Sale 113B Preface

Tuesday, 01 November 2016

Welcome to this special auction of Les Carlisle’s Collection of Australian Historical Medals. This collection was used by Les to illustrate his outstanding reference works. When we took delivery of the collection last August, we had no idea how much was involved. After two months of patient and meticulous cataloguing we now have an impressive record and reference work in its own.

It has been a distinct honour and privilege to offer this collection to the market on behalf of Les, who is now almost 88 years of age and still writing; witness the publication this month of the Australian Agricultural Medals with co-author Hugh Armstrong and editor George Snelgrove. For me personally it has been a dream fulfilled. I catalogued my favorites, the medalets housed in eight large drawers, totalling nearly 3,000 pieces.

Back in 1983 I could not put down Les’ ground breaking work, Australian Commemorative Medals and Medalets from 1788, published in that year. I spent weeks ticking off my collection and wondering in awe about the items I had not seen until sighted in this book. Now I have had to quickly look at them and list them in lots, a job made easy by having Carlisle numbers recorded with each medalet.

While nearly all items are within an average collector’s price range, there is one stand out valuable school medal, that engraved on a silver plate in Sydney in 1824 by Samuel Clayton, presented by Laurence Halloran to his son Henry (lot 3599; estimate $30,000).

On behalf of the Company I would like to thank Les and Margaret Carlisle for presenting this wondrous collection for sale and to our staff for organising, cataloguing and photographing the pieces with such care.

Please take the opportunity to attend the viewing and auction, and we wish you every success at bidding.

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