Current Lots and Archive

Lots per page:

Search results

  1. Winning Losing Won Lost Watching Available in aftersale  
    E26, Lot 121:

    "The Muffin Man," a great and important rarity in the D&H series. Middlesex 1009 (RR) Political and Social Series. Dimsdale. Æ halfpenny. 11.38 gm. 30 mm. 1796. A man with a tricorner hat and a basket on his arm walking with a cane; SR. HARRY DIMSDALE MUFFIN MARCHT / ELECTED MAYOR OF GARRAT 1796 within sprigs of roses. Prooflike Uncirculated; as made, slight marks mostly from the dies; advanced die failure. Dramatic and beautiful. I could find no other examples on the market since this piece was sold in Waite Sanderson (1944) (AD).

    Ex Shorthouse (1890). Ex Hamer (1930). Ex Waite Sanderson (1944).

    Three other examples of this rare and distinctive piece have appeared in major collections (Davis 1901. Lincoln (?) 1936. D&H plate coin (Cokayne?). Interestingly, viewing the images for the other three was the rapidity with which the die seems to have deteriorated. Given the extreme rarity of this piece, the break was early and drastic. The example offered here may well be the final strike.

    This piece is from the 1930 Hamer sale (photographed), sold again in Waite Sanderson, 1944 (not photographed as was the case with wartime auctions but tied back to Hamer). The Hamer sale noted ex Shorthouse, a late 19th-early 20th century metal dealer whose primary interest was stamp collecting. The buyer at the Hamer sale is noted as Rolls. (£5, 5/) (Manville has biographical information on Shorthouse but not on Rolls.)

    The next piece, in reverse order of die deterioration, is the Davis piece, sold in 1901 by Sotheby. The buyer is listed as Spink.

    The third piece, a bit less damaged than the Davis piece, was sold by Glen’s in 1936 in an unnamed sale that is generally considered to be Lincoln.

    Finally, the D&H plate coin shows little die failure though the weakness in the lower right quadrant (obverse view) is plain. I do not know whose piece this was though it might be Cokayne. Tokens from his collection can be tied to the D&H images when there is something distinctive about the appearance of an individual piece.

    I have found no recent sales for the piece. The exhaustive collection sold by Jim Noble in 1998 did not have an example. The extensive and detailed record published by Gary Sriro lacks an example of this token as well.

 

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.

Close
Connected Disconnected