DNW auction today - The Ian Sawden collection

[1949threepence 3,366]

5 hours ago, Rob said:

Not sure about that. He only had 14 1797 pieces whereas Colin had 44 lots.

With the gold penny you are at the mercy of when one appears.

In fairness I'm probably not strictly comparing like with like. If you include the late Soho and denominations other than pennies, it was a great collection, especially as it was assembled in just 15 years.

I'd certainly be interested to know how he came to acquire the ex King Farouk gold penny.  

4 hours ago, oldcopper said:

And Colin had all the patterns as well, very comprehensive. It may be that as Ian Sawden only collected the majority of this stuff in a 3 or 4 year window in general about 10 years ago, so he just got hold of as nice stuff as possible that (a) was available at the time, and (b) that he wasn't outbid on. So quite an achievement in that brief timespan.

I'm surprised he got so much of his stuff from London Coins if he lived abroad, because they don't have online bidding, so he would have had to get someone to bid for him each time, unless he was temporarily living in the UK at the time. Still he certainly scored with those florin patterns, many bought from LC!

One thing he did miss out on (unless he bought and sold it) was the lot immediately following the gilt twopence in the DNW 2010 sale. This was the lustrous currency 2d which went for £850 hammer. It then turned up at Heritage Auctions 6 months later slabbed as an MS66 RB (despite a noticeable depression in the field on the obverse) and fetched > $7000!

Now why didn't I bid on that......

He perhaps used e mail bids and did well on them.

I received my two won lots today and was pleasantly surprised to see Ian's original notes relating to provenance. That's never happened with any other purchases.