Bitcoin Forum

This is a pretty cool announcement. Stacks Bowers, a leader in coin collectors' auctions and numismatics in general, has announced that they are excited to auction a Lealana .1 BTC buyer funded black (10 issued). They are probably bending the truth saying this is the first physical bitcoin up for live auction... but hey, it's all good for us holders of these collectibles.

For all I know someone on this forum is the owner of this coin.

https://www.stacksbowers.com/News/Pages/Blogs.aspx?ArticleID=lealana-physical-bitcoin-november-2021-showcase-auction (https://www.stacksbowers.com/News/Pages/Blogs.aspx?ArticleID=lealana-physical-bitcoin-november-2021-showcase-auction)

Steeley

This is excellent news. If heritage auction house follows… just wow! Thanks for sharing.

Good to see more mainstream attention, but there were more than 10 of these made. I know there was at least one roll of 20 that were black label buyer funded. I think there's probably 30-40 at least.

I suppose Stacks Bowers is using one source for their info - The Encyclopedia. At some point all the new found info and new creations could use an update.

http://auctions.stacksbowers.com/lots/view/3-TYP2B/2013-silver-lealana-01-bitcoin-btc-no-3605-series-1-unredeemed-buyer-funded-black-address-troy-ounce-999-silver-25mm-ms-7

Seems the bid is live on it, current bid is at 7k so above face value with COA’s and everything. I think that gilt of these I was hoping to buy just mooned.

Oh wow, great to see some appreciation for physical cryptocoins in some actual "real world" auction houses.  ;D
The price is still pretty low, I hope this gains a bit more popularity and goes aboe $10k.
It would be great to see some Casascius coin offered like this too, they surely would go much higher in price.

The auction is on going till the 23rd. Question really is can it keep up its current rate and still exceed the numismatic value considering its a buyer funded rather than loaded coin. This will be interesting to keep tabs on.

"Bitcoins were issued in silver, and this buyer-funded example with a black address is a great rarity, one of only 10 issued." Do we know of actually how many were issued with black addy?

I'm also confused by the COA photographs in the link...

At the time physical bitcoins were being made I think great record keeping wasn't a top priority. Because of that the encyclopedia will be the gold standard for facts, even if their not completely accurate. The fact is in the coin collecting world the mintage on physical bitcoins is virtually none. I believe these coins will eventually be the most sought after collectable on the planet. Currently Buyer Funded coins are the only ones legally aloud to be sold by companies. This is a huge step and I couldnt be happier that its starting. Hold them, never peel them, then buy a yacht with them in 2040.

This is a buyer funded coin, but it was evidently loaded by smoothie as written in the COA. Just an important data point if you are interested in tracking what the premium on this coin is. For now, $7000 is not much over the load value.

Has the bidding even started? It says on the page "Live bidding starts Nov 25", so maybe the $7000 is just the starting price? In the meantime BTC climbed up to $68k and tends further upwards. $7k could be well below face value by Nov 25

It’s internet bidding for now, I saw it jump from 6,8 to 7k. Say internet bidding is supposed to end the 23rd then live bids which confuses me.

There is a chance that this coin is a pretty good value when all is said and done since the purchase is in fiat while BTC is increasing at the same time.

 
The address color has nothing to do with regulations. 

There is prob lot more of those coins. I had about 10 of them and option to buy another 5-6 coins at one time..

It’s already up to $8500… but I imagine I’ll get outbid again shortly. Lol

Actually it does.  In order to show compliance with regulations going forward, the color was changed so there was no confusion with 1st batch that no longer did.

First for them I suppose is what they mean. So here comes our numismatic values I've been waiting on from the auction houses.  Some of our rare non funded collectibles should start doing quite well in the coming years.

Is smoothie on the record saying that somewhere?  Because I bought and funded a lot of 1st batch coins so he didn't stick to his own rule of trying to eliminate confusion.

Regardless, the color didn't have to change to comply with regulations like the description would lead you to believe.

There is a gilt version of the .10 BTC silver?

No, the gilts are the ones with a gold b on the front, not the hologram. Only made for the 1 BTC denomination.

I looked at the auction for the first time and actually paid attention to the detail. This coin is amazing.

