A catalog of the 1885 offer sale of Countess Izabella Starzyńska's collection, conducted by Julius Belmonte jr. of Hamburg. Interestingly, until now it was thought that the 1885 sale was an auction orchestrated by Adolph Weyl (this confirms how rare and unknown these catalogs are!).
Period binding, combination of paper and impregnated cloth. On the spine a paper signboard with a handwritten description. Exterior format 213 x 142 mm, pages 32. General state of preservation good, no damage (period printing on acidic, wood-grain paper). Piece from the library of W. Chominski, his dry ownership stamp imprinted in the upper right corner.
Offered for sale 552 items, with fixed prices printed next to each item. The vast majority are Polish and Polish-related numismats.
Countess Starzynska's outstanding collection, a member of which was the numismatic collection she inherited, before 1853, from Antoni Urbanowski (ca.1770-1872), a landowner from Horodec in Podolia. This was an even older collection, as it was inherited by Antoni Urbabnowski from his brother Christopher. It was from this collection that the 10 ducats 1562 of Sigismund II Augustus came from, sold at the first auction to Countess Starzyńska in 1883 from where it went to A. Plater, and then to A. Potocki. Thus, the Potocki collection at one point included two such portugals. One of them, the uglier one, already in the Potocki family after Franciszek, was bought back by Emeryk Hutten-Czapski and now adorns the collection of the MN in Cracow. Piece after Countess Starzyńska, as the nicer one left in the collection of Andrzej Potocki, is most likely the piece currently on display at the MN in Warsaw.
The collection of Izabela hr. Starzyńska, sold at auction as well as in this direct form, can be considered one of by far the best collections of Polish numismatics offered.
The present catalog is brimming with rarities. In the Sigismund III section, the first two items are crown portugals (!), and a couple of items further down the line momentarily two more Danzig 10-ducats (today, September 26, 2022, the day this description was prepared, one such 10-ducat was just sold for €200,000).
An amazing collection and a very rare catalog of its sale.
