Yesterday saw the sale of 28 lots of Knights of Malta coins at Spink and Sons in London.
The excellent results achieved, followed on the heels of the WaG auction held last week, once more highlighting the fact that good quality and rare coins are a solid investment.
The rump of the Malta coins on sale came from the Spink sale of 1988, the second collection of the notable numismatist, Mr Emanuel Azzopardi.
Some of the stunning coins on sale were a dated 1543 Homedes two Tari, as well as a s fine selection of 4Taris.
A Rafael Cotoner Tari was the third such coin up for sale in a period of a few weeks, with another two being recently sold at Stacks, Bowers and Pontero in the USA, and another at WaG last week.
Congratulations to those lucky enough to have won some of these wonderful coins.
Colin Formosa
To give you an indication of the growth in value of the coins of the Knights of Malta. Item 501 in the recent Spink 20121 auction is the same coin offered in the famous 1988 Spink 63 auction. In that auction it was item 765 and had an estimate of £120-150 but was passed in at £100.
The estimate for this item in the recent auction was £300 - £400. The hammer price was £4000. 10 times the top estimate. This is a cumulative growth of just over 12.4% per annum