King Farouk was the first King of Egypt and reigned from 1936 to 1952. There were many different things that King Farouk was known for, however one of the most notable is the fact that he was considered to be a prolific collector. He owned an extremely diverse collection of items, although coinage was a recurring theme with King Farouk’s collection. With an estimated 8,500 medals and gold coins, its no wonder coinage from the collection is so highly sought after by coin collectors these days. King Farouk purchased most of the coinage in the 1940’s when the Egyptian pound was worth much more than ever before. This allowed King Farouk to put together quite an incredible collection.
Many different America dealers supplied most of the coins that King Farouk purchased and although the large orders were welcomed, the dealers quickly learned that there were many downsides to selling coins to King Farouk. The main reason that many dealers had difficulty dealing with King Farouk is because of the fact that it would often take quite a long time to receive payment after supplying the coins. The reason for this is the fact that large invoices would usually have to go through the Egyptian treasury making the process a lot slower than it probably should have been.
In 1952 when the Egyptian military forced the King out of the country, of course there were many people including America coin dealers that had a huge interest in the collection. Eventually the collection was sold by the Egyptian government and hired to describe the coins was London’s Baldwin & Co. and Sotheby & Co. was also hired to catalog the collection. To find out more about the current whereabouts and value of coins from the King Farouk collection, there are a ton of resources online that will allow you to do so.