Roman Coins from the John Quinn Collection
John Quinn
I was born in 1946 in Islington, North London, where there is a well-known street market, the Chapel Market. My grandmother used to sell salad produce there and I remember helping her as a child, counting the old penny coins into 1s. piles. So it could be said that I have handled coins from my earliest years! In fact my interest in coin collecting began about the age of 10 and has been with me ever since. It started with the gift of a large copper coin from my uncle which he had found whilst working on road repairs. I later found it to be an example of the 1797 George III 'cartwheel' penny and have kept it to this day.
When my parents moved to the Victoria area of London in the mid 1950s we lived not far from an antique shop where an old gentleman sold a variety of ancient coins. He encouraged me in my hobby and my first purchase was a denarius of the emperor Hadrian for a few shillings. I suppose my interest in history was fuelled by a very successful TV programme at that time called 'Animal, Vegetable, Mineral', whose guest was the famous archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler. At school I did best in history, languages and music. I attended Archbishop Tenison's grammar school at the Oval and then went on to gain an Honours degree in French at Exeter University.
A large part of my working life has been spent in banking. I was fortunate in the late 1970s to find a position in the bullion department of NatWest Bank where there was also a section dealing with numismatic coins, providing coin sets, commemorative crowns and items in gold specifically requested by branch customers. I went on to work in the registrar's department of Hill Samuel Bank, which later became Barclays Registrars and then Capita Registrars, before taking early retirement at the end of last year.
My hobby grew with me over the years and like most hobbies provided an outlet to the normal stresses and strains of everyday life. I began buying from established dealers and recall many trips to the offices of B.A. Seaby Ltd in Geat Portland Street, to the antique market of the Arches at Charing Cross and to Glendining's auction rooms. With any pursuit involving collecting there is always the excitement of searching to find a rare item which has somehow been overlooked. Two of my lucky finds were a denarius of Caligula with the reverse of Germanicus for the princely sum of 27s.6d. purchased when I was a schoolboy and an extremely rare sestertius of the emperor Hadrian from a Glendining's lot with the reverse Restitutori Nicomediae, commemorating his aid to that city after it had been devastated by an earthquake and costing just a few pounds.
My interest in Roman imperial coins crystallised very early on and I was particularly impressed by those struck under the emperors Nero and Hadrian, both Graecophiles, whose mints produced coins of beautiful design and workmanship. It has been a collector's interest rather than an investor's interest and the collection overall has been built up from relatively modest means over a very long period of time. Now, having reached retirement age, I have decided it is time to pass the larger part of my acquisitions to others. I will still retain my interest in the Hadrianic period, however, and will add to this part of my collection for the time being to keep my interest in the hobby alive.
Collection Information
This collection was sold in 3 parts:
Other Collections Sold in 2012
- The Collection of Medals to the Wiltshire Regiment formed by the late Michael Hayward
- The John Chidzey Collection
- Militaria and Medals relating to Jamaica and the West Indies
- The Collection of Napoleonic War Medals formed by the late R.W. Gould, M.B.E.
- Awards to the Medical Services from the Collection of the late Tony Sabell
- The Collection of Medals formed by the late Tim Ash
- The Collection of Second World War and Modern Gallantry Awards formed by the late William Oakley
- Awards to the Indian Army from the Collection of AM Shaw
- The Collection of Medals formed by the late Arnold Jackson
- Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte
- The Late Jim Sazama Collection of Medieval Coins
- A Collection of Awards to the Royal Flying Corps, Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Air Force
- A Collection of Medals to the Hampshire Regiment
- British Medals from the Collection of James Spencer
- Tokens from the Late David Griffiths Collection
- The Late Robinson S. Brown Jr Collection
- The Bob Blake Collection of Irish Banknotes
- The Peter Stanton Collection of Paper Money of Guernsey
- Roman Coins from the John Quinn Collection
- A fine Collection of Life Saving Awards
- A Collection of British Orders and Decorations, the Property of Gentleman
- A fine Collection of Medals to Members of the Royal Household
- An outstanding Collection of Awards relating to the Order of St John
- The Collection of 19th Century Tokens formed by Frank Gorsler
- The David Greenhalgh Collection of Medieval Halfgroats
- The ‘Bellamy’ Collection of English Halfcrowns
- Coins from the Corringham (Essex) Hoard, 2009
- British Coins from the Collection of Dave Elliott
- Anglo-Gallic Coins from the Collection of Arthur M Fitts III
- A Collection of British Hammered Coins
- The Collection of Shillings formed by the late Gerald Sommerville
- Australian Tokens from the Duncan Pennock Collection
- A Good Group of Tokens of German South-West Africa
- A Group of Coins from an 18th-Century American Toll-House
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