LONDON – For the second time this year, UK-based TimeLine Auctions has chosen the prestigious Swedenborg Hall in London’s historic Bloomsbury section as its sale venue. On Sept. 9, the prestigious British company will conduct an auction of ancient coins, antiquities and geological specimens. A morning session will feature coins, while antiquities will be offered in the afternoon session (local time, which is five hours ahead of US Eastern Time). Internet live bidding will be provided by LiveAuctioneers.com.
With more than 500 coin lots and in excess of 350 antiquities spanning cultures across three millennia, picking out headliners proves difficult, according to TimeLine’s Christopher Wren, “but the sale’s centerpiece is surely lot 688 – a superbly modeled cast figure of Aphrodite with mirror in one hand and a pomegranate in the other.” Accompanied by 3 documents attesting to ownership, the hammer price is expected to reach £100,000 ($154,000).
Another striking antiquity (lot 625), measuring just 1½ inches by 1½ inches, is a 2nd century BC Greek gold appliqué depicting Nike presenting a Corinthian helmet to the god Pan. In very fine condition, the piece comes from an important American collection and is expected to fetch £2,000-£3,000 ($4,600-$6,200). And from the 2nd century AD, lot 695 is a Roman bronze double bust, which, unlike the more familiar double busts of Jason, depicts a male and a female face, perhaps man and wife. This remarkable work of art, a little under 4½ inches high, is estimated at £3,000-£5,000 ($4,600.00-$7,700).
An iron Spangenhelm helmet with contempora from the Norman Period (circa 11th century AD) is from an old private collection and is accompanied by a full report from I. Eaves, Arms and Armour Consultant, and an XRF ancient metal-test certificate from Oxford X-Ray Fluorescene Ltd. It could make £7,000-£9,000 ($10,800-$13,850) on auction day.
Considerably older and entered in the sale with a £3,000-£4,000 ($4,600-$6,200) is lot 776, a juvenile woolly mammoth’s tusk from circa 30,000 BC. This is a complete tusk, almost 4 feet long, orange-brown, and with pronounced curvature. It was recovered from the Siberian tundra where the last Ice Age wiped out the species. Even more ancient is lot 775, a polished slice cut from the Seymchan Meteorite discovered in 1967 in the Magadan district of the USSR. It weighed 599 pounds before cutting, which revealed its distinctive crystalline structure. The polished slice is expected to attract bids of £2,000-£3,000 ($3,000-$4,600).
The best way to appreciate the astonishing variety of lots likely to go for more modest hammer prices is to browse the fully illustrated online catalog on LiveAuctioneers.com. Coin collectors will find the 17th and 18th centuries strongly represented by silver issues of the Stuart and Hanoverian monarchs. Ancient coin collectors will see 90 Celtic lots; English Civil War aficionados will find more than 30 coins of the period with estimates ranging from $75-$900. On the catalog’s antiquities pages, browsers will see numerous Egyptian amulets, Greek ceramics, Roman jewelry, Byzantine crosses, and much more from the Medieval centuries.
Brett Hammond, TimeLine Auctions’ CEO, commented: “We are proud of our second Bloomsbury catalog. It contents confirm our exceptional growth since the first Bloomsbury sale in March this year. The event has already caught the attention of the trade.”
For additional information on any lot in the sale, contact Christopher Wren by calling (from the USA) 011-44-1708-222824 or e-mailing md@timelineauctions.com.
ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE
