Important British and World Coins including Important Irish Coins from a Private Collection (Part II)

South Africa, Paul Kruger, Threepence, 1898, in gold, the so-called ‘Sammy Marks tickey’, edge plain, 2.63g/12h (Hern ZP5; KM. Pn23; cf. DNW 68, 1087). Minor surface marks and lightly cleaned at some time, otherwise good very fine, very rare (£4,000-5,000)

215 struck for the mining magnate Samuel Marks, probably from metal from the Sheba gold mine, in which he and his brother-in-law, Isaac Lewis, had a substantial stake.

The entrepreneur Samuel Marks (1843-1920), born in Lithuania, arrived in Cape Town in 1868 where he began his career by hawking cheap jewellery and cutlery. Later he moved to Kimberley where he went into business with Isaac Lewis and Jules Porges; together they formed the French Diamond Mining Company. Later Lewis and Marks relocated to the Eastern Transvaal, and after trading in the boomtown of Barberton, established the African and European Investment Company, which became a major Rand finance house with controlling interests in several gold mines. Marks also developed the Viljoen’s Drift coal mine and encouraged the expansion of the Witbank coalfields. He was a close friend and admirer of Paul Kruger and a popular figure within the Transvaal business community, serving as a senator in the Union Parliament from 1910 until his death in 1920 in Johannesburg. Sold with a copy of Sammy Marks, The Uncrowned King of the Transvaal, by Richard Mendelsohn (Cape Town, 1991), signed by the author on the title page, and a copy of The Life and Times of Sammy Marks, by S.J.N. Maisels