INSIDER 30 | A GENERAL WITHOUT A NATION (OR MEDALS)
Jun 19 2018

by Edward Hilary Davis

Few will have heard of Richard Guyon, a soldier originally born in Walcot near Bath in 1813, the fifth generation of a military Huguenot family. Nor will anyone know him by his other names and titles: General Le Comte de Guyon, Gróf Guyon Richárd, or Kurshid Pasha. Yet this relatively overlooked Brit witnessed, and took part in, some of the historic moments of mid-19th century Austro-Hungary, Turkey and the Crimea.

INSIDER 30 | THE STORY BEHIND THE STAMP | Newfoundland 1919 3C. Brown ‘Hawker’ Air Mail
Jun 19 2018

by George James

The 7th March Lionheart auction saw the sale of a particularly interesting lot, number 1584 on the day, with an estimate of £12,000-£15,000.

INSIDER 30 | AN INTERVIEW WITH AIR COMMODORE GRAHAM PITCHFORK, MBE, BA, FRAeS, RAF (Rtd) TO MARK THE CENTENARY OF THE ROYAL AIR FORCE
Jun 18 2018

by David Erskine-Hill

INSIDER 30 | THE MAN BEHIND THE MEDAL: SUB LIEUTENANT CLAUDE D. BURY, RN
Jun 18 2018

by Iain Goodman

As someone who has been passionate about medals for over a decade, I have always been drawn to a good story and the opening hours of Bury’s Great War are undoubtedly something to tell the grandchildren; not only did he receive one of the first, if not the first award of the Great War, but, in a war which went on to take the lives of millions through conflict and disease, his medal was not for taking life but for attempting to save life.

CCG to Open London Office in April 2018 in Spink’s London premises
Feb 01 2018

CCG to Open London Office in April 2018 in Spink’s London premises.

INSIDER 29 | SPECIAL FEATURES | Memories of a Lifetime of Collecting: Viewing the medal collection of H.H. The Maharaja or Patiala
Jan 26 2018

By John Fasal

Our family moved from Sydney to London in 1957, and as a young school boy I developed a keen interest in numismatics, and British orders and medals. At prep school in Staffordshire I had managed to save the majority of my meagre £5 per term pocket money to spend during the holidays at the Portobello Road Saturday market, and soon found a lucrative outlet for keeping the best and selling the rest. For two years I sat alongside a school chum who has done better than most with his well-known family business, now a by-word for mechanical diggers: JCB’s Anthony Bamford, now elevated to the House of Lords. We were not the brightest pupils in the class.

INSIDER 29 | SPECIAL FEATURES | Jean Renoir: The Cinema of Life and Art
Jan 25 2018

By Christopher Faulkner

Two questions. What makes Jean Renoir a great filmmaker? What makes his work of the nineteen-thirties pertinent to us today? Both questions admit of the same answer, which is addressed in what follows.

INSIDER 29 | SPECIAL FEATURES | ‘Treasures of the Gupta Empire’, a new book by Sanjeev Kumar
Jan 24 2018

By Barbara Mears

While coins have been made for over 2000 years in India, none have matched the coins of the Gupta Dynasty, issued between the 4th and 6th centuries AD for sheer beauty. The Gupta era is the period that most Indians consider to be the golden age, when art and literature reached its apogee. It was a time when a ruler was defined by his perfection in all things: poetry, music, the arts of love and war, and elegance of attire. The Gupta coins that have come down to us reflect this ideology perfectly.

INSIDER 29 | SPECIAL FEATURES | The Story of Hazel, Lady Lavery: The woman behind the banknote classic
Jan 24 2018

By Jonathan Callaway

Ireland’s Legal Tender notes, first issued in 1928, count amongst the most iconic and beautiful of all modern banknotes. The story of how Hazel, Lady Lavery, an American woman born as Hazel Martyn, came to appear on Ireland’s banknotes for nearly fifty years (over seventy if one includes the watermark on later issues) is fascinating and intriguing. This article looks at her life and the genesis of the classic banknote design.

