Coin

A UK private collector has paid £1m for a 22ct Edward VIII coin, helping the 1937 sovereign regain its place as what is believed to be the most expensive British coin.

A UK auction record for a copper coin was set this week when a rare Edward VIII 1937 pattern penny sold at Spink & Son.

Dix Noonan Webb (DNW) has become the first UK numismatics auctioneer to set its buyer’s premium beyond 20%. The London-based coins, medal and jewellery specialist will charge a premium of 24% from September.

A rare Roman gold coin, found by a metal detectorist in a field in Kent, was hammered down at £460,000.

A very rare Roman gold coin, found by a metal detectorist in a field in Kent last month, will come to auction with an estimate of £70,000-100,000.

The silver eight-Reales coins struck in Mexico City in the 1530s are sometimes referred to as the ‘first dollar of the New World’.

Two suspects have been arrested in Massachusetts following a night-time break-in at the home of New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski.

One of seven known examples of ‘the first gold coin struck in the US’ – the 1787 New York Brasher Doubloon – has sold for more than $5m in a private deal.

Baldwin’s of St James’s set a new record for a British five pounds piece when a “good, extremely fine” example of the 1839 ‘Una and the Lion’ five pounds coin took £340,000.

Poor old Newark. A bit like Belgium and Poland over the centuries, in the English Civil War the English Midlands town ended up in the wrong place in wartime – stuck in the middle - as armies trampled back and forth across it or lay siege. The town’s misfortune is a coin collector’s gain, however, as the lozenge-shaped coins minted in Newark during the conflict have become familiar and fairly common visitors to the salerooms.