Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

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Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

Post by Mac »

Prices for Irish banknotes were generally steady at the latest Whytes Eclectic Collector auction, 6 May 2017.

With around a hundred Ploughman notes on offer, including some scarcer banks, it was yet again a good test of the market for these notes.

There have been a lot of Ploughman notes coming new to the market over the past few years, over £500 in face value, in all grades, and all levels of rarity. It is a good time to start a collection of these, with somewhat of a glut of them on the market. Auction houses like Whytes and DNW are currently the best places to go for these notes, with some good value to be had in a steady though soft market where lots of newly available notes are looking for a good home.

There were also very good prices for Lavery notes at the whites auction, with each of four 1932 £10 notes fetching cutting edge prices. One note doing this well would be an anomaly, four in a row is a trend. Prices realised were: Lot 479, gVF tear (950); 480, VF writing on reverse (1000); 480A, about fine (750); 481, good fine with minor foxing (850). These are very good results indeed for this note in medium grade.

Earlier Lavery notes, pre-1961, especially higher denominations in nicer grades are being sought, and do tend to fetch good prices. We have seen this in DNW offerings in the recent past also. Scarcer issues in good grade continue to do well.

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Lot 480 Currency Commission Irish Free State Ten Pound note 6.7.32 fetched 1,000 euro plus 27% fees in Whytes Auction on 6 May 2017.
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

Post by ThePloughman »

Hi. good to see prices holding up on the Plowman notes. It sure seems like a buyers market these days for them.
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

Post by gaelicyoda »

I did note that all of the 1932 £10's went to the same online bidder on the day, as well as the low grade war code £10 that followed.

A similar trend appears to be emerging on eBay in the last number of months with any war code or pre-war notes tending to go - frustratingly! - to the same single eBay member. Perhaps it was even the same person online at the auction?

Either someone just won the lotto and doesn't care how much they cost or, to my mind more likely, someone - an investor - is trying to snap up everything they can get their hands on in the hope that it will rise in value over time, or maybe even someone trying to corner the available market altogether.

The sad thing though is that if your average collector can't get their hands on these kinds of notes because they're being hoarded in personal silos, people may inevitably lose interest in the hobby and we'll end up in a situation where dealers are just selling to other dealers with no actual collectors left willing to pay these prices.

So I wonder if this isn't really just a price bubble that will pop once the investors out there run out of capital? They still need collectors to buy these notes, and at these prices it's pretty hard to see that continuing.
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

Post by gaelicyoda »

... or maybe that's just the conspiracy theorist in me! :-)
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

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There are too many of these notes out there for someone to be able to corner the market, imo. Rising prices tend to bring things out—as has happened with the Ploughmans. Then prices fall back.
There might be four more 1932 £10 notes next time round ;)

The war code £10 was a very low grade, and the 1932 tenners weren't that great either.
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

Post by gaelicyoda »

Mac wrote:There are too many of these notes out there for someone to be able to corner the market, imo
I do hope you're right... it would be a real shame for the rest of us.
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

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A few people tried it with Ploughman tenners a decade or so ago, all it did was to bring a load of them out of the woodwork.
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

Post by gaelicyoda »

Maybe I'll just take my tinfoil hat off in that case and stop talking into my shoulder! ;-)
If it achieves an increase in availability, then maybe it'll be a good thing in the end... let's see what happens.

Was there a nett increase in the price of tenners as a result of that period, or did they end up more or less where they started? (presumably they didn't fall back all the way)
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

Post by Mac »

1960 tenners in AU grade fell in price by around 50%, and crept slowly back upward thereafter—a bit like a stock market crash and recovery cycle.
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

Post by gaelicyoda »

Sorry, I meant the ploughman tenners you mentioned - how did those prices fare after the attempted market cornering? A similar trend line to the 1960's tenners?
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

Post by Mac »

Yes, a similar trend. Back in 2009 there were twenty or so Plough tenners in the room at one of the Dublin Fairs. Happy days if you were looking for one on that day!
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

Post by gaelicyoda »

Happy days indeed! :-D
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

Post by Mac »

The two tenners in Whytes went for 950 and 1100 (Lots 447 and 449), good prices as they were quite low grade notes. However, this is considerably less than what dealers are asking for the notes currently.
We'll see what turne up in the next Heritage offering, they already have some more Hibernian fivers up for the end of this month.
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

Post by gaelicyoda »

Yes, the Munster & Leinster £10 in particular was in bad shape, parts missing and everything. I didn't think it would achieve that when you consider the fees on top.
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

Post by Mac »

There have been a few common bank tenners in the group in Heritage auctions in the past 12 months or so. Prices realised (USD) in brackets including fees: three Hibernians gf (1880), vg (1440), gf (2115); M+L vg (1762). These are less than prices fro similar notes around five years ago.

Actually, the grading on these notes was crappy, PMG had them at vf, vf, vf, and er, vf! The four together make a good comparative analysis, so I'll post the pics in anothe thread, to srir it a bit ;)
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

Post by ThePloughman »

On the one hand we need these notes to be at reasonable prices, on the flip side we need to know we are not going to lose value on what we have paid for them!
As with everything, gotta know when to buy...
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

Post by gaelicyoda »

Just had a look at those tenners on the grading thread - yeah, that's pretty bad...
They're obviously wrong, but you think they'd be at the very least consistently wrong :)

No pictures up yet of those Hibernian fivers on heritage... looks like 6 x VF (2 x 25 & 4 x 20) so we'll see what they're really like once the pics go up. Rust on all but 2, and pinoles, annotations and tears mentioned... I think we can expect more of the same here.
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

Post by Mac »

Four of the Hibernians are up now, just had a look. Nothing terribly nice among them. All four are new to the census.
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

Post by ThePloughman »

The grading is bad on those notes. they are going cheap too!
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Re: Steady prices for old Irish banknotes at Whyte's Eclectic collector auction

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I saw that a few years ago, a 1928 £100 in XF-AU grade was expected to fetch~€1000. How much did it fetch? Anybody know?
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