THE OFFICIAL COINEX AUCTION OF ANCIENT, BRITISH AND WORLD COINS
By Ella Mackenzie
Spink London, 26th September 2024
By the time you are reading this, December will be well and truly upon us. The smell of bonfires and bursts of fireworks will have filled the skies, and (dare I say) the jingle of the festival season will no doubt already be upon the minds of many. But if I can just tempt you away from thoughts of roasting chestnuts and bubbling mulled wine, with a look back to Coinex in September, when bumper programmes of auctions and events busied the schedules of auction houses, dealers and collectors alike. It certainly was a month jam packed full of numismatic treats.
Spink was proud to return as the Official BNTA Coinex auctioneer, delivering a programme of auctions across the month, culminating with the headline act on Thursday 26th September. The day itself was undoubtedly fruitful, as the gavel continued to strike until 9.15pm! On offer were some incredible coins, and we were pleased to welcome guests to the Spink showroom throughout the day, especially throughout the Ancient and Hammered sections which was an exciting sight to see.
The first 250 or so lots of the sale was a delectable selection of Roman, Greek and Byzantine coinage, put together by our Ancient coin specialist Axel Kendrick. Included in this first session of the day was the Ancient portion from the “Estafefette No. 21” Collection, culminating in Lot 229, a choice VF Gold Oktodrachm from the reign of Ptolemy II with an impressive portrait in a Fine Style. Having been able to track its history through the Spink annals, this coin had been bought from us back in 1941, and then was sold again in a Spink Auction in November 1982. It returned to our rostrum once more and sold for an impressive £9,500 against an estimate of £5,000-£7,000.
Just two lots later, bidders were greeted with another stunning Estafefette specimen, this time Lot 231 was an Oktodrachm of Ptolemy IV. It was another Choice VF graded example by NGC, and had also been sold at Spink previously, this time in September 2012. With a 5/5 strike and lustrous surfaces, it was perhaps no surprise that this coin surpassed its estimate of £5,000-£7,000, selling for £12,000.
Following on from the fruitful swathe of Ancients, the afternoon session commenced with a stellar early English hammered selection, many of which had been found by metal detectorists. One such coin was a ‘Post-Crondall’ Period Gold Shilling. This is not only an excessively rare issue, as it is only the third recorded specimen, but its condition is astounding. From 1300 years in the Suffolk soil to the Spink rostrum (where its predecessor had last been sold in 1998), Lot 257 sold for £12,000.
Other rarities found by detectorists included Lot 272B, an Irish groat of the Cork mint, which despite extensive chipping and a porous fabric, its previously unrecorded dies and the fact it is only one of six known, resulted in its sale for £2,000. Also on offer was Lot 268, a ‘forgotten’ round short cross Halfpenny of King Henry III. It’s beautifully round flan and uniform strike made this the finest example of this exceedingly rare issue to be private hands, having been found in North Norfolk back in April of this year. The hammer came down at £5,200 for this little gem.
Jumping forward a few hundred years, we landed on the coinage of Elizabeth I. This year’s Coinex sale was full of Golden Age gold, so much so that it made the front cover of our print catalogue. Special mentions must go to more coins from Estafefette No. 21 Collection, including a Mestrelle’s Milled Issue Half-Pound (Lot 556) which hammered for £14,000 against an estimate of £8,000-£10,000; a Sixth Issue Pound of 20-Shillings (Lot 557), which hammered for £15,000 against an estimate of £10,000-£15,000; and a Sixth Issue “Crown Gold” Half-Pound (Lot 558) which sold for £17,000 against an estimate of £8,000-£10,000.
Preceding these was an excessively rare Elizabethan Fine Sovereign, one of only two of the die pairing known – the other of which was bequeathed to the British Museum in 1946. This specimen has previously graced the cabinets of Talbot-Ready (sold by Sotheby’s in November 1920) and Hamilton-Smith (sold by Glendining’s in May 1927). A beautiful cabinet piece naturally toned and handsomely uniform, this numismatic treasure went on to beat its high estimate of £90,000, settling on a final hammer price of £95,000.
Speaking of great heritage, we were also very excited to offer a magnificent Pattern Crown of Charles I, by Nicholas Briot c.1628 (Lot 296). One of only five known specimens, this stunning coin came complete with an outstanding unbroken pedigree through the Willis, Butters, Lothian, Nightingale, Braunstein, Bliss, Moon, Montagu, Addington, Brown and Marshall cabinets. A furious bidding war, from the room to the internet eventually resulted in this coin hammering for a grand sum of £42,000 against an estimate of £24,000-£30,000.
As the clock chimed 8 o’clock, the World section began. Daylight may have been fading, but paddle enthusiasm certainly was not, as we built towards the top lot of the sale. There was a great result for a 1712 8-Escudos of Philip V of Peru (Lot 618), graded MS64 by NGC – even after being recovered from the wreck of the 1715 Plate Fleet! The hammer came down at £18,000 against an estimate of £6,000-£10,000 for this pleasing extremely fine rarity.
“Daylight may have been fading, but paddle enthusiasm certainly was not, as we built towards the top lot of the sale”
And then we arrived at the long awaited Polish offerings. Lot 664 was a 1662 Gold Ducat of Jan II Casimir by Andreas Tymf, last seen at auction in February 1974 at the N.A.S.C. Convention. That sale’s catalogue description spent no caution in characterising the piece as a “lustrous EF-AU, sharp in every respect”, which our specialists certainly concurred with. Even with the rather unhelpful Details grade from NGC, this special coin spent no time in flying beyond its estimate of £10,000-£15,000. A bidding battle between Spink Live, room bidders and the telephones meant that the price continued to climb. Eventually the hammer came down at £64,000 – an astonishing result, and very well deserved.
And so to the finale of the Official Coinex Auction – an outstanding Vilius Mint 1618 10-Ducats of Sigismund III. As the Single Finest Certified by NGC and with residual lustrous flare, the condition of the coin certainly helped it on its route to surpassing high estimate. Bidders, fresh with the excitement of the Jan II Ducat result, fought it out for this incredible rarity – truly of the greatest importance to Polish- Lithuania numismatics – a relic of a European Émigré from the Second World War. Setting a new house and world record, the curtain came down on another memorable Coinex programme with a hammer price of £130,000, against an estimate of £80,000-£120,000.
From a packed room contributing to a significant 10% year-on-year increase on live bidding to the thrilling phone battles (literally at the eleventh house) that propelled Polish and Lithuanian Ducats to new house and world records, we can only look forward to more of the same next year!
The room sale, alongside the latest instalment of the Numismatic e-Circular and the Orrysdale Collection of Dr John F Crellin, meant that the Coin Department achieved a grand total of £2.2 million pounds over our Coinex programme. Needless to say, it was a fitting result for a lot of hard work from everyone involved – not that we rest on our laurels for long though, and cataloguing for December and January auctions started almost immediately. We look forward to bringing you the Alfred Leonard Fuller Collection and our Winter room sale of British and World Coins and Medals, as well as the accompanying auction for New York Inc. in January. For now, the Coin department wishes everyone a happy holiday season, and thank you to all our clients and friends for their continued and treasured support over 2024.
By Ella Mackenzie