George I 1726 Five-Guineas, AU53, inverted Ns on edge, final year of reign

George I (1714-27), gold Five Guineas, 1726, laureate head facing right, Latin legend commences lower left, toothed border surrounding, GEORGIVS. D. G. M. BR. FR. ET. HIB. REX. F. D., rev. inverted die axis, crowned cruciform shields, now incorporating the Arms of Hanover with six heart semée, nine strings to Irish harp, emblematic sceptres in angles, garter star at centre, date either side of top crown, Latin legend and toothed border surrounding, .BRVN ET. L. DVX S. R. I. A: TH ET. EL. edge inscribed in raised letters of upright orientation to obverse, .DECUS. ET. TUTAMEN. ANNO. REGNI. DECIMO. TERTIO, all letter Ns inverted as usual (Schneider 542; Bull EGC 498; Holloway 79; M.C.E. 241; S.3626). Toned with some circulation wear and light surface marks, has been slabbed and graded by NGC as AU53.

NGC certification 2169835-013.

The Latin legends translate as on the obverse "George, by the grace of God, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith" and on the reverse "Duke of Brunswick and Luneberg, High Treasurer and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire."

"The Rarity of Five Guinea Pieces - An Analysis" co-authored by this cataloguer in 2005 revealed 46 examples of the 1726 Five Guineas had been traded, in a survey across hundreds of British auction catalogues and dealer's sales lists over a 45 year period dating back to 1960.

For the 1726 calendar year, output of gold was £872,963 which was the fourth highest of the reign and would likely have consisted of all four Guinea denominations current at the time.

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, purchased 29^th June 1931.

Ex The Traveller Collection, English part one, Numismatica Ars Classica, 20^th May 2025, lot 2040 when housed in a NGC AU53 holder, now rehoused with usual NGC label.