>
1000 year old gold Jesus coin bought in 1992 for £450 sells for £54,000 at auction in London
- Extremely rare ‘Royal d’or’ coin was one of six recovered in Normandy in 1861
- It has been sold at auction house Spink & Son, in London for a whopping £54,000
- It was bought by a private seller in 1992 for £450, the equivalent of £1,000 today
<!–
<!–
<!–<!–
<!–
<!–
<!–
A 1,000-year-old gold coin commemorating the ‘crown of thorns’ of Jesus Christ, bought in 1992 for £420, has sold at auction for £54,000.
The extremely rare ‘Royal d’or’ coin was one of six recovered in a treasure found at Deauville, in Normandy, France, during new town planning in 1861.
The set of coins was a gift from the Emperor of Constantinople to King Louis IX of France in 1239.
The Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris acquired one of the treasures in 1862. The rest were sold by coin dealers to private collectors throughout Europe.
The coin, sold at auction house Spink & Son, in London, had been bought by the seller in 1992 when they paid a paltry £450 for it, the equivalent of £1,000 today.
It sold for a hammer price of £47,000. With surcharges added to the total price paid it was £54,000.
The extremely rare ‘Royal d’or’ coin (pictured) was one of six recovered in a treasure found at Deauville, in Normandy, France, during new town planning in 1861
Gregory Edmund, auctioneer and world coin specialist at Spink, said: ‘It is very rare for a coin to capture and reflect such a defining event in world history, let alone be so closely associated with the symbolism of Christ’s crucifixion.
“The excellent price shows the global interest in coin collecting that has soared since the pandemic and recent swings in the value of the pound.”
Until April 2019, the ‘Crown of Thorns’ had been on display at Notre Dame.
After the devastating fire, it was housed in the Louvre.
It comes after a lucky couple who discovered an incredible hoard of 264 gold coins dating back to the reign of King James I under their kitchen floor, sold them at auction earlier this month for nearly £755,000 – three times their original estimated value.
An unnamed couple made an astonishing find of 264 gold coins while getting a new floor in their 18th-century detached house in the village of Ellerby, North Yorkshire, it was reported earlier this month
The auction included this ‘pattern bust’ James I laurel
The site of the discovery in the couple’s house in July 2019
The unnamed couple made the astonishing find while getting a new floor three years ago in their 18th-century detached house in the village of Ellerby, North Yorkshire, just 6 inches below the concrete.
The gold coins – some of which are over 400 years old and date back to 1610, while others stretch as far as 1727, meaning they cover the reigns of James I, the executed Charles I and King George I – were kept in a salt-filled glazed earthenware cup for about three centuries.
They had been collected by Joseph Fernley and his wife Sarah Maister, members of a wealthy and influential Hull merchant family who traded iron ore, timber and coal, and whose last generations were Whig politicians and MPs.
An expert from London auctioneer Spink & Son visited the property to evaluate the treasure – and this year the coins sold for a whopping £754,320.
One of the highlights of the sale – a 1720 George I guinea accidentally minted without a king’s head on it, but with two ‘tail’ sides of the coin – fetched £9,600, while a 1675 Charles II guinea which misspells the king’s Latin name CRAOLVS instead of CAROLVS was also sold for £9,600.
Auctioneer Gregory Edmund called the find ‘one of Britain’s greatest archaeological finds’.