Spink Numismatic Circular, February 2001 - Robert Shuttlewood collection

[JLS]

Hello all, 

Anyone have a copy of the Spink Numismatic Circular, February 2001? 

I am curious as to what Spink priced the William III GVLIELMVS DEI GRATIA halfpenny at, as I am thinking about selling my own example which is in very similar grade ! 

As far as I know, the Shuttlewood piece hasn't been on the market since it was sold by Colin Cooke as part of the Nicholson collection: #78 (http://www.colincooke.com/collections/nicholson_part2.html) 

Thanks !
JLS

 

[Rob]

£450

[JLS]

1 hour ago, Rob said:

£450

Excellent, thanks Rob. Will be interesting to see what I'll achieve for one in today's market !

[DaveG38]

I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that Mark Rasmussen sold one (it may have been the Nicholson example) for £2200, I think, a few years ago now.

[JLS]

1 minute ago, DaveG38 said:

I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that Mark Rasmussen sold one (it may have been the Nicholson example) for £2200, I think, a few years ago now.

!

For what it's worth I paid a derisory sum for mine. Maybe I should be in touch with Mark. 

Edited October 19, 2020 by JLS

[DaveG38]

I paid £650 for mine, about 4 years ago. It was worth it, as it is pretty much VF+ grade, but has some corrosion through being in the ground. Overall, its about the same grade as the original 'Cowley' find.

[JLS]

1 minute ago, DaveG38 said:

I paid £650 for mine, about 4 years ago. It was worth it, as it is pretty much VF+ grade, but has some corrosion through being in the ground. Overall, its about the same grade as the original 'Cowley' find.

Nice ! Here are photographs of my specimen. Maybe Poor + ? 

Yours is actually dated 1696 right ? I haven't seen the Cowley piece. 

[DaveG38]

I wrote an article for Coin News on this type a few years ago. In that, I identified what I thought were the 5 known examples. Yours appears to be the 6th. The date is not in fact 1696, but 1695 - the last digit is an italic 5 not a 6, made difficult to read through corrosion, but is obvious when put alongside a normal 1696 example. If you are interested, I can pm you a copy of the article, which explains in more detail than I can here.

[JLS]

17 minutes ago, DaveG38 said:

I wrote an article for Coin News on this type a few years ago. In that, I identified what I thought were the 5 known examples. Yours appears to be the 6th. The date is not in fact 1696, but 1695 - the last digit is an italic 5 not a 6, made difficult to read through corrosion, but is obvious when put alongside a normal 1696 example. If you are interested, I can pm you a copy of the article, which explains in more detail than I can here.

Please do - would be very interested !

[DaveG38]

15 hours ago, JLS said:

Please do - would be very interested !

File size is too big by a mile to send via PM. Let me have an email address and I can do it that way.

[oldcopper]

17 hours ago, JLS said:

!

For what it's worth I paid a derisory sum for mine. Maybe I should be in touch with Mark. 

Mark might have sold one more recently, but the only one in his archive was the Nicholson example, sold on List 9, so during the middle-to-late 2000's. He sold it for £495.

The best known (~GF+) was for sale by an American dealer some years ago. He wanted $4700 for it; too much for me! Great example though.

Edited October 20, 2020 by oldcopper

[Michael-Roo]

Should anyone else wish to read Dave's article, here it is.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Michael-Roo

[Michael-Roo]

[Michael-Roo]

[DaveG38]

Well done Michael-Roo for posting the article. Make of it what you will, though I still feel that the evidence and logic of die production means that the dates are definitely 1695.

Just two allied points:

1. My coin is the bottom one on page 2. After this article was published, I gave it the olive oil treatment with the result that the coin is now a lovely chocolate brown without all that surface green caused by being in the ground. As I said in an earlier post, I'd put mine at VF maybe a touch better, but with some patchy corrosion. According to the seller, my coin was dug up in Suffolk. The one offered for sale in the US for $4700 is possibly the one at the top of page 2, which is the property of an American collector - he also was/is the owner of the centre coin on page 2. 

2. For reasons I don't understand Spink were very reluctant to include this type in their standard catalogue. When I suggested it should be I got a very snotty note to the effect that they couldn't include every minor type in their publication. I get that, but this is scarcely minor - in fact it must be the first obverse of William's reign, which changes the whole view of the copper series of coins of that period. Furthermore, the legend change is far more significant than the existence of an extra curl or berry on Victoria's hair, yet they were happy to include this kind of variety in the 1860-61 penny series, where the differences are truly minor. However, I haven't bought a copy of Spink in recent years so maybe my grumble is unjustified and it is now included.

Finally, on the question of the recent sale, I was sure it was Mark Rasmussen, but if not then one of the other dealers in rarities. I recall it because my article and name appeared in the description of the coin, which the more I think about it, I'm sure was the Nicholson example.

[Michael-Roo]

 

I agree. The logical explanation is 1695, short run, first issue. 

