Peer who saved his pennies and made £2million
A TORY peer with a lifelong passion for Scottish coins built up a collection worth more than £2million, his will has revealed.
Lord Ian Stewartby, a minister in Margaret Thatcher’s government, began collecting coins as the six-year-old schoolboy Ian Stewart, and went on to become an expert.
The former Armed Forces minister, pictured, died at the age of 82 in March at his home in Biggar, Lanarkshire, following a long illness.
His recently published will revealed he had an estate valued at £6,106,816 at the time of his death.
That included his collection of Scottish coins built up over 75 years which was valued at £1,785,000 and were donated to the Hunterian museum at Glasgow University a year before he passed away.
In 2007, the oldest part of Lord Stewartby’s collection of Scottish coins, dating back to the 12th century and worth £500,000, was stolen from his home.
A £50,000 reward was offered for its return and an appeal on the TV show Crimewatch five years later brought 40 calls from the public, but to no avail.
In 2016, his collection of English coins, many of them Anglo-Saxon, was auctioned off at five separate sales for a total of £500,000.
Lord Stewartby’s fascination with coins was sparked as a child in wartime Barnet, north London, when he spotted a copper coin with two heads on it in a jar on the counter of a grocer’s shop. After meticulous research, he discovered it dated from the late 17th-century reign of William and Mary.
He discovered that no complete book on the coinage of Scotland had been published since 1887, so wrote his own. Scottish Coinage was published by Spink & Son in 1955. He wrote several further books on the Scottish and English coinage.
His will revealed that his wealth also included his £430,000 home and a large stocks and shares portfolio worth more than £3million.
The peer instructed that his entire estate should be passed to his wife Deborah, although the coins will remain at Glasgow University.
After handing over his collection of 6,000 coins in March last year, Lord Stewartby said: ‘My one regret is the early part of the collection was stolen in 2007 and I would urge the perpetrators to return the coins to the Hunterian so the collection is complete and represents a full history of Scotland from David I to the Union, told through coins.’
The collection contains silver pennies of Robert the Bruce, gold lions and unicorns of James I and II, and Renaissance portrait groats of James III.