Choice Rawlins Pound with a Remarkable Pedigree

Triton XXII, Lot: 1425. Estimate $50000. Sold for $45000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

STUART. Charles I. 1625-1649. AR Pound (54mm, 120.20 g, 4h). Declaration type. Oxford mint; im: plume with bands. Dated 1643. CAROLVS : D : G : MAG : BRIT : FRA : ET : HIBER : REX :, Charles, holding reins with left hand and sword in right, on horseback left, trampling arms below; plume to right / EXVRGAT : DEVS : DISSIPENTVR : INIMICI ·:·:·, RELIG : PROT : LEG/ANGL : LIBER : PAR in two lines between parallel lines; three Oxford plumes and XX (mark of value) above, 1643 below. Morrieson, Oxford A/2 (same obv. die as illustration); Brooker 863 (same rev. die); North 2397; SCBC 2938. Good VF, toned, a few light marks. Well struck on a broad flan.

Ex Spink Numismatic Circular CXII.2 (April 2004), no. HS1642; V. J. E. Ryan Collection (Part II, Glendining’s, 22 January 1952), lot 1225; Thomas Willoughby, 1st Lord Middleton (1672-1729) (Sotheby, 15 March 1926) lot 58; Sir Francis Willougby (1668-1688).

The rare silver Pounds struck at Oxford from vigorously engraved obverse dies by Thomas Rawlins are among the most impressive and desirable coins of the entire British series. Few have a pedigree as early as the example offered here which was once in the collection of Sir Francis Willougby the Younger (1668 – 88). Willougby had an unhappy childhood losing his father Francis, a founder of British ornithology, at the age of four. In 1676 his mother married the powerful merchant and politician Sir Josiah Child who, as Governor of the East India Company, prosecuted a war against the Mughal Empire, later known as Child’s War. Willougby ran away from home at the age of 12 and took his stepfather to court claiming that Sir Josiah had squandered his inheritance. He formed a varied collection of coins that included an important group of issues from the English Civil War and the Great Rebellion in Ireland. On Willougby’s untimely death in 1688 the collection passed to his younger brother, Thomas, and remained intact until sold by Sotheby’s in 1926.