The Macdonald Collection of Primitive Currency

Santa Cruz, piece of Feather Money, red, width 6cm (Quiggin pl. 9 and pp.135-6). A little faded, otherwise very fine, very rare (£150-200)

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Macdonald Collection of Primitive Currency.

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Collection

Exhibition:
Spink and Son, ‘Curious Currencies of the World’, London, 1963, tray 2, 20.

Plate VII. The tiny feathers are those of the honey-bird (Myzomela cardinalis), a sparrow-sized bird with mainly black plumage but with red on head and breast. The feathers were painstakingly overlapped on fibre belts. Feathers from a minimum of 400 birds were required for a good coil which reportedly took a year to make