CHARM BRACELET INDIAN HALF MOHUR BRINGS $500K

It looked, on first examination, like an antique charm bracelet loaded with gold trinkets: a tiny Eiffel Tower and a little bowling pin and iconic images of provincial Italy. The owner thought the family heirloom might fetch $8,000 on the open market.

But Ian Byfield, 34, an assessment specialist for Walker's auction house, noticed something striking among the two dozen charms: a modified gold coin, with possible deities on one side and Arabic writing on the other. What was this?

“I thought we needed to do a little more research.” He was right. On Dec. 11, the coin — now separated from the bracelet — sold in Ottawa for $504,000, one of those Antiques Roadshow moments that left some in the audience gasping.

“(The owner's) reaction afterward was priceless,” said company principal and auctioneer Jeffrey Walker, who was not authorized to identify the buyer or seller. “He couldn't believe it.”

What the long-dead charm collector couldn't know what that the coin was an Indian “half mohur” minted more than 400 years ago, one of a handful in existence.

Byfield said his research was a months-long process. It began in the spring with a look through standard coin catalogues, but no match could be found. He then posted a photo of the nickel-sized item on a coin collector forum. The moderator quickly sent him an alert, saying this coin was something special.

Further inquiries determined the coin was minted in 1605 in India, during the Mughal Empire and reign of one Muhammad Akbar, who is famous for attempting to forge a peaceful coexistence between the Islamic faith and Hinduism.

Thus, the coin was considered remarkable because it combines Hindu deities — Rama and his wife Sita on one side — with an Arabic inscription on the back that provided the date of fabrication. The coin was sent to the Numismatic Guaranty Corp. of Florida, which established its authenticity, a confirmation that gave it an estimated value of between $150,000 and $250,000.

So, in advance of the auction, Walker's spread the word to the world's high-end coin-collecting community, which knew that some silver versions of the coin were held by museums. (One was sold within the last 10 years for more than $100,000, which helped establish the auction estimate.)

The bidding began at $75,000. Inside Tudor Hall on North Bowesville Road, Byfield was on the telephone with one of two high-end bidders from off-site, while another associate handled a second wealthy collector. Back and forth it went, in $25,000 increments, Byfield and the other agent following instructions to keep raising their paddles.

In less than four minutes, Walker had banged the gavel at $420,000, a cost that went to $504,000 with the buyer's premium. “A new world record,” Walker declared.

The hushed room broke into applause.

Walker said the seller first contacted his firm about a year ago to dispose of furniture and jewelry that had accumulated through generations of the family's successive moves from Europe to Canada. The surviving family had taken all the pieces they could handle, but there was still a good deal in storage. The excess furniture was dealt with first, then came the jewelry, each piece carefully examined.

He said the current owner did not know how the coin came to be on the bracelet, which appeared to belong to his great-grandmother. The bracelet, by the way — without the coin — sold for the estimated $8,000.

To read the complete article, see:
Egan: Auction house finds $500K coin — a world record — on family charm bracelet (https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/egan-auction-house-finds-500k-coin-a-world-record-on-family-charm-bracelet)

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