The Tyrant Collection Main Brochure

The first thing tyrants do upon obtaining power is strike coins with their name

and likeness, announcing their claim to their territory. And they continue to strike

coins to maintain their claim until the day they die or are deposed. Everyday

coinage is the primary means by which tyrants notify their subjects and rivals

of their tyranny. The focus of the collection is tyrants of every age and culture.

Tyrants go by many titles: Kings and Queens, Emperors and Empresses, Czars

and Czarinas, Dictators, Regents, Popes, Caliphs, Sultans, and Khans. But what

defines them is their absolute power over a territory containing millions of peo-

ple. Tyrants have been the primary shapers of history for thousands of years.

Coins still exist for nearly every tyrant who ever ruled a substantial country for

more than a few weeks of the last two thousand years. The objective of The Ty-

rant Collection is to obtain a coin for every tyrant that ruled every major country,

preferably a large gold coin with the tyrant’s name, likeness, and titles.

The Tyrant Collection is divided into sections, one for each of the major civili-

zations that issued coins for an extended period of time. Civilizations require

access to water for irrigation and transportation, so they tend to crystalize around

bodies of water, such as rivers, lakes, or seas. Each section of the Tyrant Collec-

tion is named after the body of water that it dominates.

The first section of the Tyrant Collection is The Tyrants of the Thames, the most

valuable collection of English coins in private hands. It consists of hundreds of

the most valuable English coins, including a continuous run of portrait coins of

all available denominations for the dominant tyrant of the Thames Valley for the

last 1400 years.

The Tyrants of the Thames is the first of many sections of the Tyrant Collection

that will be displayed at subsequent Long Beach shows for example:

•

“Tyrants of the Tiber”: Roman tyrants from Sulla (82BC) to Romulus Augustus (in-

cluding the 12 Caesars in gold), Ostrogoths, Byzantine Emperors, Holy Roman Em-

perors, and Popes.

•

“Tyrants of Tigris and Euphrates”: the rulers of Mesopotamia from Cyrus the Great

(550-529BC) to Saddam Hussein, including exceptional coin collections of the Ach-

aemenids, Macedonians, Seleucids, Pathians, Sassanians, Umayyads, Abbasids, Bu-

wayhids, Seljuks, Ilkhans, Jalayirids, Kara Qoyunlu, Aq Qoyunlu, Timurids, Safa-

vids, Ottomans, and Iraq.

•

“Tyrants of the Nile”: Egyptian tyrants from Nektanebo II (360-343BC) to Anwar

Sadat (1970-1980), covering Pharaonic, Achaemenids, Macedonians, Ptolemies, Ro-

mans, Byzantines, Abbasids, Tulunids, Ikhshidids, Fatimids, Ayyubids, Mamluks,

Ottomans, and the Republic.

•

“Tyrants of the Aegean”: ancient Greek coins.

•

“Tyrants of the Seine”: coins of France from the Visigoths, Merovingians, Carolin-

gians, Capetians, Bourbons, and the Napoleonic empire and more to follow.

For more information see the website at