The Poe Collection of Moroccan Coinage

Owner Comments:

This is my upgraded 1306 Fes Falus, upgrading the 61BN in the previous entry. Oddly enough, I paid $200 less for this one….. coin auctions can be weird sometimes. This is an absolutely beautiful example – the reverse is a delightful mellow reddish, the obverse an attractive brown. The strike is quite strong. You can see all the detail of the textured devices (they remind me of snakeskin).

Fun story about purchasing this coin and my 1306 quarter-falus. These both came up on Heritage in April 2019 as part of the extensive Engelen collection. My mom and I had been planning a trip to Peru and Ecuador for about a year. One of the highlights of our trip was that we would be spending a week in the Amazonian Jungle of Peru, with no internet and no electricity. That just happened to be the week this auction was occurring! So, before we left, I placed a couple of nuclear bids on these coins. I absolutely had to win! There was no chance I could let them slip through my grasp (especially the quarter falus, since I already had the falus and was just upgrading it). I kept watching the auction until it was time to leave and there wasn’t much action (there often isn’t much pre-sale action on Heritage auctions – people wait until they can view the coins in lot viewing before placing strong bids). Into the jungle we went! No electricity. I was nervous. The day of the auction came and it was an amazing day – we went canoeing and saw a family of 5 Giant River Otters, an extremely endangered species. It was a really special day! But with no internet, I had absolutely no idea if I had won, and I was quite nervous. It wasn’t until several days later that we flew to Cusco (in preparation for the amazing Macchu Picchu), and I was able to finally check the auctions. I had won! Hooray. Anyways, both of these coins are now deeply embedded in my collection.