Henry III Gold Penny Sells for Record £648,000 at Spink Auction

A Henry III penny that has been traced back to its probable 13th-Century owner has sold at auction for £648,000 to set a record for a single British-found coin.

A 13th-Century Henry III gold penny has sold at auction for £648,000 to set a record for a single British-found coin.

The coin is also now the most valuable English medieval coin sold at auction, say auctioneers Spink, who handled the £540,000 sale that rises to £648,000 with costs.

The coin was found last September in Devon by Michael Leigh-Mallory, an environmentalist. A former detectorist, Mr Malllory happened to have his machine on him and unearthed the single coin whilst working on a farm. It was the first gold coin he had ever found and its rarity and potential value were soon spotted when he posted about the discovery on Facebook.

After much digging, a large amount of information on the coin was unearthed.

It is a famous issue. The Henry III Gold Penny was minted from 1257 for around just one year. The coin was an attempt to reinstroduce gold coinage after more than 600 years of silver money.

It was minted by the King’s goldsmith, William of Gloucester with gold from Africa. It was probably owned by John de Hyden, a Lord of Hemyock Manor, near where the coin was found. John paid the king 120 grams of gold to be excused serving in office and on a jury. He then served in the King’s Welsh Campaign of 1257 during which 37,000 of the new gold pennies were distributed.

Now, only eight are known to survive. Six of those are in institutional collections and are unlikely to ever sell.

All this made the Spink sale an event of world significance in numismatics.

Last year the Chew Valley Horde of silver coins became the UK’s most valuable ever discovered treasure when it sold for £4.3 million.

Such finds are protected by the Treasure Act. This find was unusual in that it was a single coin rather than a buried horde.

It went into the sale with a £400,000 estimate that was easily surpassed with reports of bidders online and on telephones around the world.

Mr Leigh-Mallory, who is saving his portion of the proceeds of the sale towards the education of his two children, said: “How it has survived three-quarters of a millennium relatively unscathed is truly miraculous. Like every hobbyist who continues to dream, my wish that day came true, and I just happened to be the very fortunate one.”