George II 1738 Half-Guinea young bust MS64, finest graded, very rare date

George II (1727-60), gold Half-Guinea, 1738, young laureate head left, legend GEORGIVS. II . DEI. GRATIA. toothed border around rim both sides, rev. crowned quartered shield of arms, date either side of crown, legend M.B.F.ET.H. REX. F.D.B. ET.L.D.S.R.I.A.T ET.E. (Schneider 599; Bull EGC 641 R3; MCE 348; Traveller 2101 this coin; S.3681A). Toned with a red hue and some underlying brilliance, some flecking, has been slabbed and graded by NGC as MS64 with special provenance label, very rare date.

NGC certification 2169831-041 - we note as of June 2025 that this is the finest graded example across both services where only 6 pieces have ever been graded.

The Latin legends translate to on obverse "George the Second by the Grace of God" continuing on the reverse in abbreviated Latin which if in shown in full reads "Magnae Britanniae Franciae et Hiberniae Rex Fidei Defensor Brun et Lunebergen-sis Dux, Sacri Romani Imperii Archi-Thesaurius et Elector" and translates as "King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Duke of Brunswick and Luneberg, High Treasurer and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire."

We note the total output of gold for the calendar year of 1738 amounted to £269,837, interestingly a year without a silver output.

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.

Provenance:

Ex A. H. Baldwin & Son Ltd, purchased 26^th October 1937.

Ex The Traveller Collection.