Spink
Auction 22117 27 Jun 2022
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William III (1694-1702), 'Roses' Shilling, 1699, fifth laureate, cuirassed and draped bust right, the 'high hair' variety, rev. four crowned shields cruciform, roses in angles, five strings to harp, seven billets, obliquely milled edge, 6.00g, 6h (Bull 1148 [R3]; ESC 1120; Spink 3518), light flecking under uniform olive-grey toning further accentured at peripheries by flares of golden hue, a most handsome extremely fine, amongst the finest known of this very rare issue and with an equally illustrious provenance, only the second auction appearance 'since new'.
Provenance
Archbishop Sharp, Baldwin-Glendining, 5 October 1977, lot 232* - extremely fine and very rare - £260
, ,
The 1699 'Roses' Shilling is indeed a very rare coin, and this is certainly one of the best available, unsurprising when one considers that Archbishop Sharp sits in the annals as one of the earliest known collectors of English coins when he started forming his cabinet in the last decades of the 17th Century. Unusually for the time, however, Sharp elected to save 'current' coins at a time when fascination with the Classical and Saxon worlds were at their apogee. Further south at the same time, one Elmes Spinckes would be involved in the distribution of this Great Recoinage of 1695/96, and it is quite poetic that both Sharp and Spink would be reunited once more 325 years on.
, , To source another example of this type in extremely fine condition at auction, one must go back to October 2003, when the F.G. Lawrence example (his collection was sold at Sotheby, 2-4 May 1900) was offered by DNW (7 October 2003, lot 119). The coin was then estimated at 500-600 GBP. This was in line with the Standard Catalogue price at the time, which was 650. The buyers clearly disagreed with this estimation (as they did with most of the estimates in this sale), and the hammer came down at £2,500. By the time of the sale the annual revision of prices for the 2004 Standard Catalogue had already been finalised, and the 2004 edition gives the value higher than the year before, at 850. This was a time when rarity and quality were driving prices at the top end (it was, after all, the year of Slaney, part 1), but perhaps this rare Shilling was a coin that had 'slipped under the radar'. The next year however it would seem the compilers of the Standard Catalogue had not been impressed by the 2003 auction price (perhaps they regarded this sale with its very high prices for top quality coins as an anomaly), for there was merely a further 'in line with the market' increase, to 1,000, still only a third of the price paid two years earlier. Since then the price has stuttered along, even being revised downwards on occasion, and finally, in the 2021 Standard Catalogue, the value has at last reached 3,000, matching the 2003 realisation eighteen years late. It will be interesting to see if the 2003 realisation was a maverick, or will a much higher price now be obtained for this example, and if it is, will it take another eighteen years for the Standard Catalogue to 'catch up'?
Estimate: £2,000 - £2,600
Provenance
Archbishop Sharp, Baldwin-Glendining, 5 October 1977, lot 232* - extremely fine and very rare - £260
, ,
The 1699 'Roses' Shilling is indeed a very rare coin, and this is certainly one of the best available, unsurprising when one considers that Archbishop Sharp sits in the annals as one of the earliest known collectors of English coins when he started forming his cabinet in the last decades of the 17th Century. Unusually for the time, however, Sharp elected to save 'current' coins at a time when fascination with the Classical and Saxon worlds were at their apogee. Further south at the same time, one Elmes Spinckes would be involved in the distribution of this Great Recoinage of 1695/96, and it is quite poetic that both Sharp and Spink would be reunited once more 325 years on.
, , To source another example of this type in extremely fine condition at auction, one must go back to October 2003, when the F.G. Lawrence example (his collection was sold at Sotheby, 2-4 May 1900) was offered by DNW (7 October 2003, lot 119). The coin was then estimated at 500-600 GBP. This was in line with the Standard Catalogue price at the time, which was 650. The buyers clearly disagreed with this estimation (as they did with most of the estimates in this sale), and the hammer came down at £2,500. By the time of the sale the annual revision of prices for the 2004 Standard Catalogue had already been finalised, and the 2004 edition gives the value higher than the year before, at 850. This was a time when rarity and quality were driving prices at the top end (it was, after all, the year of Slaney, part 1), but perhaps this rare Shilling was a coin that had 'slipped under the radar'. The next year however it would seem the compilers of the Standard Catalogue had not been impressed by the 2003 auction price (perhaps they regarded this sale with its very high prices for top quality coins as an anomaly), for there was merely a further 'in line with the market' increase, to 1,000, still only a third of the price paid two years earlier. Since then the price has stuttered along, even being revised downwards on occasion, and finally, in the 2021 Standard Catalogue, the value has at last reached 3,000, matching the 2003 realisation eighteen years late. It will be interesting to see if the 2003 realisation was a maverick, or will a much higher price now be obtained for this example, and if it is, will it take another eighteen years for the Standard Catalogue to 'catch up'?
Estimate: £2,000 - £2,600