The E-Sylum:  Volume 9, Number 15, April 9, 2006, Article 8

PROVENANCE OF SCOTTISH GOLD COIN UNCOVERED

Allan Davisson writes: "A bit more on the 1575 £20 gold piece of
James VI (And a story with a brief moral for those who do not
adequately value important old auction catalogs....)

The cataloger did not catch the fact that the piece was part
of the great Murdoch sale of May 1903 (lot 266) where it realized
£81, a huge sum for the day. In general, Murdoch had the means
and opportunity to collect the finest known examples of everything
in his huge collection and coins from his collection show that he
did, in fact, obtain the best.

In 1997, DNW offered this piece as lot 214. Their publicity at
the time, as I recall, referred to a "new and formerly unrecorded"
example of the piece and the catalog notes that "To the best of
our knowledge, this coin has never before been offered at Public
auction."

It sold to Lucien LaRiviere for £22,500 in a sale that had
virtually nothing of significance otherwise in the Scottish series.

The Spink catalogers also missed this extremely important bit
of provenance. The coin was estimated at a moderate £30,000 to
£40,000 and sold for £48,000, again a modest sum, it seems to me,
for one of the most important and dramatic coins in the Scottish
series if not the entire British series.  And this great coin
also happened to be a part of the most renowned of British
collections."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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