Auction 202 Highlights

Welcome to Smalls Auctions Sale 202.

A highlight of the Sale is a 19th Century Zulu Knobkerrie stone hewn from Rhinoceros Horn. It’s not the most politically correct item these days, but it comes from a different era when it was fashioned as a fighting club and not as a modern decorative souvenir of a now endangered species. It comes from the Estate of Gene Van Grecken an avid collector of all things tribal who purchased it in the 1970s from Aldo Masola a curator at the Melbourne Museum.

Also in the Sale is an exceedingly rare Australia 'Union Bank of Australia Limited' Specimen £50 dated 1st March 1905. Specimens of Australian Private Banks fall into two categories. The first category are specimens released in significant numbers from the vast printer’s archives of behemoths such as Perkins Bacon and Co and Bradbury Wilkinson, while the second is the much scarcer releases from smaller scale banknote printers such as  Waterlow and Sons who produced this £50 Specimen. The Union Bank, founded in 1837, survived the travails of the economic depressions that wrought havoc to Australia’s Banking system in the 1890s and 1930s before it eventually merged with the Bank of Australasia in 1951 to form the A.N.Z. Banking Group Limited. This £50 stands as a rare reminder of one of the great ‘Imperial’ banks of Australia.

The Sale also includes a fantastic collection of coins from East Africa compiled from impeccable sources by the late collector of all things Commonwealth, Mark Freehill. It will be difficult to better some of the coins on offer from this popular series.

There are also other coins of the World on offer as well as a good selection of Australian Modern coin issues to tempt collectors.

We hope you find something of interest in your collecting field.

Smalls Auctions