Morton & Eden

Coin specialist Tom Eden is to retire from Morton & Eden after 47 years in the industry.

This late medieval repoussé medal depicting ‘The Emperor Heraclius’s Return of the True Cross to Jerusalem’ proved the highlight of the Sir Timothy Clifford collection of Renaissance and Baroque medals sold by Morton & Eden in London.

London auctioneers Morton & Eden, in association with Sotheby’s, have included in their May 31 sale this silver medal awarded to a steward aboard the RMS Carpathia for his help in rescuing passengers from the Titanic.

Two of the greatest offerings of Islamic coins ever have recently been sold in London. The two catalogues – Morton & Eden’s and Baldwin’s – will be useful historical documents for a long time to come.

MORTON & Eden are to auction a hoard of American gold coins discovered in the garden of an East London home where they were buried in fear of a Nazi invasion.

THE London Islamic sales week got of to a ‘magic carpet’ start when Morton and Eden held an 81-lot sale devoted to the rarest Islamic coins.

ON December 9, Morton and Eden are to offer what is possibly the most important collection of Renaissance medals to come onto the market in decades.

A HOARD of James I gold unites, found in the wall of an Oxfordshire cellar 30 years ago, is expected to sell for £50,000 at London specialist auctioneers Morton & Eden on June 9-10.

Morton and Eden have sold 41 Celtic gold coins found by a metal detectorist in Kent for £35,500. The coins, some of which are shown here, were found over a three-year period between 2003 and 2006, scattered over a ploughed field near Westerham in Kent, the precise location of which is being kept secret.

IN late autumn there were three major sales of Orders, Decorations and Medals. Their combined total was £1,373,461 with 2592 lots offered. This compares with a total for 2004 of just over £6m and 6219 lots offered by the London auction houses. (The 2004 annual tabulation for numismatic sales will appear in a future ATG.)

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.

Apart from their specialist commemorative medal sale, Morton & Eden (15% buyer’s premium) busied themselves with a general 1025-lot sale on May 21 which made a total of £592,877. This fine result was coupled with a reasonably small failure rate of just 12 per cent. This is about the norm for more specialised events but hard to achieve in a general sale.