William III 1695 Half-Guinea NGC MS62

William III (1694-1702), gold Half-Guinea, 1695, laureate head right, legend surrounding, GVLIELMVS. III. DEI. GRA., toothed border around rim both sides, rev. crowned cruciform shields, early harp in Irish shield, sceptres in angles, Lion of Nassau at centre, date either side of top crown, .MAG. BRI. FRA. ET. HIB REX. (Schneider 515; Bull EGC 429; MCE 189; Traveller 2046 this coin; S.3466). Toned, with a few flecks, has been slabbed and graded by NGC as MS62 with special provenance label.

NGC Certification 2169831-020 - we note as of June 2025 that only 4 examples of the 1695 Half Guinea have been graded finer than this piece out of 32 examples. PCGS have only graded three pieces all below the level of the piece offered herewith.

The Latin legends translate as on the obverse "William the Third by the Grace of God," and abbreviated on the reverse as "King of Great Britain, France and Ireland."

The gold output for the calendar year of 1695 was the second highest of the reign at £717,218 compared to the smallest silver output in the same year of a mere £62.

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 The Traveller Collection.