A private collection of historic coins, valued around £40,000 and assembled over a 40-year period by a father and son, will feature in a sale of silver, coins and medals at Fellows in Birmingham on May 14.
Among the highlights is this 1902 Veld pond coin, an emergency issue gold coin dating from the Anglo-Boer War. The so-called Pilgrim’s Rest Coin was struck by the Boers on the run from the overwhelming British forces on a makeshift improvised mint set up in the veld, a grassland area of South Africa, in the remote region of Pilgrims Rest. Soft hand-cut dies and an improvised flypress were used to strike fewer than 1000 gold coins, with an intrinsic value of 22 shillings. Considered among the great rarities of South African coinage, this example is estimated at £5000-7000.