Buyer spends record amount on penny

A RARE 17th century penny has broken an auction record at a sale in Yorkshire.

The penny, from Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, sold for £6,200 in a live online auction of tokens and historical medals.

International coins, medals, banknotes and jewellery specialist Dix Noonan Webb (DNW) said the penny set a worldwide auction record.

It had been expected to fetch £240-£300, but the price rocketed more than 20 times that value before the hammer fell. The buyer was a collector in the US.

Elsewhere at the auction, a 19th century copper half crown dating from 1812, which was struck in Sheffield, sold for £8,680 to a private collector.

And a 19th century sixpence dating from 1813, from a workhouse in Birmingham, sold for £4,464.

The sale also included a collection of 18th and 19th century horse racing tickets and passes. The highest price was achieved for an extremely rare copper-gilt pass from Richmond Race course, in North Yorkshire, stamped Lord Dundas, which sold for £1,240 against an estimate of £200-£300.

Peter Preston-Morley, specialist and associate director at DNW, said most of the purchasers were private individuals.

He said: “The market for quality was very strong in this sale and all the horse racing material was keenly bid on, mostly acquired by private individuals in the UK.”

DNW is donating five per cent of buyers’ premiums to NHS Charities Together, and a total of £24,879 has been donated since the lockdown started.

Another sale – this time for ancient and Islamic coins – will be held on Wednesday June 3. It will include Roman and Greek coins. Medals and militaria will be sold on Thursday June 18.