Anne 1702 Guinea, Pre-Union with Scotland first date, NGC AU58 ex Newcomer

Anne (1702-14),gold Guinea, 1702, Pre-Union type, first draped bust left, Latin legend and toothed border surrounding, ANNA. DEI. GRATIA.,rev.crowned emblematic Pre-Union cruciform shields, rose at centre, emblematic sceptres in angles, date either side of top crown, Latin legend and toothed border surrounding, .MAG BR.FRA ET.HIB REG. (Schneider 525; Farey 460 S; Bull EGC 458 R2; MCE 209; Traveller 2052 this coin; S.3562).With a dark streaky tone, some underlying brilliance, some surface marks and flecks, has been slabbed and graded by NGC as AU58 with special provenance label, very rare initial date.

NGC Certification 2169835-009.

We note of a total of ten grading records across both NGC and PCGS that only three piece grades finer than this, it is a rare initial date for this reign despite the calendar year having an issue of £162,069 worth of gold, some of which may well have been final issues of William III dated 1701.

The Latin legends translate as "Anne, by the grace of God," on obverse and on the reverse as "Queen of Great Britain, France and Ireland." Provenance Story:

This coin has a most intriguing provenance being hidden away in a European family collection since before World War II. The "Traveller" was a wealthy gentleman who having inherited a portion of a successful family company, made a fortune by promptly selling it and then travelled the world on what was in part an extended honeymoon for the decade between the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the outbreak of World War II. With the financial instability of the great depression and after dabbling at first with gold bullion, he decided to form an enormous collection of world gold coins from ancient to modern whilst travelling the world to see the relevant dealers in their geographical locations to find the most appropriate coins. The result was a collection of some 15,000 coins, 1,700 of which we are told are British, with all going into secure hiding as of 1940 when the nazi regime encroached on where our traveller was located. Sadly, the collector died of a stroke with the stress of the world situation at this time and the collection remained hidden away for decades, stored carefully in individual envelopes in cigar boxes within locked aluminium strongboxes, that were buried in the ground in a field at the collector's property. His wife carried the secret of the burial location for the decades following and reaching the end of her life some 50 years later divulged the secret to her only daughter, whereupon in the 1990s the family retrieved all the coins intact and secured them safely in a bank vault until it was time to sell by auction in 2025. Though we often hear of buried treasure or hoards of coins from antiquity in the ground, it is not often we hear of a sophisticated coin collection actually being buried for decades, an intriguing story to permanently associate with coins of the Traveller provenance which has been written about in newspapers and online worldwide. We are lucky enough to have secured a small number of rare British coins from this esteemed collection.

Additionally, this coin once formed part of the Waldo Newcomer (1867-1934) collection, a successful banker of Baltimore USA, who also formed one of the most significant and most complete US gold coinage collections of that time. His collection was advertised as coming up for sale by B. Max Mehl of Texas from 1932 but a catalogue was never forthcoming and some of the non-US coins found an outlet through dealer Jacques Schulman who sold the Traveller a parcel of over 100 British gold coins in December of 1936.

Provenance:

Ex Waldo Newcomer collection, portion sold via Jacques Schulman, Amsterdam, purchased 12^th December 1936.

Ex The Traveller Collection.