A RARE coin found in a bag of ‘holiday money’ donated to an Oxfam charity shop is tipped to sell for £7,000.
Volunteer John Turner, a retired banker and coin enthusiast, was sorting through donations at the London store when he made the discovery.
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He spotted the silver coin dated 1813 which he thought could be valuable so he flagged it up to his bosses.
They took it to an auctioneer who identified it as a 15 Pence from New South Wales.
These coins, the first to be struck in Australia, were melted down in the 1840s, with surviving examples highly sought-after.
London-based auctioneers Noonans have valued the coin at £5,000 to £7,000 and John will donate the proceeds of the sale to Oxfam, where he has volunteered for the past decade.
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Since the bag of foreign coins was not marked as Gift Aid, they could not trace the person who donated them to the shop in Orpington, southeast London.
John, who is in his mid-70s, said: “I started collecting British coins when I was a teenager and more latterly also British Empire money, so I had some knowledge to build on; but I have learned a lot from volunteering.
“In April 2023 I was invited to sort some donations of loose material in bags at the Orpington shop.
“On a cursory examination, these appeared to be largely what I would describe as ‘holiday money’, with some, but little or no collectable value.
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“Having sorted the ‘easy’ items into various categories, and priced a few items requiring some look up, I was left with a small silver-grey coloured item I had never seen before, inscribed ‘New South Wales 1813 Fifteen Pence’.
“Using the internet as my first line of enquiry, I found two such items that had sold for between £30 and £50.
“Searches of auction site results, mainly in Australia, but some UK, showed a wide variety of realised prices, but one UK site showed a sale of over £2,000 for a rough example.
“Australian results were considerably higher.
“My guess was that if the coin was genuine it might be worth at least £5,000.
“However, this was well beyond my competence to judge, and given how it turned up, made it somehow unlikely.
“The bags from Orpington had not been marked as eligible for Gift Aid, meaning that there was no way of tracing the donor.
“After this research, I told the Orpington deputy manager that we should tell the area manager potentially what we might have.
“This eventually led to Oxfam referring the coin to Noonans, who were able to confirm the coin as genuine.”
Oxfam praised John’s discovery and said his generosity would provide vital funds to tackle world poverty.
Shelley Hitch, valuer at Oxfam added: “Volunteers like John are so valuable to Oxfam, and this is a great discovery.
“It means even more to know that the money raised will go towards vital funds to help tackle poverty across the globe.”
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Tim Wilkes, head of the coin department at Noonans, said: “The market for these early Australian pieces is very strong and we hope that this piece will do well.”
The sale takes place on February 6.
How to find out how valuable your coin is
The most valuable coins tend to be ones with low mintage numbers, historically important, or an error.
After you’ve got an idea what the coin is, the next step would be to take a look at what has recently sold on eBay.
If you’ve got a coin that you would like to sell at auction then you can contact a member of the British Numismatic Trade Association.
They usually deal in very old coins but they may be able to help you assess whether it’s worth selling your coin at auction or whether it would be valuable to collector.
Or, you could sell the coin yourself on eBay.
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