Downie's Sale #296 - A Stack of "Junque" and A Few True Rarities

I chose not to travel across for this sale, something about having been interstate 3 times in the previous month had me set on staying in touch with the family for longer than a few days at a time. I did view the rarer material while I was at the ANDA show in Melbourne however, and can see from the prices realized that it was a strong sale also.

I think a lot of people will be taken by surprise by the prices being paid for the "Goose" pattern dollars of 1967 (try over $600 apiece for the 2 in this sale), although no-one will be too surprised by the fact that a number of the KGVI pre-decimal proofs in this sale made figures over current catalogue values. The 1950 Perth penny was the pick for mine - really well struck and lovely tone, it made over catalogue easily. The 1955 & 1956 Perth copper proofs made strong prices also, showing that the QEII proofs are burbling along very nicely indeed.

I was interested to see what the predecimal notes made in this sale, as although it didn't have a stack of real rarities in it, the notes that were there were the type of material that had been volatile the past few sales I'd been to. I didn't view any of the pre-decimal notes in this sale, so can't comment too much but just going by the published grades and the prices these notes made, they market certainly isn't shot to pieces by any means. It is heartening to see that good grade notes made solid prices - some just below catalogue, others above. There are always going to be bargains in any auction, however this sale had less in the pre-decimal notes than I would have expected.