1. it's rarity is increased by being funded.
2. it is the only PCGS graded of this type, maybe first for PCGS overall. Pop of 1
3. It is graded as 70!
4. it is scarce as in only 40 exist (but the lore is that only 10 exist per the encyclopedia)
5. and finally, it will always be the first physical bitcoin sold by Stack Bowers at auction.

That's a lot of narrative value, quality, scarcity and Bitcoin. I am very interested in seeing what the final purchase price is.

Steeley

I own the Lealana coin you speak of currently at Stack's Bowers. I just thought I would clarify something due to the fact there is sometimes confusion not just here, but also elsewhere regarding the .10 Lealana Silver Bitcoin mintage numbers. There were a total of  2,000 silver .10 Bitcoins minted. Of those 2,000, only 500 had black addresses (the rest were green). Of those 500 with black addresses, only 10 were ALSO marked "Buyer Funded" at the top above the "B" on the hologram. So yes, it is 1 of only 10 issued. One more interesting note that Stacks Bowers did not mention about the coin, is that because it was funded "Pre-fork", It also has all the forks on it, such as Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Silver and Bitcoin Gold. Yes Steeley, this coin is amazing! Ha, Ha! I am saddened it will soon be gone, it truly is irreplaceable.

I take it you got all your information from the Encyclopedia of Bitcoins.....  this is a guide not a definite mintage number on any of the coins listed in there.....
There could be more out there as we know that smoothie never released full mintage numbers nor associated addresses.

Thanks for the additional infos. This sounds like a truly rare specimen. It is unfortunate that smoothie never disclosed mintage number (or any futher information on that matter).
Good luck with the auction, this coin is unfortunately out of my price range.

Like I said before this is not true. I won at action a roll of 20 black text buyer funded coins. I have one for sale here: https://shop.coin.community/product/lealana-0-1-btc-silver-black-buyer-funded-rare-2/

https://shop.coin.community/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/3-IMG_4806.jpg

LOL.. Seriously? A buyer-funded coin graded 70 by the biggest cookie cutter grading house is "a first"? And worse, it's seriously wrong about the rarity etc.. ???

Fuckin' pathetic.... ::)

Where's a nice silver Cas or something really valuable?  :P

So do you have a picture of the other 19 coins. How about 15, or 10, or even 5. I suppose this must be your last one. I have never seen these coins in a picture with more than one. Whether the total is 10 or 20 or even 40. Its a super rare coin. Im going with the encyclopedia until I see some proof of some quantities of these BF coins. Because up until now their few and far between.

Click for bigger.
https://wiki.coin.community/images/thumb/9/9a/Lealana_-_0.1_silver_buyer_funded_four_row.jpg/799px-Lealana_-_0.1_silver_buyer_funded_four_row.jpg (https://wiki.coin.community/images/9/9a/Lealana_-_0.1_silver_buyer_funded_four_row.jpg)

There's no doubt these are rare coins and even rarer at the quality of yours with CoA etc. Unfortunately no one but smoothie really knows how many were made, but I can tell you I had 20 at one point, so there's more than that.

If anything I'd be sus of funded "buyer funded" coins. It's relatively easy to laser etch "buyer funded" into the hologram of a funded black text coin.

Congrats on the sale anyway, you got a very nice premium and this is hopefully the first of many crypto coins at auction houses like this.

thanks for the info and the pic. Very interesting, im convinced theres more than 10

As previously stated, mintage numbers are not definite.

If you've been around long enough, it's pretty amazing to think about what kind of climate we are in today compared to how things were back when.  I remember starting to collect these coins back in 2015.  Bitcoin was a couple hundred bucks, Cas coins not much more than that, etc.  We all had dreamed of bitcoin reaching "the moon" and bitcoin coin collectibles hitting auction houses as the hobby took off.  Well, here we are.  Just pretty amazing that it's come to fruition.

Final sale, $33,600.

About a $27,000 premium (sale all in fiat).

In my opinion this was a great deal for the seller and the buyer. I think this coin is amazing and will keep appreciating but a nice premium appreciation for the owners of these coins that picked them up early too!

Good stuff all around

Steeley

nice auction!
I also got one of these black buyer funded (unfunded) 0.1btc coins, actually got a matching set including 0.1, 0.25, 0.5 and 1 btc :)