44 29th May 2010
coins & medals
Hallmark of a rare offering
Richard Falkiner
reports
ONE of the most extensive collections of commemorative medals ever formed surfaced
at Baldwin’s (18% buyer’s
premium)on May 4.
Most of the items from the collection formed by Michael Hall, which covers the mid-15th century to about the 19th century, have not seen the market for some 40 or so years.
I have known Michael Hall for nigh on half a century and he was a voracious collector, buying all sorts of medals and of all periods. This is just the first of three sales scheduled from his collection. In all there will be some 2000 lots on offer. There were a few spectacular medals among the 686 lots up for sale here and a lot of lesser pieces in terms of both condition and subject.
The catalogue, compiled by long-time medal specialist Daniel Fearon, author of numerous medallic works, usefully provides a comprehensive index of sitters and artists. This index for the three volumes will be an invaluable reference which will surely stand the passing of time. Not since Sotheby’s catalogues of the ancient (18th century) collection of the Duke of Northumberland, which was dispersed in 1980-1, has there been a parallel.
Five years ago, many of these medals
in Hall’s collection would have struggled to find a new home. What seems to have happened since then is that the internet has opened up the field to new buyers who tend to be more reliant on estimates to guide them. This factor becomes manifest when we observe that the total of the sale (£433,616) compares very well with the total of the estimates (£440,890).
Given the quality of some of the medals, the estimates were pitched on the prudent side.
Observing general categories before individual lots, some interesting trends seem to emerge. The most highly
Left and above: estimated at £60,000-80,000,
the Holy Trinity silver medal made the highest price of the day at £48,000.
Museum. That said, there were still a few English medals in this sale. A silver portrait medal of James I
offered here was an unrecorded variety and carried a £300-400 estimate; it required a bid of £680 to secure it. More imposing was the 1660 Dutch medal (70mm) by Pieter van Abeele with portraits of Charles I and Charles II. There has certainly not been an example up for sale during at least the last decade or more, so the £4500 it realised, despite an estimate of £1200-1500, caused scant surprise.
Above: the Henri III and Marie de Medici bronze medal that took £380 in the first tranche of the massive Michael Hall collection at Baldwin’s on May 4.
regarded medals have for centuries been those of the Italian Renaissance. There was an original lead example of the first Renaissance medal by Pisanello cast in 1438. This is the first medal since late Roman antiquity. It was estimated at £8000-10,000. It realised £10,500. However, while Italian medals tend to achieve the highest prices, French medals are aesthetically and historically just as pleasing, so it is hard to understand why they make less. The 1603 bronze cast medal (66mm) of Henri III and Marie de Medici was estimated at £400-600. It is an attractive
Left: this unrecorded James I silver portrait medal achieved £680 in the same sale.
Right: the silver Dutch medal of Charles I and II realised £4500 in the Hall dispersal.
example of a medal that is not all that rare; it only required a raised hand at £380 to secure it. A very slightly nicer example made £650 at Morton and Eden last December. If this had been an Italian medal then, well…!
Michael Hall donated the British section of his medals to the Los Angeles
The day’s highest price was £48,000 achieved by the Holy Trinity silver medal by Hans Reinhart the Elder. The estimate was a more optimistic £60,000-80,000. Coincidentally, a better example of this well-known medal was in the Stack sale at Morton and Eden last December. It took £50,000, although it had achieved £130,000 at Morton and Eden in 2005. It must have been the 2005 result that prompted the recent estimate on this inferior example.
Another example made 420 guineas (£441) in London (Christie’s) in 1961 – around the time that Michael Hall obtained many of the medals in this sale. The second tranche of this remarkable collection is scheduled for June 29 and the final one for COINEX week, on September 28 or 29.
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