George II 1739 Guinea, East India Company issue, XF45, ex Traveller

George II (1727-60), gold Guinea, East India Company issue, 1739, small E.I.C. under intermediate laureate head left, legend surrounding GEORGIVS. II . DEI. GRATIA., toothed border around rim both sides, rev. die axis off-centre, 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 589; Farey 845 ER; EGC 600 R4; MCE 316; S.3673). Toned with some light hairlines both sides, with wear to high points, graded by NGC as XF45 with special provenance label, extremely rare final East India Company issue.

NGC certification 2169834-019.

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."

The East India Company provided quantities of gold bullion from their trading activities to the Royal Mint to strike coinage with their provenance mark "E.I.C." at various times in the reign of King George II, probably as they were also responsible for taking great quantities of silver out of the country for export. The E.I.C. marked coinage continues for only a ten-year period of dating and only for five dates in the period, 1729, 1730, 1731, 1732 and finally 1739 as we have here with the intermediate head as a one year only type. The gold output for the calendar year of 1739 was £283,854 of which the EIC issue would have been a small proportion. As Graham Birch says in his book cited below, the East India Company was powerful enough to have ordered whatever quantities of gold coins it desired, so the small size of the coin programme shows there was undoubtedly a specific business related purpose behind the minting - they were not just intended for circulation.

For further reading see the new publication by Graham Birch "The Metal in Britain's Coins" available for £40 from Sovereign Rarities, where chapter four is devoted to "The East India Company - The World's Most Powerful Company" (pages 58-69). The book is an intriguing and rewarding read.

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 29^th June 1931.

Ex The Traveller Collection with original envelope dated to the purchase above.