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Baldwins to Sell The Strickland Neville Rolfe Collection of Ancient, British and World Coins
Baldwin’s is delighted to announce the addition of yet another rare collection to their May 2010 auction, to be held on the 4 th and 5 th May at the CIPFA Conference Centre, Robert Street, London.
The Strickland Neville Rolfe Collection is an amazingly conserved compilation of Ancient, British and World coins, tokens and Commemorative medals that has been untouched and out of circulation since 1852. This numismatic collection has remained in the hands of Rolfe’s descendents since his death and brilliantly represents a snapshot of the tastes and interests of an educated English country gentleman and divine of the Victorian era.
Strickland Charles Edward Neville Rolfe was born in 1789, eldest son of General Neville of the Royal Artillery. He assumed the name and arms of Rolfe by royal warrant in 1837, upon receiving the bequest of the estates at Heacham and Sedgeford, from Edmund Rolfe, a distant relative who had no issue.
Educated at Wadham College, Oxford, BA 1812, MA 1816, he was ordained in 1814. He became domestic chaplain to the Duke of Kent in 1814 and to the Duke of Somerset in 1825. He was appointed vicar of Heacham in Norfolk in 1838. His first wife, Agnes, was the only daughter of Henry Fawcett, MP for Carlisle. They married in 1814 and had five sons and four daughters. In 1833 he married Dorothy, widow of the Rev TT Thomason, Chaplain to the Honourable East India Company.
It is known that he was an enthusiastic collector of both natural and archaeological items, as well as having a keen interest in art. Rolfe had had a number of artists staying for long periods to study artistic endevours at Heacham Hall. It is said that he had a large coach built in which he took these artists on excursions to draw and paint buildings or articles of interest in and around the area.
He was especially interested in the area of Norfolk and part of his collection of portraits of Norfolk celebrities, original drawings, topographical and antiquarian, were sold by Sotheby’s. Some of these pieces were used to extra illustrate ‘Blomefield’s History of the County of Norfolk’ (compiled by Francis Blomefield and published in 1805). Later, in 1929, a number of water-colour drawings from the collection were also used to illustrate a publication compiled by his great grandson, Clement Rolfe-Ingleby, and entitled ‘A supplement to Blomefield’s Norfolk.
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Strickland Rolfe died in 1852. Heacham Hall was destroyed by fire in 1941, whilst being occupied by the
RAF.
The English coins from the collection span three centuries and include some key rarities, such as the pattern “Incorrupta” crown (lot 1405), one of only eighteen known to have been struck, and the “Three Graces” crown, one of the most important and majestic coins of the English series (lot 1406, pictured above). Both the “Incorrupta” and the “Three Graces” crowns were struck by the renowned medallist, William Wyon. (more…)
In great deference to the Sedwick patriarch, for the first time ever we are offering selections from the Frank Sedwick study collection of 1715-Fleet gold cobs, including plate coins from past editions of the Practical Book of Cobs and other pieces never seen or offered for sale, coins that the pioneering “Dr. Cobs” kept as the best examples among thousands that passed through his hands.
