REVIEW: THE PHILLIPS FAMILY COLLECTION OF ANCIENT GREEK COINS: 25 SEPTEMBER

At a sell-out £3.14 million on 25 September, the Phillips Family Collection lived up to its standing as a landmark offering of coins from the Ancient Greek world.

Best of all, the proceeds of the sale will benefit the Heberden Coin Room in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University’s Museum of Art and Archaeology which houses approximately 50,000 Greek and Roman Provincial coins and is the leading Coin Room in the world.

This phenomenal collection of 254 gold and silver coins had been accumulated over 90 years by a father and son, whose identity was kept confidential at the family’s request.

The result trebled hopes, with the top lot being a stater from Crete struck c.425-400, which sold for a hammer price of £300,000 to a private collector against hopes of £40,000-£50,000. Showing the head of a Minatour, the coin was once part of the Sir Arthur J. Evans Collection, the archaeologist who discovered the palace at Knossos. It had formed part of the Burlington Fine Arts Club’s Exhibition of Ancient Greek Art in 1903.

With the same estimate, a decadrachm struck at Syracuse under the tyrant Dionysios I, c.400-380 sold for £150,000, also to a collector.

The catalogue cover lot was a selected because it has a special significance for the family, being a gift from father to son on Christmas Day in 1963. A magnificent Dekadrachm of Carthage, it had an estimate of £20,000-26,000 and sold to a collector for £120,000.

Noonans' Coin Specialist Bradley Hopper said: “We are delighted with the result of the sale, and it was a privilege to take the auction. The prices achieved today – many of which were more than 10 times their pre-sale estimate – reflected the importance of this collection.”

Prior to the sale, Dr Alexander Sturgis, Director, Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology commented: “The money generated from the sale will endow the post of the curator of Greek coins at the Heberden Coin Room. This will ensure the long-term future of Greek numismatics at the University of Oxford, where the subject has a long and illustrious tradition.”

• The Neale Collection of Ancient Greek Coins on 25 September also performed well, led by a signed silver Tetradrachm of Kimon dating to c.406 and struck under the Second Democracy in Syracuse. Considered one of the greatest artistic masterpieces of numismatics, the obverse shows the head of the nymph Arethusa, her hair fluttering radially as if submerged in water, while the reverse depicts a charioteer driving galloping quadriga. Bidders turned a high estimate of £150,000 into a final hammer price of £200,000.