REVIEW: BRITISH & WORLD COINS 7-8 JUNE

With a hammer total of over £80,000 shared among the top ten lots of this sale, it had many highlights to celebrate.

Two historic coins of note – both pennies – were minted around 1,000 years apart.

The first was a penny from the third phase of King Alfred’s (871-99) currency reforms, struck by the London moneyer Tilewine. Showing Alfred facing right and wearing a decorated tunic and diadem surrounded by the legend ælf rx ed rex, the reverse displays Tilewine’s name, the Londonia monogram and the word moneta.

This is a duplicate from the Ashmolean Museum that has rested in more than one distinguished collection and sold here for £8,000.

From around a millennium later is a Victoria (1837-1901) Pattern Penny of 1895, showing the Queen Empress coroneted and veiled facing left. In a condition almost as struck, it is of the highest rarity, with very few specimens known. It went for a multiple-estimate £10,000.

Top lot in the sale was the George VI (1936-52) Proof set in gold from 1937, comprising £5, £2, Sovereign and Half-Sovereign, which sold for £13,000.