INSIDER 29 | SPECIAL FEATURES | Ninfa, Caetani and Coins
Jan 24 2018

By Esme Howard

The romantic garden of Ninfa, just 65 miles south of Rome, was created by the Caetani family almost one hundred years ago, and lies among the eloquent ruins of a small but affluent medieval town, which in turn grew out of Roman and papal settlements, and passed to the Caetani in the early fourteenth century. Their family history marks every stretch of the Tyrrhenian coastland – from Pisa, Rome, Cisterna, Ninfa, and Sermoneta and on down to Fondi, Gaeta and Naples. In the family history Domus Caietana, the ninth-century Anatolio, Lord of Gaeta, is the first of the Caetani to gain regional prominence.

INSIDER 29 | SPECIAL FEATURES | Collecting ‘Lucky’ ‘Number Notes in Asia
Jan 24 2018

By Kelvin Cheung

Lucky number banknotes have always been a popular collecting theme in the Far East. When I started to collect banknotes in earnest in the early 2000’s I always sought them out as a priority. The first thing all burgeoning collectors must be clear on is what defines a ‘lucky’ number?

INSIDER 29 | SPECIAL FEATURES | Some Talk of Alexander
Jan 24 2018

By Jack West-Sherring

Alexander the Great’s victory over the Indian king Porus at the River Hydaspes (326 BC) was celebrated in commemorative Decadrachms known as ‘Porus medallions’. Discovered in Afghanistan in the late 19th century and bequeathed in 1926 to the British Museum, the example known as the ‘Frank medallion’ (see below) features on its obverse a Macedonian cavalryman locked in mortal combat with two Indian warriors astride a large elephant.

INSIDER 29 | COLLECTOR'S CORNER | Selling Collections to Help Solve Global Challenges
Jan 24 2018

By Jakob von Uexkull

When he was nine years old, Jakob von Uexkull’s father offered to exchange his son’s toy pistols for a stamp collection. Jakob agreed and never regretted his decision. A few years later, after moving from Sweden to Germany, he noticed that Swedish and German stamps were considerably more expensive in their respective home countries and began dealing in his free time. His business grew and when he won a scholarship to Oxford, his college complained that he was receiving more mail than the Dean…

INSIDER 29 | SPECIAL FEATURES | Some British Awards for the Peninsular War, 1808-14
Jan 24 2018

By Peter Duckers

Between 1808 and 1814 - a period of time as long as the Second World War - British armies in association with their Portuguese and Spanish allies fought an almost continuous series of campaigns in the Iberian peninsula. Some of their sieges and battles, like Talavera, Badajoz, Albuhera and Salamanca, have gone down in British military history as amongst the greatest of victories; at least one - the battle of Vittoria in June 1813 - had Europe-wide repercussions, such was its military and political significance.

INSIDER 29 | The Story Behind the Stamp
Jan 23 2018

By David Parsons

From the David Pitts Collection, to be offered for sale by Spink during 2018

Spink kicks off the New Year 2018 by putting on five solid auctions in its Hong Kong offices and achieves a total of HK$65 million
Jan 22 2018

Spink kicks off the New Year 2018 by putting on five solid auctions in its Hong Kong offices and achieves a total of HK$65 million proving that rare items and collectibles are still on trend.

INSIDER 29 | LONDON NEWS | Sir Christopher Lee Auction
Jan 09 2018

London, 1st November 2017

Many of you may remember our very successful 2013 Spink China sale, in which we offered a selection of memorabilia associated with famous actor Bruce Lee. Four years on we held the first evening auction to take place in our Spink London gallery, in honour of another famous and iconic British actor: Sir Christopher Lee.

INSIDER 29 | ASIA NEWS | Spink x Taisei International Numismatic Auction and Annual Philatelic Sale
Jan 09 2018

INSIDER 29 | NEW YORK NEWS | Outstanding Philatelic Sales
Jan 09 2018

New York, 6th–7th December 2017 | Spink were pleased to host this outstanding event at our New York premises, with three sales including the “Inclinados” of Brazil, Classic Russia and the general Collectors’ Series Sale.

INSIDER 29 | ASIA NEWS | Spink breaks two world records for sale of Macallan whisky cask at auction
Jan 09 2018

A full cask of Macallan 1987 Single Malt Scotch whisky fetched HK$2,928,000 (£282,890 or US$374,839) at Spink’s Hong Kong auction on the 3rd Oct 2017, setting a new world record for both the sale of a whisky cask and for the most expensive per-bottle cask sold at auction.