that the coin was, under a Congressional Act, legal tender, not that it was merely used as such by members of society.

As always, exact statutory reading is key, even in today’s contractual disputes.