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.

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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.

The first attempt did not last, despite their great beauty of design, because Edward’s new gold was of too high a quality. These were the famed Florins, Leopards and Helms, and it proved profitable in their day to melt them in exchange for more silver than they were worth in England. As a consequence, today they are all great rarities.

The second attempt at a gold coinage proved successful. We call these coins today the Nobles. Their fineness was decreased just a bit, to bring them into almost exactly the same exchange value both in the Low Countries and in England. They met with instant success and were made in large quantities. However, war with France again had an impact on the coins, this time creating a fascinating variety of “types” as the king’s title changed and mint initials were introduced, including a “C” for Calais, the port of France so long claimed as English soil. This time it became so English that an English mint was built there!

It is no coincidence that England’s wool-trade with the Flemish market gained sudden vigor right after the peace treaty of 1343, and the introduction of English gold in 1344. As already noted, the Florin series lasted only months before being withdrawn; but it broke an important tradition by not placing the king’s portrait on the coins, but rather the heraldry of England, readable all over Europe where the coins were intended to trade. In Edward’s mind, this strengthened his chance of becoming, in reality, king of France as well as of England. When the Noble was accepted, in late 1344, it again had a political impact because of the large cross shown on its reverse. As Sutherland says, “This was, in short, a Christian coinage ordered by a Christian king; and it deserved the acceptance due to any Christian coinage. . . .” Edward III aimed for his Nobles to be the gold currency of all of France, with himself as king.

From this ambition arises the fascinating array of types of Nobles seen during this reign. War ended in 1343 with the treaty of Malestroit, but broke out almost immediately again. As would be duplicated almost to the Nth degree in 1415 at Agincourt, the Battle of Crecy of 1346 saw a small army of English decimate a large French force. Victory was short lived, however, as the Black Death plague struck the same year and did not end until 1350, during which very little gold was needed, or made, for commerce. Battles resumed when the plague went away, and the King of England placed and removed various French titles on his gold Noble during the rest of his reign, which ended in 1377. His gold may be collected citing these changes, most notably divided into periods revolving about the 1360 Treaty of Bretigni and the establishment of the mint at Calais in 1363. Much of this Noble coinage in fact came from French gold, ransom paid to the English for the return of the captured French king, one of the terms of the Treaty. It was far from peace, however, and the king’s son The Black Prince continued to ravage France until outright war resumed in 1369. Large amounts of silver and gold coins were minted during the few years of relative peace, but output was sharply curtailed in time of war. Gem examples of the Noble therefore exist, caused by both output and fearful hiding of these insignia of wealth, which makes collecting them today all the more exciting.

“Edward III,” Sutherland concludes, “was neither the first nor the last man to discover that warfare, and especially protracted warfare, does terrible damage to the economy . . .” and when both Edward the king died in 1377, and his great warrior son The Black Prince died the year before him, England was inherited by a weak, fearful man, Richard II. He continued the Noble coinage but its output was meager, the nation suffered badly from the long war with France, and murderous politics put a sharp end to Richard’s claim to French lands. When the last Plantagenet died a prisoner in Pontefract castle, a new but divided Royal House came to England, that of Lancaster and York, and a new feud would erupt as an internal war. But war with France had not ended. Henry V would revisit the same argument over French sovereignty and again slaughter the French, at Agincourt in October 1415. It might fairly be said that the single best contribution of the last Plantagenets was the enduring glory and value of the gold Noble, ever a symbol of the struggle of kingship and the need for gold as an international money.

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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.

These events reflect the conflict and confusion amongst the Anglo-Saxon elite at this time as Christianity sought to assert itself over the Pagan religion. This struggle is best known from the mix of Pagan and Christian artefacts in the Sutton Hoo ship burial, which is contemporaneous to Eadbald and this coin.

As to the date of these named Thrymsas or Shillings of Eadbald, the presence of Christain iconography dates them to after his conversion and a date to between 620 and 635 is thought appropriate.

Six coins other than this example are recorded with five of the six in insitutional collections. Only one example other than this specimen is therefore in private hands.

1. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1.26g, AV 69%, Crondall Hoard, 1828. Dies A/a

2. American Numismatic Society, New York, 1.29g, AV 64%, formerly Norweb, SCBI 16/42, ex Lockett I lot 206, Grantley 595a, Ponton D’Amecourt 658, Robert = Belfort 6527. Found Pas de Calais. Dies A/b

3. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1.27g, AV 72%, BNJ Coin Register 1998, 37. Found Tangmere, West Sussex, 1997. Dies A/c

4. The British Museum, London, 1.28g, AV 74%, BNJ Coin Register 1998, 38. Found Shorne, Kent, 1998. Dies A/d

5. Stewartby, 1.28g, AV 67%, Bonhams 1610, 2007 lot 3255. Dies A/d

6. Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, 1.30g. See Bateson and Campbell, 1998, p171, and plates 28-29, no. 1. Ex. Hunter, possibly an eighteenth century find. Dies A/e

A further similar Thrymsa in the name of Eadbald, 1.29g, found at Goodnestone, Kent, from a different obverse die and with a reverse mint signature thought to be for Canterbury rather than London, is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

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Considered the “Holy Grail” of English Milled Coinage, this is the only Proof Set of its kind in private hands, and all are in Gem Proof condition. This set has never before been seen outside of England.

Apparently, only four sets, plus a few minors, were minted; the Royal Mint has two of the sets, and another was broken up over 40 years ago, with a few of the coins occasionally appearing at auction.

King Edward the VIII abdicated the throne in December of 1936, after reigning for only 10 months, to marry the American divorcee Mrs. Willis Simpson, a commoner.

It is this King Edward VIIII quote that many school children have been taught to memorize: “I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.”

The proof set was minted at the Royal Mint and dated 1937 to be issued on his coronation in January 1937, an event which never took place.

This particular set belonged to Mrs. R. Henry Norweb, whose husband was the American Ambassador to England.

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Based on information from dealers and following market conditions I would forecast that the prices over the next years will keep an upward movement.

The above is supported by the increase of individuals and pension for diversification of assets and protection.

The Fenton Auction in London saw a jump in prices for high quality pieces; this will be followed by the market increasing for lesser quality items. The Internet is producing a new base of collectors who consider today’s price levels inexpensive. The UK has an old company that is introducing Numismatics as an Alternative Asset for inflation protection. The difference is today the companies would prefer and orderly market, prices not to run out of hand.

If you analyze historically from 1936 to date on the material through auctions and major dealers except for re-adjustment of prices of items that were miss-priced the compound growth for coins is +11.0% -12.5%. Average inflation during this period was 3.8%. This can vary if specific areas of British coins are not popular for a period.

Price comparisons between USA and UK coins, the gap is so great I can hope the US collector does not decide to collect UK material in a serious way – otherwise we will see price rises we have never seen in the UK market as it will be re-structured the US way which is different than the UK.[A comparison of values will increase many items several times] An example in one change will be that in the US the dealers will stock and support the market and hold much more stock at higher prices.

Below is a partial exerpt from Spink’s 2010 Standard Catelog of British Coins – PREFACE & MARKET TRENDS

“To some extent we appear to be recovering from the banking crisis and the resulting economic downturn and be more forward looking and positive again, however this is heavily due to the enormous amounts of cash injected into the economy by the government. This money is being spent in our economy and it would be extremely worrying if this policy did not have a direct impact. Only time will tell if this recovery is real but one thing that is fairly certain is that we will see rising inflation. These wider market conditions have prompted several interesting trends within the coin market as a whole, most noticeably that collectors are largely choosing not to sell their coins but to hold on to their assets which are seen to be continuing to increase in value.

This is quite understandable and is true in any rising market; sellers naturally want to try to sell at the peak. Another effect is that the more specialised collectors begin to diversify into areas in which they had previous! ly shown little or no interest. For example, long-time collectors of British crowns might decide that there is not enough new material to buy so might look to other denominations instead to feed their interest and continue to spend their budget on coins.

Furthermore, people who have been collectors for some time might put even more money into their collections as it makes little sense putting their money elsewhere and new collectors enter the market because the areas in which they would usually employ their capital were seen as too risky or low return such as property, shares and deposit accounts. It is also true that in a rising market one tends to feel justified in spending more money as your assets rise in value, in the same way that you might decide to have a new kitchen fitted if the value of your property increased significantly.”

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