Welcome to Auction 44

The ancient coins that made the cut to get into our sale had to pass the tests of historical interest, high grade, beautiful style, and gorgeous toning or patina. They were plucked from many sources, most frequently old collections and auctions. Our Greek section opens with a high condition rarity, the enigmatic Æ from Etruria with the head of an African paired with an elephant, followed by many beautiful large Greek silver pieces with old collection toning, classic rarities — among them a fine style Syracuse tetradrachm, and nomoi from Herakleia, Thourioui, Himera, and Tarentum, and the Macedonian Kings from different mints. Find them intermingled with fascinating small gems, high condition obols, and bronzes. Look for many coins with a tie to Hannibal.

Go online to read the many historical notes we were not able to fit into the print catalog.

Moving into Greek Imperial, the Romans in the Colonies, look for affordable rarities among the large bronzes and a choice group of billon tetradrachms clustered in the Holylands — Judaea, Samaria, Gaza, Tyre, Damascus — places in the Middle East that are tragically familiar to us today.

Fine Roman Republic denarii with cabinet and old collection toning, a superb portrait of Brutus, an exceptional legionary denarius, and a consignment of beautifully patinated Second Century sestertii, moves through the century to Roman Britain, with Caurausius and Allectus, then comes to a handful of exceptional Third Century silver, the deified megalomaniac Commodus, Maximus and his father, rare co-emperors Balbinus and Pupienus, and an exceptionally rare Gordian III “Balbinus head.” These are just a small introduction to the fascinating coins we are offering this time around. We hope you enjoy them.

A small group of electrotypes of rare Anglo-Saxon coins made from rare types in the British Museum allow a moderately priced way to experience the design and the era these were used.

 

The British section includes the Plantagenet coins, most with the family relationship noted. It also offers a choice Cromwell shilling. The Scottish section includes some particularly important and seldom seen pieces like lot 215, the earliest realistic portrait of a Scottish monarch, James III and an exceptional groat of James IV (218). There is also a rare and high quality 2/3rds ryal with an old pedigree. Plantagenet coins from Ireland and the Anglo-Gallic region complete this section. Richard the Lionhearted is well represented by deniers, one of which is a rarity with the letters reversed.

The token section follows. High quality and unusual pieces including many with very low mintages are featured in this section. The high-quality 19th century token collection—silver and copper—completes this part of the auction.

The United States section is brief but includes some pieces with unusual places in American numismatic history—a British 1749 farthing that was used primarily in the American colonies and an irregular (for want of a better word) Vermont piece. A proof Seated Liberty half dollar that has a presence dulled down a bit by the slab it’s in, a few silver dollars and and a smattering of silver commemorative halves complete the auction.

We hope you enjoy the catalog and find some pieces of interest. 

 

And please consider consigning material to us for future sales. We are in the process right now of assembling our next publication. We will give your material careful attention and a professional presentation.

 

 

Regards from all of us,

        Allan, Lief, & Marnie

Thursday, January 23, 2025

 

How Bidding Works

 

Davissons Ltd uses a soft close for its auctions, which means no lot closes until everyone is done bidding. Every time a bid is placed within the final 40 seconds of a lot closing, the timer is reset to 40 seconds. This continues until no bids are placed for 40 seconds, at which point the lot closes. There will never be more than one lot closing at once, as the next lot is not allowed to begin closing until the current lot closes.

To bid: enter your maximum bid into the text box, and click submit. Only round dollar amounts are accepted. You are then required to confirm your bid. Once confirmed, all bids are final. If you have placed a bid in error you must call during office hours and speak to one of us. If you are the current high bidder then it will display “Current High Bidder: YOU” If you are not the high bidder, or if you are not logged in, then the current high bidder will be identified by their 5 digit client ID. You may find your client ID under the Account tab.

Bids are reduced automatically, so feel free to bid your maximum and it will be reduced to one increment over the current high bid. If a user places a bid that is higher than necessary to be the current high bidder on the lot, the displayed bid will reflect one advance over the next lower bid. For example, if a user "A" places a bid of $120 on a lot which opens at $100, "A" will be winning that lot at $100. If another user "B" bids $110, the winning bidder will be "A" at $120, one advance over the supporting bid of $110. If user "B" in this example instead placed a bid at $120, then user "A" will still be winning at $120 because they placed that maximum bid value first.

Increments can be viewed here. The next bid will always be on the next increment, so if a user is winning a lot at $100, or $105, or $109, the next bid will still always be $110.

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