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Auction: 7023 - The Glenister Collection of British Coins & other Ancient, English & Foreign Coins & Comm Medals
Lot: 194

THE ´CARNEGIE´ NEW SOUTH WALES FIFTEEN PENCE 1813 < B>Australia, New South Wales, Fifteen Pence or ´Dump´, 1813, crown, rev. fifteen pence in two lines, small H between (Mira dies A/1), legend slightly weak on obverse as is common with this variety, good very fine, very rare Estimate £ 8,000-12,000 Declared legal tender on 30 September 1813, these ´Dump´ Fifteen Pence coins were produced by punching the centres out of Spanish silver 8-Reales. The main part of the coin was valued at Five-Shillings, the famous ´Holey Dollar´. By this simple expedient the Governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, produced a coinage unique to the Colony, which would not be immediately exported, and at the same time provided his administration with a considerable profit. Regular coinage arrived from England in 1825, and the ´Holey Dollar´ and ´Dump´ were no longer legal tender after 1829. This ´Dump´ Fifteen Pence, the property of a Nobleman, has recently come to light in the drawer of a very old, and for a long time unused, piece of furniture in Scone Palace, the family´s ancestral home. There was an explorer and gold prospector in the family, The Hon. David Wynford Carnegie (1871-1900), and it was certainly Carnegie who brought the coin home when he returned from Australia in 1899. The outline of a small castle, from the Spanish coat of arms, is very clear on the reverse of this piece, a satisfying reminder of the origins of the silver from which the coin was made.

Sold for
£15,000