For more than 80 years, a coin collection amassed by banker and landowner Samuel Mills Damon has been locked in the vaults of First Hawaiian Bank. Now, the multimillion-dollar collection has been shipped to New York, where it will be auctioned off early next year.

Described by a local expert as among the world's top 10, the collection has more than 6,000 coins from Hawai'i, Europe and Asia.

"This will probably be one of the greatest collections that will ever be auctioned off," said Honolulu coin merchant Craig Watanabe, president of Captain Cook Coin Co. "This Damon estate collection is probably going to go down on record as among the top 10 sales in the history of the world."

However, it is primarily a collection of American coins, and features an 1876 proof set of 14 coins from a copper penny to a $20 gold piece. The proof set is expected to bring in at least $250,000.

"That is one of the highlights," said Norman Scrivener, a consultant with auction house Doyle New York, which will handle the sale.

However, Watanabe said Doyle's auction house is downplaying what the coins will bring. He thinks the 1876 proof set alone will bring in $1 million and the collection at least $5 million.

Damon, a minister of finance under Queen Lili'uokalani who followed Charles Reed Bishop as head of First Hawaiian Bank's predecessor, Bishop & Co., collected coins from the late 19th century until his death in 1924. The selling of the collection was prompted by the dissolution of the land baron's estate.

The auction house is putting together a catalog of the coins that will be released before the sale, expected early next year.

Damon also collected 200 medals dating from the 17th through the 19th centuries representing various Western European countries, the United States and Hawai'i, including two 1850 Hawaiian agricultural medals.

Damon was one of the first trustees of the Kamehameha Schools and saw his fortune grow when Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop gave him the entire ahupua'a, or land division, of Moanalua, which at the time extended from the Moanalua hillside down to Sand Island, and the area next to what is now Honolulu International Airport.

At its peak, the estate held assets of about $900 million and was the fifth-largest private landowner in Hawai'i with more than 121,000 acres. It also was First Hawaiian's largest shareholder before it sold its stake to BNP Paribas several years ago.

Damon's will stated that the assets of the estate would be held in trust until the death of his last grandchild. Last November, the last surviving grandchild, 84-year-old Joan Damon Haig, died in New Jersey. In December, the trust began distributing assets to beneficiaries.

Tim Johns, the estate's chief operating officer, declined comment on the sale of the coins.

Scrivener said this is a good time for the estate to sell the collection as values for U.S. coins have risen steadily over the past few years. "Especially for high-grade coins," he said.