Over the past 48 hours, Spink auctioned their highest grossing coin sale to date. The fantastic catalogue of over 1300 coins totalled over £3.2 million in sales and generated interest from collectors around the world. Dozens of phone bidders, a standing only room and hundreds of participants on Spink Live contributed to a bidding frenzy in the room.

William Mackay, specialist at Spink, had this to say about the sale:

“This sale demonstrates the strong market for top quality, rare historical gold coins. It definitely showcases the extent to which the value of these sorts of coins have appreciated in the last few years. We are extremely pleased with the results of this sale which demonstrates continued confidence in the marketplace.”

Top lots included the following:

Lot 895
Henry VII (1485-1509), Sovereign, type IV
Sold for £180,000

Lot 949
Charles I, Civil War issues, Oxford,
small module type Triple Unite
Sold for £161,000

Lot 5
Mughal Empire, Jalal ud-Din Muhammad Akbar,
AV 5-Mohurs
Sold for £150,000

Lot 948
Charles I, Civil War issues, Oxford, Triple Unite
Sold for £120,000

Lot 975
James VI (1567-1625), second coinage,
Twenty-Pound piece
Sold for £102,000

About Spink

Spink is the world’s leading auctioneer of coins, stamps, medals, banknotes, bonds, share certificates and autographs, with offices in London, Singapore, New York and Dallas. Since its foundation in 1666, the Spink name has become synonymous with tradition, experience and integrity. Holders of three royal warrants and numerous records for prices achieved at auction, Spink offer an unparalleled range of services to collectors worldwide.

For more information, pictures or to request an interview with the specialist please contact Emily Johnston, ejohnston@spink.com , 020 7563 4009.

Coins of the first three Edwards & Richard II by Bruce Lorich

English hammered gold coins are so captivating in their designs, which invariably include intricate symbolism and Latin abbreviations of Biblical quotations favored by the respective monarchs, that many collectors focus too much on the coin designs, without understanding the historical motivations behind the coinages. Seen in their historical context, though, the coins become rich with meaning and a real reason for owning them occurs. A superb source of this information is C.H.V. Sutherland’s English Coinage 600-1900 (published 1973), which I condense here.

Prior to the 14th century, gold was rare in England. Almost no earlier gold coins exist. In the reign of Edward III (1327-77), the next to last Plantagenet King, this all changed. All the silver coinage types continued, with little alteration other than title, as they had been under Edward I and II. A complicated system of privy-marks developed under the first Edward, called “Longshanks” because of his unusual height. A wicked man who waged war in Scotland, he set up numerous mints to issue large amounts of silver coins, and died leaving England a wealthy nation.

For 20 years the nation suffered under the second Edward but the coinage continued the same types, and the ongoing war with France had been disastrous for the national treasury.

Edward III had the qualities of his grandfather, and his 50-year reign ended with the following inscription engraved on his tombstone: “The glory of the English, the flower of kings past, a pattern for kings to come.” It was well deserved, for many challenges and even the Black Plague were overcome during his rule. Defying the French, he kept the title “King of France” on his coins, slaughtered them in a naval victory at Sluys in 1340, and expanded England’s horizons into international trade.

This latter development was the reason behind the first sizable gold coinage for the nation. Alliance with the Low Countries (Holland) had military value, but it also meant a new trade of England’s wool for foreign goods and money. Edward I had forged a trade agreement in 1274 while crusading in Europe. But this commerce was held back because Flanders used a gold-backed currency, England a silver-backed one, and the exchange rate between the two metals varied too much for merchants on both sides of the trade to be happy. Sutherland calls it bi-metallic disharmony. For this reason, Edward III introduced gold coins similar enough to those of Flanders to make trade exchanges equitable.
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[CoinLink News] The UK auction firm of Spink has announced the upcoming sale of an Anglo-Saxon gold Shilling of King Eadbald of Kent dating from c.620-635. This is the first gold coin struck in the name of an English King and a rare and important piece of English history. Found near Deal Kent in 2010, this coin will be sold at auction on June 24th and is expected to fetch upwards of £8,000. (Editor: Seems very Inexpensive)

This type was long known to be amongst the earliest of Anglo-Saxon gold coins with a single example present in the important Crondall hoard found in Hampshire in 1828 and dating from c.670. The conclusive attribution of these coins to king Eadbald of Kent, reigned 616-640, though was only made in 1998. This followed the emergence of new finds which enabled the obverse inscription to be confirmed as avdvarld reges, and translated as ‘of King Audvarld’.

The name ‘auduarldus’ appears in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica completed in 731 in which he wrote about king Eadbald of Kent. Given this and the presence of one of these coins in the Crondall hoard, the attribution to Eadbald is now accepted

While the Kentish Shilling or Thrymsa seems to have sought to match the Merovingian Tremissis, the design of this coin is peculiarly Anglo-Saxon using neither motifs found on Merovingian coins nor seeking to copy Roman types. In common with some other coins (e.g. the so called ‘Witmen’ and ‘Londiniv/Londeniv’ types), this coin has an inscription on the reverse. This can be clearly read on a example in the Ashmolean Museum as containing the word londenv indicating London as the mint or die source for these coins all of which share the same obverse die.

The real significance of these coins though is in the obverse inscription naming the historical figure of king Eadbald. This is exceptional for a coin of this period and is only certainly found again at the end of the seventh century with the Sceattas of Aldfrith of Northumbria (685-705). As such the Eadbald Thrymsa is the earliest coin issued in the name of an English king.

Eadbald succeded Aethelberht as king of Kent in 616. Aethelberht is principally remembered for having accepted St. Augustine into his kingdom and his subsequent conversion to Roman Christianity. It seems, according to Bede, that after his accession Eadbald fell foul of the young Church, rejecting Christianity, ejecting its Bishops and incurring the wrath of the Church committing ’such fornication as the Apostle Paul mentioned as being unheard of even among the heathen, in that he took his father’s (second) wife as his own.’

Whatever Eadbald did, this situation did not last for he repented and was duly baptized, rejecting his wife and thereafter favouring the Church within his kingdom. (more…)