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Auction: 3024 - The Slaney Collection of English Coins
Lot: 33

James I (1603-25), first coinage, Halfcrown, 14.88g., m.m. thistle, king crowned and in armour with a sword over his shoulder, on horseback right, crowned rose on housing, groundline below, reads ang sco fran et hib, rev. square garnished shield, exvrgat devs dissipentvr inimici (N.2071; S.2644), a neatly struck coin on a perfectly round flan, extremely fine, extremely rare thus Estimate £4,000-5,000 provenance: S Tyssen Duplicates, Sotheby, 6 December 1802, lot 344 T Thomas, Sotheby, 23 February 1843, lot 478 J D Cuff, Sotheby, 8 June 1854, lot 1095 Rev. E J Shepherd, Sotheby, 22 July 1885, lot 309 W Brice, collection purchased en bloc by H Montagu, 1887 H Montagu Duplicates, Sotheby, 7 May 1888, lot 276 ("extremely fine, and of extreme rarity" realised £44-0-0) S Rostron, Sotheby, 16 May 1892, lot 194 J G Murdoch, Sotheby, 31 March 1903, lot 744 T Wakley, Sotheby, 6 December 1909, lot 297 O Fitch, collection purchased en bloc by Spink, c.1918 E H Wheeler, Sotheby, 12 March 1930, lot 359 V J E Ryan, Glendining, 22 January 1952, lot 1048 The James I first coinage halfcrown has always been regarded as one of the great rarities of the halfcrown series and usually turns up in very worn condition. It is curious that both Tyssen and Montagu owned two examples and sold this specimen as a duplicate. In each case the piece retained was the coin, regarded as the finest known, purchased at the Montagu 1896 sale, lot 185, by James Stewart Henderson and bequeathed by him to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge in 1933. Simpson Rostron prided himself on owning the finest available example of each type coin, and in his 1892 catalogue this specimen is described, unusually, as "extremely fine, said to be the second best known"

Sold for
£5,800