Götz Grabert (1924-2000)
The collection of “European Scholar lately deceased” was sold in May 2006 by LHS Numismatik. The collection was that of Grabert and his wife Ingrid Thomas . Grabert was born in Stuttgart, the son of a notary and tax-advisor. Grabert was the rare collector of note in that he was not born into extreme wealth, nor did he acquire such wealth in his lifetime. Rather, he patiently, and with limited resources as compared to other collectors of his caliber, befriended some of the most important dealers of his time; Hans Hellmuth Kricheldorf (1909-1980), Jacques Schulman (1906-1991), Herbert Adolf Cahn (1915-2002) and Pierre Strauss (1922-1995) at Münzen und Medaillen, and notably Leo Mildenberg (1913-2001) – first at Schweizer Kreditanstalt and later at Bank Leu who helped him build a collection to rival most. Two years after her Gotz's death, Ingrid completed the collection by acquirin an aureus bearing the portrait of a middle-aged Nero. Silvia Hurter subsequently wrote a book on some highlights in the collection, and then sold it in order to finance the foundation Stiftung SOL, which she had created in order to support various cultural projects (to date in Germany, India and Afghanistan).
Biblio: Hadrien J. Rambach, Provenance Glossary of Coins in the George W. LaBorde Collection (published over three auctions in NAC 91, 99 and 105) (description); Silvia Mani Hurter, Kaiser Roms im Münzporträt. 55 Aurei der Sammlung Götz Grabert, (Stuttgart, 2003) (image)