Your photographic evidence nails the date.

 

 

Edited October 20, 2020 by Michael-Roo

[JLS]

Thank you all for all the information, fascinating ! It's curious if it was the first issue that no high grade examples/proofs exist. I guess after the 1694 coinage there was no need to do so for technical reasons and the transition to the new obverse design may have been relatively simple. 

[Rob]

They were producing DEI GRATIA obverses for all the silver in 1695. Probably just a case of someone forgetting the denomination they were engraving. A date of 1695 could mean as late as March, in which case you were only 5 months prior to the start of the recoinage. The decision to do this was made in 1695, so were they making dies in advance of the new mints opening as soon as the law was passed? Again, just forgetting what you were making.

[oldcopper]

25 minutes ago, DaveG38 said:

Well done Michael-Roo for posting the article. Make of it what you will, though I still feel that the evidence and logic of die production means that the dates are definitely 1695.

Just two allied points:

1. My coin is the bottom one on page 2. After this article was published, I gave it the olive oil treatment with the result that the coin is now a lovely chocolate brown without all that surface green caused by being in the ground. As I said in an earlier post, I'd put mine at VF maybe a touch better, but with some patchy corrosion. According to the seller, my coin was dug up in Suffolk. The one offered for sale in the US for $4700 is possibly the one at the top of page 2, which is the property of an American collector - he also was/is the owner of the centre coin on page 2. 

2. For reasons I don't understand Spink were very reluctant to include this type in their standard catalogue. When I suggested it should be I got a very snotty note to the effect that they couldn't include every minor type in their publication. I get that, but this is scarcely minor - in fact it must be the first obverse of William's reign, which changes the whole view of the copper series of coins of that period. Furthermore, the legend change is far more significant than the existence of an extra curl or berry on Victoria's hair, yet they were happy to include this kind of variety in the 1860-61 penny series, where the differences are truly minor. However, I haven't bought a copy of Spink in recent years so maybe my grumble is unjustified and it is now included.

Finally, on the question of the recent sale, I was sure it was Mark Rasmussen, but if not then one of the other dealers in rarities. I recall it because my article and name appeared in the description of the coin, which the more I think about it, I'm sure was the Nicholson example.

I think unfortunately if Spink view it as a pattern they don't put them in, only in exceptional cases such as the Petition Crown. I don't think they list any copper patterns, and none of the earlier proofs. They go to town on the bronze of course, but they don't list any proofs or patterns there either.

The coin at the top of page 2 is the $4700-priced one from memory, probably from the best metal but isn't as detailed as yours, which I hadn't seen until now. So nice one!

[oldcopper]

On 10/19/2020 at 4:15 PM, JLS said:

Hello all, 

Anyone have a copy of the Spink Numismatic Circular, February 2001? 

I am curious as to what Spink priced the William III GVLIELMVS DEI GRATIA halfpenny at, as I am thinking about selling my own example which is in very similar grade ! 

As far as I know, the Shuttlewood piece hasn't been on the market since it was sold by Colin Cooke as part of the Nicholson collection: #78 (http://www.colincooke.com/collections/nicholson_part2.html) 

Thanks !
JLS

 

As well as Mark Rasmussen, Nicholson's/Shuttleworth's coin was also in one of the early St James's auctions.

[JLS]

1 hour ago, oldcopper said:

As well as Mark Rasmussen, Nicholson's/Shuttleworth's coin was also in one of the early St James's auctions.

St. James 3: https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=249167

This one got around !

[JLS]

2 hours ago, Rob said:

They were producing DEI GRATIA obverses for all the silver in 1695. Probably just a case of someone forgetting the denomination they were engraving. A date of 1695 could mean as late as March, in which case you were only 5 months prior to the start of the recoinage. The decision to do this was made in 1695, so were they making dies in advance of the new mints opening as soon as the law was passed? Again, just forgetting what you were making.

That would make sense of there being so few of them - pretty much any individual die combination for William and Mary or William III copper is extremely rare, and they put much worse dies into service than this. 

[Peckris 2]

5 hours ago, DaveG38 said:

2. For reasons I don't understand Spink were very reluctant to include this type in their standard catalogue. When I suggested it should be I got a very snotty note to the effect that they couldn't include every minor type in their publication. I get that, but this is scarcely minor - in fact it must be the first obverse of William's reign, which changes the whole view of the copper series of coins of that period. Furthermore, the legend change is far more significant than the existence of an extra curl or berry on Victoria's hair, yet they were happy to include this kind of variety in the 1860-61 penny series, where the differences are truly minor. However, I haven't bought a copy of Spink in recent years so maybe my grumble is unjustified and it is now included.

Persist. I tried a few years running to get the 1946 ONE' penny, and the 1920 redesigned silver obverses both included. It was including documented expert evidence that finally tipped the scales, probably.

As for the bronze bun pennies, I think they decided to "do a Freeman", which meant all or nothing. That's my guess.