A rare copper token – an unofficial Irish farthing – engraved James Mabbs, Albion Bakery, 27 Patrick Street, Cork sold to an Irish collector for a world record price of £2,976 at Dix Noonan Webb in London this month. Lot 835 in the sale of Coins, Tokens and Historical Medals had been estimated at £300-400. The copper token dates to 1840-1870. It was from the Irish token collection of the late Barry Woodside, who was born in Belfast. His collection, which comprised 40 lots, sold for a total of £20,795. It included three tokens from Belfast which made £4,464.
Also in the sale was the the second part of the collection of 17th century tokens formed by the late Robert Thompson. This saw the highest price paid for a lot comprising two civic tokens from Limerick including a very fine example of a City Farthing dating from 1658 . It went to a US buyer for £1,612 against an estimate of £90-120.
THIS gold medal from an old Irish collection showing the earliest known portrait of Georg August, Electoral Prince of Brunswick-Calenburg-Hanover, who would later become King George II, sold for £6,820 at Dix Noonan Webb in London this week. Dating from 1701, the year of his 18th birthday, the medal shows the Prince, who was the last British monarch born outside England, on one side and Schloss Herrenhausen, Hanover on the other. It went to a buyer in Holland.
A particularly rare Irish £10 Ploughman’s note is estimated at £22,000-£26,000 at Dix Noonan Webb’s live and online auction in London on February 24. The Northern Bank note dated May 6, 1929 is being offered by a private collector at a sale of British, Irish and World Banknotes which features the only known example of a £50 note from the Belfast Banking Company Ltd. This note, dated December 7, 1917, is estimated at £8,000-£10,000.
Founded in 1783 the Bank of Ireland was the first national bank in this country and a £1 note from its Westport branch dating from 1838 is estimated at £9,000-£11,000. Surviving pre-1850 notes are very rare.
UPDATE: The Northern Bank Ploughman’s Note sold for £18,000, the Belfast Banking Co. £50 note sold for £10,000 and the Westport note sold for £9,500.
Rare Ploughman’s Note from the Northern Bank. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £18,000
A medal awarded to Lieutenant Basil Worswick, killed on April 29, 1916 at the Guinness Brewery in Dublin during the height of the Easter Rising sold for £1,300 at Dix Noonan Webb in London today. He was shot by a guard, who thought he was a Sinn Fein spy. The 1914-15 Star plus was expected to fetch £400-500. Worswick went with the 2nd Battalion to Ireland to help quell the disturbance in the Dublin. On the night of April 28/29 a detachment of the Dublin Fusiliers was stationed at the malt house. When the night clerk of the brewery, accompanied by Lieutenant Lucas of the King Edward’s Horse, was making his nightly round he was challenged by the very nervous guard of Royal Dubliners. Mistaken for Sinn Feiners trying to infiltrate the brewery premises, the guard shot both the night clerk and Lucas dead. Worswick heard the commotion. He arrived at the malt house to find that his fellow officer had been killed. Challenged and searched by a sergeant of the Dublin Fusiliers he rushed at him. Seeing this the guard believing Worswick to be a Sinn Fein spy, killed him instantly.
The Company Quartermaster Sergeant in charge of the party of Dublin Fusiliers, Robert Flood, was court-martialled and acquitted for the deaths of Lieutenants Lucas and Worswick. His actions were attributed to the confusion and panic of the Easter Rising. He died in action in Macedonia the following year.
The die proofs for the Ulster Bank Limited’s George Best commemorative £5 dating from November 25, 2006 will come up online at Dix Noonan Webb‘s sale of British, Irish and World Banknotes in London on February 24. The note itself was sold commercially in numbered folders and remains the most popular commemorative banknote ever produced in the UK. The die proofs featuring Best represent part of the design process for the final note. They are estimated at £400-500. UPDATE: THESE SOLD FOR £360
There was a world record for a rare Oliver Cromwell 50 shilling coin, dating from 1656 at Dix Noonan Webb in London on January 21. The gold coin sold for £471,200 over a top estimate of £150,000. There were bidders on the phone and the internet from the Far East, North America and the UK. The piece, struck by Thomas Simon, Cromwell’s chief engraver, went to an American buyer.
