Reply to Thread

Message:: [QUOTE="Aethelred, post: 3057586, member: 81808"]I purchased this coin from Atlas Numismatics (good people by the way) and it arrived Tuesday. It is a Henry VI Silver Groat minted 1431-1432 at the English Mint operating in Calais. It is listed as Spink-1875 and has been graded EF-40 Ex. Archbishop Sharp by PCGS. <img src="https://www.cointalk.com/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.pcgs.com%2FTrueView%2F34949111_max.jpg&hash=973ea653c101d84cff50346cd7de27bb" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> The pedigree supplied by the seller is as follows: Biography courtesy of Morton and Eden: "DR JOHN SHARP (1644-1714), Archbishop of York from 1691 until his death, was an enthusiastic collector and student ofcoins and medals. His interest seems to have begun around 1687 when, as Rector of St Giles in the Fields, he â€˜found it agood divertisement in the eveningâ€™. In contrast to nearly all his numismatic forbears and contemporaries who were interestedin Ancient Greece and Rome, Sharp selected the coinages of the British Isles and, to a lesser extent, the Colonies andContinental Europe, as his chosen fields. He wrote his Observations on the Coinage of England with a letter to Mr [Ralph]Thoresby in 1698-99, which was to circulate amongst numismatists in manuscript form for nearly a century before beingfinally printed in 1785.Subsequent owners of the Sharp collection evidently added to it and the Northumbrian stycas in this sale (lots 10-17) mightwell represent a parcel from the immense Hexham Hoard discovered in 1832 and 1841. There are also a few examples ofâ€˜newâ€™ circulating coins of George III and even a Britannia groat of Victoria (lot 291); see also lots 302-311. The historicalsequence of ownership of the collection runs as follows:(i) Dr John Sharp (1644-1714), Archbishop of York;(ii) John Sharp (1674-1726), eldest son of the Archbishop, of Grafton Park, Northamptonshire;(iii) Dr Thomas Sharp (1693-1758), his brother, who was Archdeacon of Northumberland and Prebendary of Durham;(iv) His son Dr John Sharp (1723-1792), Vicar of Hartburn, Perpetual Curate of Bamburgh, who succeeded his fatheras Archdeacon of Northumberland and who oversaw extensive restoration of the largely-ruined Bamburgh Castle;(v) His daughter Anne Jemima Sharp (1762-1816), who bequeathed it in her will to her uncle Granville Sharp (1735-1813), the prominent Anti-Slavery campaigner (see lots 301-311). In the event Granville died before his niece, sothat on her death in 1819 it passed to her first cousin, another great-granddaughter of the Archbishop:(vi) Catherine Sharp (1770-1843) of Clare Hall, near Barnet, whose husband Rev. Andrew Boult took the name Sharpon marriage;(vii) Her nephew Thomas Barwick Lloyd-Baker (1807-86), the social reformer and ornithologist who was also a directdescendant of the Archbishop through his maternal grandfather William Sharp (1729-1810), George IIIâ€™s surgeon;thence by descent.During the 1960s and 1970s material from the celebrated Archbishop Sharp Collection was sold through the agency of dealersA.H. Baldwin & Sons, and Owen Parsons of Gloucester. There were auctions of Continental Coins (Sotheby & Co., 14March 1966) and the particularly important English Coins and Medals Charles I â€“ Anne (and Colonial Coins) held byGlendining & Co., 5 October 1977. The cataloguer of the latter sale drew attention to the distinctive toning found on manyof the Archbishop Sharp silver coins, a feature which applies equally to the pieces offered here."[/QUOTE]

Create my FREE Account!

Log in or Sign up

Reply to Thread

Useful Searches