Auction 148 Highlights

Welcome to Smalls Auctions Sale 148.

In this sale we are offering a number of items steeped in history.

The sale begins with a number of signed items including a framed original 1966 photograph of the first NASA Space Docking as recorded by the Astronaut David Scott on his own Hasselblad camera. Three years later the docking manoeuvre was critical to the success of the Apollo II mission allowing the moon lander to safely return astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin to the command module for the trek back to Earth. It was a moment captured unofficially, is a one off and is incredibly rare. There is also a cheque signed by Jack Ruby the slayer of Lee Harvey Oswald the assassin of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

In the coins on offer there are two items of note.

The first is a New South Wales 1813 ‘Shilling Bit’ in Very Fine condition. Struck on a contemporary forgery of a Holey Dollar this coin is a cut Quarter Section believed to have held the equivalent value of One Shilling. It is a unique survivor probably having been cast aside in a trader’s drawer when it was realised that they had been passed a coin made of debased silver. The author Coleman P. Hyman specifically mentions having seen this coin in the collection of the politician Henry C. Dangar in his important work titled ‘an Account of the Coins, Coinages and Currency of Australasia” which was published in conjunction with a display of Australian currency at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Coleman references another publication the ‘Comic History of New South Wales’ as being a primary source of information regarding the practice of sectioning Holey Dollars and Dumps  to create smaller denominations. Certainly, the coins of the Caribbean on which Governor Macquarie based the Holey Dollars and Dumps were sectioned into ‘bits’ of smaller denominations although there is no official record of this practice being sanctioned in New South Wales. An intriguing piece of Australiana which an impeccable provenance.

The second treasure is a Gold Aureus struck in AD 60 for the Emperor Nero in good Very Fine. The obverse of the coin captures a young Nero while the reverse lists his titles and powers. Emperors in Ancient Rome were plotted against and often lethally removed and so it was the everchanging coinage of the Empire which kept the citizens and subjects up to date with who was in charge at the seat of power.

These are but a few of the collectables and rarities on offer and we are sure there will be something that will capture your interest.

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