James II 1685 Guinea Elephant and Castle, MS61 ex Traveller collection

James II (1685-88), gold Guinea, 1685, Elephant and Castle below bust, first laureate head left, Latin legend and toothed border surrounding both sides, IACOBVS. II. DEI. GRATIA, rev. crowned cruciform shields, emblematic sceptres in angles, date either side of top crown, four strings to Irish harp, .MAG. BR. FRA. ET. HIB REX. (Schneider 456; Farey 265 R; MCE 124; Bull EGC 322 R2; Traveller 2024 this coin; S.3401). Toned, with some black flecking and surface marks, has been slabbed and graded by NGC as MS61 with special provenance label, very rare.

NGC Certification 2169831-009 - we note as of June 2025 that this coin is the third finest graded of this variation at NGC (62 and 62+). For comparison at PCGS the finest grade is the equal of this piece and 19 pieces have been graded across both services.

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

The elephant and castle provenance mark is indicative of being issued by the "Royal African Company of England" as it had been so reconstructed by the Duke of York from 1672. The "R.A.C." was quite a success trading with Africa and the New World through the 1670s and 1680s. For further reading see publication by Graham Birch "The Metal in Britain's Coins" Chapter Three - The Royal African Company and the Golden Guineas p.33-57.

The total gold output for the calendar year of 1685 totalled £537,338 which was the second lowest of this short reign. Thomas Snelling in his 1763 publication "A View of the Gold Coin and Coinage of England from Henry the Third to the Present Time" reproduces a table from the London Advertiser of 23rd January 1755 which heralds that £46,066 of gold coin was struck from the company in 1685.

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