THREE COIN SALES IN ONE DAY AT NOONANS

Almost 350 lots of coins were sold in three different sales at Mayfair Auctioneers’ Noonans on Thursday, October 13, 2022. 100% were sold totalling a hammer price of £385,745. 
 
The first sale of the day was The Herman Selig Collection (Part IV: Final): Coins of Japan which realised £85,235 and comprised 57 lots. Herman Selig, an enthusiastic collector of English coins since the early 1960s which were dispersed in three previous auctions including at Dix Noonan Webb in 2003. The pieces in the sale were principally acquired in the early 1980s and represented a cross-section of denominations from different eras. The highest price was achieved by a very fine and rare gold Oban [1838-60] from the Tempo era which sold for £26,000 and was bought by a private collector. It had previously been in the collection formed by Baltimore banker Thomas Harrison Garrett (1848-88) and his eldest son, the diplomat John Work Garrett II (1872-1942) [lot 23]. 
 
While from the Manen era, an extremely fine gold Oban [1860-2] fetched £14,000 against an estimate of £6,000-8,000 and was bought by a member of the UK trade [lot 34] and also from the Tempo era, a scarce gold Goryoban [1837-43] realised £9,000 against an estimate of £4,000-5,000 [lot 19]. 
 
The second sale saw 50 lots of Anglo-Saxon and Norman coins from the Royal Berkshire Collection sell for £122,680. An extremely fine penny from the reign of Alfred the Great (871-99) that had been part of the Hazeldine and Ryan Collections, sold for £20,000 to a private collector against an estimate of £6,000-8,000 [lot 111]. Also of note was an extremely rare London monogram-type halfpenny from the reign of Eadgar (959-975) that realised £7,500 against an estimate of  £2,400-3,000 and also sold to a private collector [lot 124]. 
 
After the sale, Tim Wilkes, Head of Coin Department at Noonans commented: “For the Selig and Royal Berkshire sales, the high prices were mainly due to these coins being ‘fresh’ to the market after being in collections for a very long time.” 
 
The final sale was a mixed owner sale of 242 lots of Ancient Coins. The highest prices of the sale were achieved by a Collection of Roman Aureii, the Property of a Gentleman which sold for £85,000. Three coins all sold for £15,000 each: from the reign of Galba, the 6th Roman Emperor and dating from AD 68, was an extremely rare example that was bought by a private collector [lot 387], while from the reign of Julius Caesar, dating from AD46, an extremely fine example was bought by a European dealer [lot 382] and from the reign of Nero and Agrippina II, dating from AD55, a coin that had a rare reverse depicting the funeral of Claudius was bought by a private collector [lot 386]. 
 
Tim Wilkes noted: “The Roman gold coins did well and this was because the market for Roman gold has gone up significantly in the past year or two.”