Sale 139 Preface

Welcome to sale 139, our second for the year, with a record presale estimate total of $7.4 million.

Highlights include a Victoria Cross awarded posthumously to Robert Beatham, KIA in France August 9th 1918, and personally presented to his mother by King George V in 1919. (lot 4414; est. $500,000).

Australian coins include a NSW holey dollar (lot 1597; est. $150,000), a choice uncirculated Adelaide gold pound (lot 1601; est. $35,000), a nearly uncirculated Sydney Mint half sovereign 1855 (lot 1645, est. $100,000), a proof pattern Melbourne Mint half sovereign 1889 (lot 1798; est. $75,000), and a George V sovereign 1926 Sydney (lot 1739, est. $35,000).

Significant collections include a large selection of gold coins from the family of a good client of Robert Jaggard over forty years ago, Australian British and world gold coins collected by the late John and Beryl Nesbitt seventy years ago mainly acquired at Lawson’s auctions in Sydney including the Sir Marcus Clarke sale in 1954 and Roman gold coins and European coins formed pre WWII collected mostly in Prague in 1930’s by the family of Rudolph Pekorek. The fourth part of the Mark Freehill Collection of world banknotes makes up the final two sessions of the sale with 350 lots.

The sale follows the normal format of our sales commencing on Monday 28th July with a timed online only auction or E-Sale which includes a comprehensive collection of law enforcement badges and stamps from the Peter Olorenshaw Collection featuring Chalon Head’s of New Zealand. Australian coins and medals are on offer in day 2 and 3 followed by British and world coins and medals. The awards of honour or chief’s medals for First Nations people mostly from the John J. Ford Collection are the most important seen in Australia. The USA colonial issues of William Wood’s Hibernias and Rosa Americanas selected from the Ford Collection offer a rare opportunity for collectors. Day 4 sees world and Australian banknotes take up the remaining three sessions of the day. Day 5 sees the offering of ancient coins, orders, decorations and medals and the Mark Freehill Collection of world banknotes.

On behalf of the company I would like to thank the consignors who make this sale possible and I wish all who participate in, what I anticipate will be a record breaking sale, every success.