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Auction: 19021 - The Dr. Erik Miller Collection Part I - Crowns
Lot: 31

Anne (1702-1714), Crown, 1703 tertio, draped bust left, vigo below, rev. crowned shields cruciform, seven strings to harp, angles plain, + decvs • et • tvtamen • anno • regni • tertio • on edge, 29.81g {460.0grns} (ESC 1340 {99}; S.3576), small drag marks below French and Scottish shields, otherwise a magnificent coin, with only a hint of tone across otherwise gloriously proof-like surfaces, probably the finest known example of this extremely popular issue of Spanish "bounty" silver

provenance
Whetmore, 14 July 1961, lot 89 - "extremely fine, proof-like, rare thus" - £135.0.0 (via Spink, 15 July 1961 - "the finest known")


At the Whetmore sale, this coin was accompanied by an envelope [since lost] recording simply: "From Aunt, 1703", which was noted as having been purchased "with another similar from an estate at some time this century". As Whetmore's Crown acquisitions largely follow the sale of his gold coin collection in 1943, it is most likely that this piece originated from the collection of a stately home, dispersed in reaction to rising death duties after the Second World War. Its mysteriously vague provenance twinned with its condition allude to an origin of inheritance (as seen in lots 20 and 32) that quite possibly extends back to the coin's removal from circulation at the point of striking or soon after. As such its appearance at auction today could conceivably be for only the second time in its 316 year history, seemingly having remained beyond the reaches of even the most famous of past numismatic cabinets for which its otherwise near flawless preservation would have rendered it wholly befitting.

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Sold for
£23,000