Coins

Gold coin rejected at first but now identified as once owned by renowned Russian collector

Despite the near absence of face-to-face trading, 2020 was a record year for London’s coins and medals auction houses with combined total sales just shy of £53m.

In the absence of face-to-face contact, 2020 was a difficult year for the numismatics market as a whole... but the auction business found a way to thrive.

Showing that not all the best UK numismatic action takes place in London, the first known gold coin of Caratacus – unearthed by a metal detectorist a year earlier in a Berkshire field – sold at auction for a record £71,000 an auction in Norwich.

After striking a few coins in both gold and silver which were still closely related to Byzantine and Sasanian prototypes, ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan ibn al-Hakam, the fifth Umayyad caliph, ruling from 685-705AD (65-86H), made a clean break with the pre-Islamic past and introduced a completely new gold coinage in 77H.

This coin, from the period known as ‘The Anarchy’, was discovered by a metal detectorist in a Yorkshire field in March.

The numismatic department of TimeLine is a small but important part of the auction house’s activities in the related disciplines of antiquities and medieval works of art.

This William and Mary Five Guineas piece from 1693 features conjoined busts of joint monarchs.

Roma Numismatics set a new record for a classical coin when a Brutus Eid Mar-type gold aureus, struck shortly after the murder of Julius Caesar, took £2.7m in October.

This Queen Anne (1702-14) five guineas piece from 1705 sold for £220,000 (estimate £100,000-120,000) to top the Stratos collection of English gold coins offered by Spink on September 15.

The 1826 £5 piece was the highest denomination in the coinage of the George IV and was not issued for general circulation. The epitome of Regency design, the reverse features the royal shield while the obverse designed by William Wyon features the bare head portrait.

This silver penny struck for Ludeca, a short-lived king of Mercia who ruled from 826-7, was found at Combe Bissett, Wiltshire, in 2016.

Starting his collection with a 1568 sixpence purchased in Swanage in 1957, marine insurance broker Christopher Comber (1944-2019) formed a remarkable collection of Elizabeth I coins.

A record for a British token was set at Dix Noonan Webb on May 26 when this copper coin – the only specimen known in commerce – took £7000 (estimate £400-500).

A 1787 New York-style Brasher doubloon, perhaps the most celebrated issue in US numismatics, has set a new auction record for a gold coin.

The fourth and final part of the North Yorkshire Moors collection of coins and medals included some exceptional examples from the Interregnum.

One of only a handful of known examples of Henry III’s gold penny – one of the most fabled coins in all of British numismatics – sold for $720,000 (£554,000) at auction in Dallas last week.

Some of the best US coin discoveries are today made in the UK.

A notable source of ancient coins and historical jewellery appearing on the market in 2020 has been the soil. It is the success of the Portable Antiquities Scheme that finders of ‘treasure’ are now encouraged to declare discoveries and share the proceeds of sales with the landowner.

David Sear, author of Roman Coins and their Values, called it “among the most exciting numismatic discoveries of the 21st century, if not of all time”.