North Yorkshire Moors Collection, Part IV: Coins and Medals

V: Original Medals by Simon, Death of Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, 1646, a struck oval gold medalet by T. Simon, draped bust right, signed t s f below, rob essex com mil parl dvx gen, rev. hinc illæ lachrymæ, Grief seated left on broken pillar, in exergue abrvp sep 14 1646, 20 x 17mm, 4.51g (Platt II, p.88, type C; MI I, 327/167 [dies 1/3]). Very fine, red tone, extremely rare; with traces of suspension loop £4,000-£5,000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The North Yorkshire Moors Collection of British Coins.

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Provenance: T.M. Whitehead Collection, Sotheby Auction, 5 May 1898, lot 42; J.G. Murdoch Collection, Part VI, Sotheby Auction, 2-6 June 1904, lot 64; Greta Heckett Collection, Sotheby Auction, 25 May 1977, lot 213; A Fine Collection of British Historical and Commemorative Medals, Sotheby Auction, 9 March 1989, lot 39; An Important Collection of Stuart Badges and British Commemorative Medals, the Property of a Gentleman, Spink Auction 120, 9-10 July 1997, lot 343.

Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex (1591-1646). Although there is no documentation, this was probably an official medal intended to be distributed at the funeral, but whether or not it was is questionable, since Simon had trouble with the dies. If not distributed at the funeral, then they must have been given afterwards, for gold medals were not casually made. As Hawkins correctly listed (MI I, 326-327/165, 166, 167), a single obverse die was paired with three reverses, which broke, and that remains the number known today (cf. Platt II, p.89). In later years Simon was to master lettering on tiny dies, but never their metallurgy. It is impossible to know the number of medals made. There is one of each die-pairing in the British Museum, as well as a legitimate silver specimen of MI 165 (reverse 1); a worn silver MI 165 is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, a pierced MI 166 in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, an MI 166 with loop at 4.60g is in the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (transferred from the Kunstkamera in the 19th century) and a pierced gold MI 165 was included in the sale of the Alfred Morrison collection in 1965, but a complete study has not been performed. Other silver and gold examples are later cast copies