Coins

MORTON and Eden continue to make great strides considering how short a time they have existed. On April 22 they held their first sale abroad – in Milan in collaboration with Sotheby’s. Indeed, that firm is descended from the now closed Sotheby’s coin department.

IN this busy spring season – the busiest for some years – Spink’s have been batting hard. March 31 saw a fine sale which netted £626,750. But, not content with that, they fielded another 632-lot sale a fortnight later, on April 15. Again this sale referred mainly to British and related coins. However, the first 131 lots were devoted to the ancient world.

DIX Noonan Webb’s March 17 sale offered exactly 1700 lots, making for a very long day. But just about every branch of numismatic endeavour was catered for. So comprehensive was this sale that only a flavour of the dispersal can be covered here.

THIS spring season Spink’s have had some hard-hitting sales and it has to be said that the market for the best British material has become very buoyant over the last year or so.

THE Paris expert Alain Weill makes a habit of holding sales which are rather more interesting than those of many of his colleagues. For sure they have a strong Gallic slant, but then sales in London are strongly biased towards the British series.

THE British Numismatic Trade Association have just issued a notice to their members about a new European Union import tax. As from March 1 an ad valorem duty has been imposed on any United States Mint modern products imported into the European Union under the following codes – 71189000 and 71181010.

THE new money-laundering laws appear inadvertently to have created a problem for the coin trade.

THE massive catalogue of Küncker of Osnabrück (27.22/23 buyer’s premium) devoted to Classical, Byzantine and Islamic coins has fallen onto my desk.

“COINS transmit the image of a ruler far more widely than any other medium available before photography.” Thus the blurb trumpeting the exhibition in the British Museum of portraits on coins.

THERE was quite a lot of frenzied activity at Bonhams (aka Glendinings) in the days running up to their sale on February 24.

A new record for a European coin was set in New York on January 15 at a sale held jointly by Baldwin (London), Markov (N.Y.) and M&M Numismatics (Washington DC). The subject of this excitement was a Russian silver rouble.  Boldly estimated at $500,000, after spirited bidding it reached $525,000 (£308,823), selling to a Japanese dealer on behalf of a client.

It is such an obvious thing to do that it is surprising that there not similar dispersals to that of the Colin Adams collection of English pennies (1797-1970) at Spink (17.65% buyer’s premium) on July 23. It required 375 lots to cover this collection and so we are furnished with a price guide for what is surely a popular if relatively elementary passion.  

The two days of June 24 and 25 were occupied by a general sale (1895 lots) hosted by Dix Noonan Webb. The vast collection of British coins has been dispersed by Spink and latterly DNW at intervals over about the last decade. I was particularly struck by the English royal arms on the reverse of a very nice example of the gold Edward VI sovereign. A sensible estimate of £4000-5000 was suggested. It made £5800.

A CHARLES II pattern crown from 1663, the Petition Crown(*), has set a new world record for English silver coins at auction.

The first, the finest, the rarest – and with an unbeatable provenance. It is not often that an auctioneer can boast this dream recipe for a lot, but Spink offer this heady mix of ingredients when they open their two-part sale of the Slaney collection on Thursday (May 15).

The twice-a-year Baldwin, Ma, Gillio, Monetarium sale of Far Eastern coins this time took place in Singapore on March 6. There has been a sea-change in the type of goods offered. Hitherto Chinese coins of all periods have been on sale. The Chinese have a penchant for dollar-sized silver coins. Indeed there are many varieties which were struck for major cities in that vast country. What has changed is that in this sale there was an emphasis on these later coins.

It is not now often that a collection which has not been available for study for a large number of years comes to the market. Dix Noonan Webb announce that they have recently been consigned an extensive collection of coins and medals formed by the late Alan Beeton.  

Russian coins seem to fall into a category all their own. Like papal coins and medals they have a worldwide appeal. Perhaps this is because since 1917 there has been a diaspora of Russians.

HOW can coins being sold on the rostrum in New York be sitting safely locked up in London and elsewhere at the same time? That is the conundrum facing the coins and medals world following the publication of a catalogue and results from a sale organised in New York by Riccardo Paolucci, a Yorkshire-based Italian dealer.

Attentive readers of the Antiques Trade Gazette will remember the sale of the Lawrence R. Stack collection of English medieval coins at Sotheby’s in April 1999. He also had a good collection of French coins from the time of Henri IV (1589-1610) to about Waterloo. These were dispersed by Hess-Divo (15% buyer’s premium) in Zurich on October 24 in 380 lots.