Collectors set to treasure Celtic high cross coin

AS historic treasures, they may be priceless, but a new coin depicting the Celtic high cross could also bring a nice return for collectors.

The latest special edition issue from the Central Bank is a €20 gold proof collector coin featuring the Celtic high cross in a monastic setting, alongside an Irish round tower and also featuring the Irish harp. At 11mm in diameter, the half-gram coin is one of the world’s smallest and is selling at €40.

The design on the 12,000 miniature coins is by artist Thomas Ryan, who previously designed the 1990 £1 coin featuring a red deer and the 1988 Dublin Millennium 50p coin.

Central Bank director of financial operations Mary O’Dea said the launch at the National Museum in Dublin’s Collins Barracks was an opportunity to celebrate the rich cultural and Christian heritage associated with the monuments, many of them dating back to the eighth century.

Many of the regular special edition coins are bought as presents to mark births, weddings or other significant events, and are displayed in presentation cases and with certificates of authenticity. Collectors and auctioneers have seen many of them increase in value in a relatively short period.

“A 2005 silver proof €10 coin which was sold for €32 is now being bought for €50 or €60. If you put €30 in the bank six years ago, you certainly wouldn’t get that kind of interest,” said Mike Kelly, a collector and organiser of Dublin coin auctions.

He said that a coin issued at the end of 2009 to mark 125 years of the GAA is already much sought-after. The €15 silver collector coins went on sale for €36 but have been fetching up to €65 each.

Mr Kelly’s latest coin auction tomorrow in Dublin will see a 10p coin minted in 1992 opening to bids, with an estimated sale price of €5,000. Ahead of the reduced-size 10p’s launch in 1993, the Central Bank prepared a limited number the year before to test vending machines but this is just one of two known surviving coins.

“The seller sent me in a list of coins he had accumulated at home to see if there was anything of value. I hadn’t even known such a coin existed but now there is huge interest from here and abroad,” Mr Kelly said.

“People have brought me Roman coins from 25BC thinking it must be worth thousands, but because hundreds of thousands of these exist they might only get a €10 for it.

“These Irish coins show that it doesn’t have to be old to be valuable.”

* The Dublin coin auction takes place at 6pm tomorrow at Herman & Wilkinson auction room in Rathmines. www.hermanwilkinson.ie