REVIEW: COINS AND HISTORICAL MEDALS: 19 NOVEMBER

Half the metal but double the price – the celebrated Holey dollar showed its mettle once again at auction when the example offered here took a hammer price of £13,000 against hopes of £6,000-8,000 to lead the sale.

These coins can vary greatly in value depending on condition; this one – a mediocre example of the first coinage minted in Australia and now more than 200 years old – was made from an 8 reales of 1801-03.

 

Other expected highlights did not disappoint. A Phase III Penny of the Danelaw, St Peter Coinage, circa 921-27, dated to a period when Pagan and Christian beliefs were merging. Numerous die variants were created, this one being of the Sword/Mallet type. Well struck up and in good very fine condition, it passed a £4,000-5,000 guide to sell for £7,500.

From the earlier reign of Beornwulf (823-826) – the last dominant ruler of Mercia – came a penny of the moneyer Eadnoth. With a small edge repair, but otherwise very fine, and very rare, it was expected to sell for £2,000-2,600 but reached £4,200.

A Harold II (1066) PAX type Penny with Sceptre, struck by Eadwine in London, was in better than very fine condition and sold at mid estimate for £5,500, while a circa 100-60 BC British Iron Age Stater of the ‘Globular Cross’ type, but of an unidentified tribe, was in good very fine condition and well centred. Probably of insular British manufacture and excessively rare, it had a guide price of £800-1,000 but went on to sell for £2,800.

A Charles I (1625-1649), Oxford Mint, Unite, dated for 1643, took £4,600 against an estimate of £3,000-3,600.