Auction 83 Highlights

Welcome to Sale 83.

Since the start of the year we have seen the price of Gold establish a new floor of around USD $1,700 or AUD $2,600 a Troy Ounce. Who would have thought the gold bugs that populate the internet would be proven right although some projections of USD $10,000 still seem way out there?

Even Silver, often seen as Gold’s poor relation, has established a solid following around USD $17 (AUD $25) an ounce. It is not uncommon t0 see 1oz Silver coins advertised on the internet for double their intrinsic value with some speculators apparently convinced that the historical ratios when Silver was worth 1/6th the value of Gold will one day return.

In this Sale we have included items that are essentially made up of these two precious elements that have been hoarded through the centuries as a store of wealth. In medieval times the rich and powerful ate off Silver and Gold plate which they converted to coin at the local mint whenever a castle needed renovating, or a war needed funding. In the ‘Ikea Age’ silver spoons and vessels have been confined to the collector cabinet although in the new ‘Covid Age’ it might now be worth reconsidering the antiseptic properties of this precious metal.

Some of the highlights of this sale include one of the finest known ‘cracked die’ 1852 Adelaide Pounds PCGS AU58. This was Australia’s first ‘unofficial’ gold coin and only about fifty coins of this type were struck before the dies failed. The ultimate table ornament is the natural Gold Nugget from the Coolgardie Goldfields of Western Australia weighing in at 19.6 Troy ounces. With a current intrinsic value of about AUD $50,000 the sky is the limit for the committed gold bug. A more subtle paperweight is the sea-salvaged Gold Sovereigns subsumed into a piece of the iron holding safe from the doomed Royal Mail Steamer ‘Douro.’ It is a reminder of how wealth was transferred around the world when nations operated on a gold standard.

We hope you find more than a few items in our Sale for your treasure chest.

Smalls Auctions