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Dan O’Dowd didn’t start collecting coins for the limelight. In fact, for many years he was known to the public merely by a handle – an alias. However, as his collection grew, the man who came to be known as “The Tyrant” became a figure of numismatic mystique. As the numismatic world pondered the identity of the peerless collector, countless people lined up to see the Tyrant coins during their headlining exhibitions at coin shows around the United States and beyond.
So, just who is Dan O’Dowd, the person behind one of the greatest coin collections ever assembled? He’s a tech billionaire who designs some of the most important computer software around. “I have spent 50 years figuring out how to write software that never fails and can’t be hacked,” explains O’Dowd. “Almost 30 years ago, I won the contract to incorporate my INTEGRITY operating system into the B-1B intercontinental nuclear bomber. Since then, my operating system has been used in the B-2 and B-52 bombers; the F-16, F-22, and F-35 fighter jets; helicopters; and top-secret encryption devices.”
O’Dowd explains that INTEGRITY is also employed in commercial aircraft such as the Boeing 787 and Airbus A380 as well as in cars manufactured by most of the major automakers. “For 30 years, the INTEGRITY operating system has never failed and has never been hacked.” It’s a sobering reality that O’Dowd paints. “These days everything our lives depend on is controlled by software: the power grid, water treatment plants, banks, planes, trains, and automobiles. If these systems fail or are hacked thousands or even millions of people could die.” He adds, “My job is to make computers safe for humanity.”
Many individuals of great monetary wealth spend their money living as recreational daredevils, some flying high in experimental planes or diving deep into the ocean blue near shark-riddled reefs. Tyrant curated a numismatic cabinet of historic proportions, though it didn’t begin with millennia-old rounds of gold and silver bearing portraits of leaders referenced in sacred tomes. “I started collecting U.S. $10 gold coins in 2004. I researched all the denominations of U.S. coins, and I concluded that the U.S. $10 gold coin series was the most undervalued.”
He was impressed by the breadth and history of the gold eagles, noting that the run also didn’t have any “super-expensive stopper dates” like other denominations boast. “The 1875 is the closest thing to a stopper in the whole series,” he clarifies. “I officially started the collection the day I purchased the highestgraded 1875 $10 for about $80,000. It was all downhill after that. Over the last 20 years U.S. $10 gold coins have become much more widely appreciated, with an 1875 recently selling for over $1,000,000.” His magnificent eagle collection spurred a conversation that led him into more diverse numismatic pursuits. “One day I proudly showed my wife my finest-of-all-time U.S. $10 gold coin collection. Her comment was: ‘why do they all look the same?’ I didn’t have any answer for that, so I built the finestof- all-time U.S. type set, in which the coins all look different.”
Before long, O’Dowd’s numismatic horizons took him further away from the United States – and deeper through the mists of time. “One day I was walking the floor of the Long Beach Expo and I stopped in to talk to one of the few lonely ancient coin dealers. I bought a beautiful artistic 1,700-year-old gold aureus for far less than I had been paying for 100-year-old U.S. coins. As I studied Roman gold coins, I realized that each one is a unique, handmade piece of art, unlike modern machinemade coins which are all almost identical. That led me to collect Roman gold coins, at least one for every tyrant (emperor) from Augustus to the last Roman emperor Constantine XI in 1453.”
O’Dowd’s growing collection of coins bearing kings, queens, autocrats, and martinets of yore led the collector to adopt the “Tyrant” banner for his numismatic cabinet. “My coin collection is called the Tyrant Collection because it is a collection of tyrants,” O’Dowd remarks. “The first thing any tyrant does after seizing power is issue coinage to declare the territory they rule and make sure everyone knows what their new boss looks like.”
The portraits seen on the coins in the Tyrant Collection include the likenesses of Alexander the Great, Caesar, Brutus, Antony and Cleopatra (on opposite sides of a single coin), Augustus, Caligula, Nero, William the Conqueror, George III, Henry VIII, Elisabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, and Napoleon. “Coins are available for almost every tyrant who ruled over a significant territory for as little as a few weeks in the last 2,000 years.” The little portraits on the coins represent some of the best metallurgical art of their time. “Often the finest artists were commissioned by tyrants to make coins for them. A coin is a contemporaneous authorized portrait of a famous person that extends their fame for thousands of years.”
It’s not just the coin that’s important to O’Dowd; it’s also the history that matters. He believes every significant coin has a story to tell. “When I acquire an important coin, I learn its story. There can be a story about the tyrant who issued it; or a story about the famous collectors who have previously owned it; or a cloak-and-dagger story of how it made its way to the collector.” O’Dowd eventually began exploring other periods in history and regions of the world, staking out new avenues for his evolving collection. He has since expanded his efforts out to most major European and Islamic empires and some Asian and Latin American countries. “I found that for a similar age, rarity, and quality English coins were much less expensive than U.S. coins. So, I decided to collect English coins by tyrant (king) from 7th century Anglo-Saxons to the present. Recently the price of the best large English gold coins has skyrocketed.”
French coins also presented their own nuanced opportunities for O’Dowd. “I discovered that French coins of a given era were usually of higher quality and lower price than English coins. When I had the opportunity to purchase Dr. Terner’s French gold coin collection, I bought it intact. Interestingly, there has been no great increase in the price of French gold coins since I started collecting. Perhaps sometime in the future the relatively low prices for beautiful French gold coins of the Middle Ages will be recognized more widely.”
Regardless of the set he pursued, O’Dowd was deliberate and discreet on his marketplace journeys at every twist and turn to minimize pricing friction and other challenges when seeking coins for his incredible cabinet. “I built my collection in secret. I worked through many dealers. Many people knew who I was, but they only knew how much I had bought through them – not the full extent of my collection.” This is why O’Dowd masqueraded under the Tyrant moniker for some two decades.
He adds that dealers didn’t know his true objectives or progress, so they didn’t know what he still needed to purchase when completing sets. “Coin dealers are positioned to become aware of new coins coming to market before me. If they know what I need, they can step in and buy it then turn around and mark it up for sale to me at an exorbitant price. If they are uncertain as to what coins I have and need, stepping in front of me is a big risk. If I pass on their coin, they are left with a white elephant with no one to sell it to.”
While his collection is still growing, O’Dowd achieved goals for several of his major sets by 2017. That’s when he began musing on the next chapter of his numismatic legacy. “I started to think ‘what should I do with all these collections? Let them sit in safe deposit boxes and go visit them occasionally?’ I realized that there were so many coins in each collection, that it was impossible to properly appreciate the collection one coin at a time.” He wanted to exhibit his collection, so he commissioned the construction of a 30-foot by 30-foot tradeshow booth that could accommodate 17 display cases capable of displaying 400 coins; each coin would be accompanied by enlarged images of their obverse and reverse alongside descriptions of each displayed specimen.
“It didn’t seem worth doing all this work if only I could see the full collection. I needed to display it so that everyone could appreciate it.” However, he said there was a downside to this approach. “Every dealer would know what I had and what I needed, so they could front-run me for the coins that I needed. To avoid this problem, I decided I wouldn’t display any collection until it was ‘complete.’ The test is that I can honestly say that I would not feel bad about turning away any overpriced coin that was offered to me for that collection.”
But for O’Dowd there were other motivations for displaying his menagerie of rare and exotic coins. “I wanted to encourage other large collectors to do the same, so everyone can see the rarest and most beautiful coins. As it was for me when I started collecting, many collectors only know about U.S. coins. If they get a chance to see the most beautiful and historically relevant coins of other countries, it might open their eyes to other possibilities.”