Coin

This rare Indian coin drew a four-way competition at Wilkes & Curtis’ latest auction.

A remarkable hoard of coins shedding light on the power struggles between Vikings and Anglo-Saxons has come onto the open market in a highly unusual sale.

Strict rules governing the integrity of early English coinage could lead to the newly uncovered Aylesbury Hoard revising our perspective of the Anglo-Saxon period.

The discovery of Anglo-Saxon coins near Aylesbury in December is the largest find of its type in 175 years.

An extremely rare 1700-year-old Roman gold coin discovered by a metal detecting enthusiast in South Wiltshire is expected to fetch up to £30,000 at an auction in London.

A private collector has paid a record Aus$495,000 for one of Australia’s first coins, the so-called Holey Dollar.

The much-anticipated 642-lot sale of the Prospero collection of classical Greek coins conducted by A.H. Baldwin & Sons of London (in association with Dmitry Markov of New York and M&M Numismatics Ltd of Washington DC) concluded after eight hours at 03.30 EST on January 5.

AUCTIONEERS Baldwin's have announced the sale of what is being billed as the most important collection of ancient Greek coins to come to auction in nearly a quarter of a century.

IT was the talk of the week in the print and broadcast media. The Staffordshire Hoard is being billed as the biggest collection found in England and the most important since the celebrated Sutton Hoo discovery of 1939.

Morton and Eden have sold 41 Celtic gold coins found by a metal detectorist in Kent for £35,500. The coins, some of which are shown here, were found over a three-year period between 2003 and 2006, scattered over a ploughed field near Westerham in Kent, the precise location of which is being kept secret.

A LOOPHOLE in the export law has forced the British Museum to pay almost £100,000 more than the original auction price for the most expensive British coin ever sold. The museum believes the case highlights the need for Britain’s laws on exporting art to be reconsidered.

AN auction of the most comprehensive collection of the ancient coins of Olympia in the year that Athens hosts the modern Olympic Games is likely to meet with very considerable success.

THE Numismatica Ars Classica (15% buyer’s premium plus local sales tax) sale in Zurich on May 12 was no less wonderful than most of its predecessors. We have become used to prices which draw gasps from this house.

MORTON and Eden continue to make great strides considering how short a time they have existed. On April 22 they held their first sale abroad – in Milan in collaboration with Sotheby’s. Indeed, that firm is descended from the now closed Sotheby’s coin department.

THIS spring season Spink’s have had some hard-hitting sales and it has to be said that the market for the best British material has become very buoyant over the last year or so.

THE massive catalogue of Küncker of Osnabrück (27.22/23 buyer’s premium) devoted to Classical, Byzantine and Islamic coins has fallen onto my desk.

Baldwin, Markov and M&M Numismatics is a bit of a mouthful, but this troika held their sale also in New York on January 16. It consisted mostly of classical coins. The antics of the Roman Circus would have given modern hunt protesters something to think about.

GERMANY: Round about the year 286AD times were very interesting in Britannia. Some small documents of this small and little known facet of British history appeared in the Lanz (15% buyer’s premium) sale in Munich on May 27.

USA: The annual general sale of good quality classical coins (446 lots) hosted by the triumvirate of Baldwins (London), Markov (New York) and M&M (Washington DC) took place in the Big Apple on January 17.

IT CANNOT often be said of an auction catalogue that its lot numbers will be used for a very long time, perhaps a century or more, as reference numbers in a standard academic publication. The catalogue of Numismatik Lanz of Munich is just such a one.