REVIEW: THE TREVOR WILKIN COLLECTION OF SIEGE NOTES: 30 MAY

The 25 April 1884, Siege of Khartoum note, signed by General Gordon led the prices in this sale, with a bid of £10,000, while two other notes did especially well.

The first of these was a 1 Franc note issued during the Siege of Zara, in 1813. The siege, or blockade, lasted just two weeks during the Adriatic campaign of the Napoleonic Wars.

 

Zara, a city on the Dalmatian coast in what was then an Illyrian province of the French Empire, is now the city of Zadar in Croatia and retains much of its fortifications today.

The previous two years had given the British supremacy over the French in the Adriatic, and following the successful blockade of Trieste, two British ships, The Havannah and the Weazel, were despatched to take Zara.

The port city was garrisoned with 2,000 men, mainly Croatians, but under French command. The attacking Anglo-Austrian forces found the garrison well supplied and so responded with another blockade as a prequel to a frontal attack from batteries they had landed.

A dozen French gunboats defending from under the walls of the city were all sunk within 90 minutes on December 1 in a British attack. Then Croat troops mutinied and, although the French commander managed to suppress the uprising, the troops escaped and surrendered to the British and Austrians, depleting the garrison by two thirds of its manpower.

A siege note printed and numbered in hand-written ink 13783, shows that the 1 Franc note was from a series of 30,000. It has two manuscript signatures, and a piece torn away at left, but is in otherwise good fine condition. It is at least exceptionally rare, if not unique, and left a £1,000-1,500 estimate behind to sell for £6,500.

A Siege of Palmanova, 2 Lire note, dated 1814, and with the serial number 268, has three manuscript signatures. An entirely hand-written note on laid paper, with two stamps, it has mounting traces, and a tiny repair. Again, believed to be unique, it took £4,000 against hopes of £2,000-2,600.