Million Dollar Saint-Gaudens Victory Statue At ANA World’s Fair of Money

11

A rare example of a reduced-size early 20th-century New York City landmark statue, created by acclaimed sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, will be publicly displayed at the American Numismatic Association 2023 Pittsburgh World’s Fair of Money®.

Victory reduction statue
One of only three privately-owned Augustus Saint-Gaudens Victory reduction statues will be displayed by Kevin Lipton at the ANA 2023 Pittsburgh World’s Fair of Money®. (Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s.)

Entitled Victory, the statue is reminiscent of the great artist’s renowned 1907-1933 U.S. Double Eagle gold coins design. The same female model posed for Saint-Gaudens for both of those projects.

Previously in a private collection for decades, the stunning statue was purchased for $1,168,400 at a Sotheby’s auction by Kevin Lipton of Kevin Lipton Rare Coins in Beverly Hills, California this past April. He now will exhibit it for the public to see at the ANA Pittsburgh convention, August 8-12.

"The three-and-a-half-foot tall gilded bronze figure on a four-inch marble base is a reduction of Saint-Gaudens’ famous ten-and-half foot tall Victory statue at the General William Tecumseh Sherman Monument in Grand Army Plaza at the Southeast corner of New York’s Central Park. It was dedicated in 1903, and only three reduction examples are privately owned, including this one," said Lipton.

After Saint-Gaudens died in 1907, his widow Augusta Fisher Homer Saint-Gaudens authorized the creation of eight reductions. In addition to the three privately held, five today are in the collections of museums or institutions, such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, or at national historic sites, including Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Sherman Monument Victory
After his death in 1907, the widow of artist Augustus Saint-Gaudens authorized the creation of several reductions of his famous Victory statue at the General Sherman Monument in New York City. (Photo credit: NYC Parks / Malcolm Pinckney.)

Sotheby’s described the Victory statue as "designed to emulate the allegorical female figure of the Greek goddess Nike."

"It took Saint-Gaudens 11 years from 1892 to 1903 to painstakingly create the Sherman Monument and Victory statue which art critics have described as an American masterpiece," explained Lipton.

"Owning one of these specially-made, century-old Saint-Gaudens statues has been on my bucket list since I was a teenager and saw one for sale at an antiques show in New York in 1977. It was priced at $60,000 back then, well beyond the budget of a 17-year-old aspiring coin dealer from New Jersey," explained Lipton.

"I first saw the full-size Central Park monument statue when I was a child. Over the years, I’ve owned some of the most historic Saint-Gaudens coins, including a 1907 Ultra-High Relief Double Eagle, but this statue eluded me until recently. Now, it is time to share this masterpiece with the public," he stated.

The model for Victory was Harriette Eugenia Anderson who later was the artist’s model for what are known today as America’s most beautiful coins, the Saint-Gaudens $20 denomination Double Eagles.

"The face on the statue is virtually the same as on the gold coins," Lipton noted.

The statue reduction that will be displayed at the ANA 2023 World’s Fair of Money convention was previously in the extensive art collection of Erving (1926-2018) and Joyce (1927-2022) Wolf. Sotheby’s described their Fifth Avenue apartment in New York City as decorated with art that was "a collection that embodies the American spirit in such tremendous depth and breadth."

The Victory statue will be at booth #606 in Halls A and B of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, 1000 Fort Duquesne Blvd., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the site of the ANA 2023 World’s Fair of Money.

For additional information about Kevin Lipton Rare Coins, call (310) 712-8118. For additional information about the ANA convention, visit www.WorldsFairofMoney.com.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

11 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Dazed and Coinfused

Do they accept post dated checks? If so, I call dibs

Dazed and Coinfused

If not, send it to me and just add it to Joe’s tab. He’s good for it. Wink wink.

Seth Riesling

Who still uses checks or coins or banknotes in the USA??!! I use.all digital plastic cards.
My mother writes checks & doesn’t have an ATM card & only has 1 credit card from her credit union. She shows me her pocket change coins & asks if they are worth anything.

NumisdudeTX

Craig

My CC’s are all set up for “auto pay” from my bank account. It’s a simple process to set up and I never have to worry about a payment not being made on time. I’ve been using that system for 15 years without a glitch. Of course, the USPS hates me because I never have to pay their outrageous fees in stamps.

That Victory statue is beautiful, but $1.1 million, not with my money!

Seth Riesling

Kaiser,

I feel for you on that one..I just got a new cell phone 2 weeks ago & I’m still searching for some features…& I took typing class & computer math class in high school! Lol.
These smartphones do so very many things & have for years more memory than Voyager I & Voyager II that we sent to space & went past Pluto many years ago.
I wonder if AI will ever be able to authenticate & grade coins one day?

NumisdudeTX

Seth Riesling

Kaiser,

At least you have more than the Amish, Mennonites & Quakers – and you buy coins from time to time from the fairly technologically advanced U.S. Mint, so you are by no means a modern “cave man”…
“To the Bat Cave, Robin!” Lol.

NumisdudeTX

Dazed and Coinfused

AI is gonna cause a lot of abacus professionals to lose their job.

Dazed and Coinfused

Bunch of old folks in Texas and Florida still wrote checks in grocery stores. Probably to get cash so they can square up with the glaucoma therapy

Seth Riesling

Don’t forget to take your edible THC gummies & your SSRI pills & benzos like a good boy… Lol.

NumisdudeTX

Charles Lewis

My grandma got this coin for me and she got from the mint. How much is it worth, and the date on it was 1933 for year of the coin. Can you help me with this coin or who I need to get it ahold of and ty for your time and help with this coin.

Charles Lewis

How come my coin says copy on it and is it real