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Immense international interest was shown in the sale of a collection of Exceptional Ancient Greek Coins held on 24th October. The coins had been chosen with great care by an astute English collector over the last 50 years with an eye for beauty and rarity and the 168 coins realised a total of just over £4 million with every lot finding a buyer. The sold total was double the top estimate for the sale and demonstrated the current strength of the market for coins of the finest quality. The top-selling lot was a Cretan stater of circa 300 BC from Gortyna (lot 126), illustrating the story of the Rape of Europa. Unusually on this coin, the best of three known, Zeus appears in his guise as a bull and as an eagle. Originally bought in 1965 for under £1000 it now sold for £300,000 and was a record auction price for a Cretan coin. A magnificent decadrachm of Syracuse, c. 400 BC, by the artist Kimon (lot 59), bought in Zurich in 2005 for £60,000, realised £228,000 representing a 380 percent increase in value over a 6 year period. There were twelve exceptonal coins from the famous "Kunstfreund" auction in Zurich in 1974. This is regarded as one of the most important sales of Greek coins ever held and our vendor attended it in person. All his purchases there attracted very strong bidding with £168,000 paid for a double shekel of Tyre of c. 480 BC (lot 166) and £144,000 for an electrum stater of Kyzikos, c. 480 BC, depicting a naked Herakles with bow and club (lot 131). The coin illustrated on the cover of the catalogue, a tetradrachm of Rhodes of c. 400 BC with a beautiful facing head of Helios in high relief and generally regarded as one of the very finest coins of Rhodes extant sold for £144,000, around double its mid-estimate. Many of the coins could be traced back to famous old collections or significant auction sales of the past and the last lot in the sale, a tetradrachm of Barke in Cyrenaica (lot 168), purchased for $27,500 at the Bunker Hunt sale in 1990 could trace its provenance back to the Thomas Thomas collection sold at Sotheby's in 1844. It now brought £108,000 on an estimate of £15-20,000. All prices include the buyers premium of 20%.
Copies of the catalogue of this major collection are still available, with prices realised, price £20 including postage. |