Coin

GERMANY: The sales of the firm of Kricheldorf (15% buyer’s premium) of Freiburg are relatively rare occasions but when they do hold them there are a large number of lots. There were two sales in July at Berlin. That on July 29-30 was a general affair (4205 lots).

USA: Next week in an extraordinary single-lot auction – and the first joint sale between Sotheby’s.com and eBay, this 1933 Double Eagle $20 gold coin is to be offered for sale by Sotheby’s and New York coin auctioneer Stack’s on behalf of the US government.

UK: THE Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is celebrating a £425,000 Lottery windfall that has helped it acquire a stunning coin collection.

The catalogue for the Dix Noonan Webb sale of March 21 makes known a recent discovery before it gets into the learned journals. It is an incidental use of sale catalogues that these things can be given prompt announcement. This is the nice example of a Charles I half-crown struck at York.

Slightly worn, as they usually come, but with a good portrait, this testone of François I (1515-47 – 28mm diam) sold for E170 (£105).

In a recent issue some attempt was made to get away from only reporting past auction sales by noting coins from trade fixed price lists. To develop this theme further we return to auction sales but with a difference, this time to preview a few lots from Spink’s sale of April 11 in London.

UK: THE lack of new and interesting material reported elsewhere in the ‘Cumberland’ fair report was reflected in Glendining’s first sale of this year on February 1. There was nothing there which is not relatively easy to find. It is perhaps because of this that it is worth reporting on the latest auction prices of some of the more usual coins.