Features

The best-selling gallantry medal of 2023 was offered at Noonans late in the year on December 6. The Naval Victoria Cross awarded to Seaman James Gorman at the Battle of Inkerman sold for a hammer price of £320,000 (plus 24% buyer’s premium) and now forms part of a private collection of Crimean War medals.

A Swiss gold coin that only appears at auction once every few years is the 1740 Basel triple ducat. To one face is a grand winged basilisk and to the other a view of the city from the east above eight coats of arms.

This Iraq specimen banknote printed in India during the Second World War sold for £100,000 plus 24% buyer’s premium at Noonans on November 29-30. It was purchased by a lifetime collector or Iraqi banknotes at double the low estimate.

Spink’s April 13 banknotes sale included a near-complete run of Malaya & British Borneo Elizabeth II specimen notes issued in the coronation year on March 21, 1953.

A remarkable Canadian single-owner collection of coins of the East India Company was offered by Noonans on February 8-9, 2023.

One of the great masterpieces of ancient Greek numismatic art, this silver tetradrachm was struck in c.460BC in commemoration of the refounding of the city of Naxos. Its citizens had been exiled to Leontinoi by the tyrant Hieron of Syracuse.

Mithradates IV was ruler of the Hellenistic kingdom of Pontus in northern Anatolia from 169-150BC. He ushered in a period of relative friendship with the Roman republic that would continue until his grandson Mithradates VI (the Great) became its most formidable and determined opponent. Mithradates IV’s coinage draws attention to his Persian and Greek origins.

Prior to its unification, what is now Argentina was comprised of over a dozen autonomous and semi-autonomous regions.

The Distinguished Flying Cross group of five given to Flt Lt Edward ‘Johnnie’ Johnson, who flew during Operation Chastise – the Dambusters – was sold for £105,000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium) at Spink on November 29.

Estimated at £14,000-18,000, this Pavillon d'Or issued by Edward, Prince of Aquitaine (1362-72), took £36,000 plus 18% buyer’s premium at Harmers on November 1.

Spink posted a house record for a classical coin when it sold this Julius Caesar and Octavian gold aureus on April 3 for £220,000 plus 20% buyer’s premium against an estimate of £60,000-100,000.

Total sales across London coin and medals auctions were £61.6m in 2023, just a fraction down on 2022’s record aggregate

The Durrington Collection of Glass, a select 60-lot auction which Bonhams (28/27/21/14.4% buyer’s premium) offered for sale last year, featured some of the best examples of 18th century British glassmaking across a number of collectable categories.

Explorer and naval captain George Vancouver set sail from King’s Lynn in April 1791 aboard HMS Discovery to survey the Pacific Northwest coastline of North America.

Geoffrey Walton has a collection of 18th century cider and perry glasses. He has used his considerable knowledge of the items and the social background at the time they were made and used to write a book on the subject.

Special Auction Services is selling what it bills as ‘the largest and most valuable doll collection to been seen at auction for 25 years’.

The appeal of more modern toys for the latest collectors buying based on nostalgia for childhood playthings was underlined by a large group of Transformers offered at Special Auction Services on January 17.

Penny in the slot machines known as a ‘Working Model’ came in many guises but, essentially, they all formed a large upright cabinet with a glass window top section.

As well as being an artist’s model and gallery owner who founded the museum dedicated to the work of the sculptor Aristide Maillol, Dina Vierny was also known as a collector of antique dolls.

A sterling silver scale model of the Lockheed TriStar aircraft was the top lot at Kinghams’ (25% buyer’s premium) Silver and Objects of Vertu sale in the Cotswolds.