Question about Middlesex 916 Conder token

[Conder101]

Has anyone ever actually seen a Middlesex 916 struck in silver? D&H lists that it is known in silver but has anyone actually seen one?

[Yarm]

In hand, no.

 

Midd 916 silver

[Conder101]

Yarm sent you a PM

 

Anyone else know of any?

[HiHoAudio]

I have never seen or heard of one, then again I don't get out much...

 

[farthing]

The only occurrence I have in my records is the one in Tuesdays Baldwins auction.

[Conder101]

That's the piece that started the question.

 

I've asked a specialist dealer about it and that was the only one he knew of as well. He believes that the description of the 916 silver was based on the piece in the F S Cokayne collection from the turn of the twentieth century. That is the piece in the Baldwin sale.

 

The problem is it is NOT 916. It is an exact match (but a little higher grade) as the silver piece in the 2011 DNW sale linked by Yarm earlier. (The 916 mentioned in the DNW sale was NOT a silver piece, just a regular copper striking.) The attribution of the silver piece in the DNW sale is also incorrect. They called it obv of 913/rev of 915. The reverse die is that of 916, but the obv die is not 913, it is not 916, it is an unlisted die. This variety has been been in at least two major collections, was apparently seen by the authors of the standard reference, and has been cataloged in at least three auctions, but no one noticed the new die but me (I bought the DNW lot, cheap.) That is surprising to me because the difference is obvious. How do you spell Caesar?

 

 

There are 7 Williams tokens with this design and none of them are mis-spelled. I suspect this was probably the first die engraved for Williams by Smith and he rejected it for the mis-spelling but he struck a few silver strikes from it for his personal token.

[Hard Times]

I believe the Baldwins cabinet up for auction was attributed by Gary Groll. If so, surely given his knowledge he would not have missed this?

 

Best, HT

[Conder101]

Thanks, I'll ask Gary about it.

 

But if Gary did do the cataloging,he did miss it. There is no doubt about that obv being a new die.

[Hard Times]

Thaz cool.

 

Best, HT

[Conder101]

Talked to Gary,He did do the cataloging and he did notice the unlisted die but somehow his description was "lost" between cataloging and printing and they copied much of the info from the previous lot, a copper 916.

 

He says that Cokayne's notes also identified it as an unlisted die. Cokayne called it 916bis in silver and as far as he knew it was unique. There was no silver 916 in the Cokayne collection and Gary has never seen one either.

 

So it now looks like there are two of them, The Cokayne piece that has been off the market for about 90 years or more, and mine from the DNW sale. I tried for the Cokayne coin, I don't know what it finally sold for, but I don't think I got it.

[Hard Times]

Thanks for the update C101. Sounds like you could write an interesting article for the CTCC journal on this.......

 

Best, HT