Sale 128 Preface

Monday, 01 November 2021

This Sale of 3,600 lots follows on so soon after our last sale which was postponed for five weeks in the belief that viewing and a room sale would be possible. Unfortunately, things did not go so well with the Delta variant of COVID 19 causing a protracted lockdown. Now that the State has lifted the restrictions we look forward to seeing you at the viewing and the Dixson Room for the auction. The sale has fifteen sessions being conducted in the State Library as a floor sale with the sixteenth session, numismatic literature following as an online only auction.

 

A major number of lots (over 700) have been included from the Dr Lawrence Sherwin Collection. An important segment of Greek silver coins including several rarities have been consigned by a long standing and recognised expert Sydney numismatist. Further interesting ancient and British coin lots come from the late Michael Syddell’s Collection.

 

The first two sessions cover Australian pre decimal and decimal coins, tokens, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand coins and medals. The third session is devoted to Australian historical medals, principally from two private collections, a few medals are being offered for the first time in our auctions. Stamps follow and conclude the session.

 

The fourth session is devoted to the British series from ancient Celtic through Anglo Saxon to fine milled crowns. The fifth or evening session has Australian coins from Proclamation, Colonial, gold, proofs and patterns, highlighted by the 1921 kookaburra square halfpenny and a high grade 1930 penny.

 

The next morning commences with miscellaneous items including jewellery and paintings by Arthur and David Boyd. The session concludes with a significant offering of Islamic coins in gold, silver and bronze, largely from the Sherwin Collection. World coins and medals follow for the next two sessions. World banknotes occupy the ninth session at 4.30 pm while all Australian paper money occupies the tenth or 7.30 pm session, highlighted by the excessively rare specimen set of the Chinese writing Commercial Bank of Australia notes, one, five, ten, fifty and one hundred pounds.

 

The third day begins with Ancient Greek silver and bronze coins with major rarities of Euboia from the highly important BCD Collection. The twelfth session commences with ancient gold coins with some rarely seen Greek and Roman issues. Roman silver and bronze coins follow on and continue in the thirteenth session.

 

The fourteenth session at 4.30 pm is devoted to the important reference collection of military tokens and notes formed by the late John Yarwood and expertly catalogued by our in-house numismatic consultant, John O’Connor.

 

The final room session is devoted to military orders, decorations, medals and militaria. Here the highlight is a group that includes a DCM for heroism on the first day of the Landing at Gallipoli on April 25th 1915 by the AIF. Among the many other items on offer is a World War II group of six that includes a Military Cross awarded for the battle at El Alamein.

 

Spread throughout the sale are lots from many different vendors, in particular the late Terry Drew of Lismore who hoarded a quantity of Australian coins and stamps necessitating some heavy bulk lots to be offered.

 

On behalf of all of us at Noble Numismatics, we would like to thank you for your interest and contribution and wish you every success in an almost back to normal environment.

 

 

Jim Noble

Auction news