Another highlight was a rare and fine silver Commonwealth Shilling by Irishman David Ramage. Once in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire, the shilling is decorated with a small shield of England and sold for £74,400 against an estimate of £15,000-20,000. It went to a UK Collector. David Ramage was Simon’s competitor and fell out of favour with Cromwell but had the monopoly on the production of 17th trade tokens.
The Cromwell 50 shilling gold coin, dating from 1656, by Thomas Simon,
An extremely rare Irish Proof or Pattern Halfpenny is one of a number of valuable Irish coins coming up at Dix Noonan Webb in London. Bought for the equivalent of $2 many years ago it will be offered at a live/online auction of Coins and Historical Medals on on February 2. It is from the collection of the late Eric Newman, an important numismatist from the US. The George III halfpenny dates to 1774. Complete with a portrait of the long haired king and with a harp on the reverse it is estimated at £2,400-3,000. An Irish George III pattern mule penny from 1813, one of only three specimens known, is estimated at £6,000-8,000.
Irish Proof or Pattern Halfpenny UPDATE: THE HALFPENNY (ILLUSTRATED) SOLD FOR £3,000, THE GEORGE III PATTERN MULE PENNY FROM 1813 MADE £4,400
A collection of archive material from AIB (formerly First Trust Bank) made £122,815 at Dix Noonan Webb in aid of charity. The archival material offered a wide range of proofs, specimens, sheets and issued notes dating from 1954 to 2012 from the Provincial Bank through to AIB and First Trust Bank. All lots had been offered in three sales over the past seven months and the proceeds will be split between Age NI and the Alzheimer’s Society.
With buyers from all over the world the 330 lots were 100% sold. The top lot – a booklet containing an official De Le Rue proposal for a polymer £10 ‘2017 New Series’, featuring two completely different proposed designs, that were never adopted fetched £8,500 – 14 times it’s pre-sale estimate of £400-600. It went to a private buyer.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for March 7, 2020)
A booklet with the De La Rue proposal for a polymer £10 note.
The daring heist that was Britain’s biggest robbery is recalled in the sale of a rare £1 million Treasury Bill at Dix Noonan Webb in London on June 24 A knifepoint mugging in broad daylight resulted in the theft of a staggering £292 million in treasury bills. Bought by financial institutions at less than face value and sold back to the government on maturity the secretive system of treasury bills enables the British government to manage short term borrowing. Bills collected by messenger from the Bank of England could be cashed in by whoever held them.
On May 2, 1990 John Goddard, a 58 year-old messenger with money brokers Sheppards, was mugged by a thief who got away with 301 treasury bills and certificates of deposit. Only the $1 billion theft from the Central Bank of Iraq by one of Saddam Hussein’s sons in 2003 has exceeded this robbery.
City of London Police and the FBI infiltrated the gang involved in laundering the bills and eventually recovered all but two of them. One man was jailed for his part but Patrick Thomas, the petty criminal from south London believed to have carried out the mugging, was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head before he could be charged. The system is in place today but it is computerised. The last bills were produced in September 2003 and one of these comes up at the live online auction by Dix Noonan Webb. Effectively a one million pound note it is on watermarked paper bearing the signature of Andrew Turnbull, then Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, and stamped cancelled. It is estimated at £5,000-7,000. The auction will feature 188 Irish banknotes including a rare Munster and Leinster Bank £10 Ploughman’s Note from December 5, 1931 (£2,400-3,000) and a £50 Central Bank of Ireland note from May 1943 (£3,400-4,000).
A rare penny struck in Northern Ireland in the 17th Century made a world auction record price of £6,200 in an online sale at Dix Noonan Webb in London on May 26. The Andrew Willoughby penny from Carrickfergus in Co. Antrim was expected to fetch £240-300. The record price for a 17th century British trade token was paid by a collector in the US. It is in very fine condition. The underbidder was from the UK. Dix Noonan Webb will donate 5% of their buyers premium to NHS Charities Together. A total of £24,879 has donated to the charity from the auctions since the lockdown due to COVID-19.
