Sale 124 Preface

This, our 124th major auction of coins, medals and banknotes, offers a wide range of material in most categories and several very important sections are included.

For Australia Commonwealth collectors there is the second part of the PCGS graded collection formed by a Melbourne collector. There are superb proofs of all four commemorative florins, a 1937 crown, and a 1934 complete set offered individually heading up the collection, with his shillings and sixpences following.

The British Colonial and British coins are offered on the second day together with world coins. The highly important Freehill Collection of Ceylon is in the morning session and the equally important Freehill Collection of Singapore is in the afternoon session, together with his Sumatra and West Africa series, followed by his Isle of Man and Channel Islands coinages, all catalogued by Pridmore numbers. The night session includes an almost complete series of Commonwealth crowns, 1651 to 1656, plus a choice Oliver Cromwell issue 1658, all from the Robert Tonner Collection.

The third day morning session is entirely devoted to ancient coins with some important high grade Greek silver issues, including a well provenanced Syracuse decadrachm, a choice Caulonia stater, a  Rhegium tetradrachm ex Weber, Lockett and Moretti collections and a Terone tetradrachm ex Pozzi and Lockett collections, all three from the Robert Tonner Collection. The ancient gold includes a Cyzicus electrum stater, a Ptolemy III octadrachm, and a series of fifteen Roman aureii.

The afternoon session commences with Part 4 of the W. (Bill) Woolmore Collection of South African Colonial Anglo-Boer War medals. In addition there is a small collection of China War Medals awarded to Australians for the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. There are several bravery award groups for World War I as well as one group of seventeen medals that stands out. After service in Korea, the recipient was an AATTV advisor to 2Bn 5th ARVN Infantry in the war in Vietnam. He was a Parachute Jump Instructor, a top display parachutist and also seconded to be part of the underwater team in the search for PM Harold Holt. On a non-military note is another rare medal group that includes a rescue award for the S.S. Titanic sinking and there is a very large collection of mostly Australian and British Colonial police badges. World banknotes conclude this session.

The final session in the evening commences with the important Reserve Bank of New Zealand notes from the Robert Tonner Collection, followed by Australian notes including a 1949 specimen set presented to G.P.N. Watt (lot 4134; est. $250,000). Following is the series of British India, featuring the Mark E.Freehill Presidency series, followed by Sultanates, Native States, and Mughul issues. Readers are advised to study the Order of Sale list of contents in the pages following to find where areas of interest lie in the sale.

For the first time, the sessions are much longer to better accommodate live online bidding, you can bid live online through our new Noble live bidding platform or through Invaluable. Of course pre sale bids can be left on our sites, or they can be mailed, emailed or faxed through to us.

On behalf of the company, I would like to thank all our vendors and wish those of you participating good luck with your bidding.

Jim Noble