Abacus Auctions the new auction guru on the Melbourne block

The newly created Australian auction house Abacus Auctions has launched its second sale with a Coins, Banknotes, Sporting Memorabilia & Collectable flavour from 10am Sunday July 22 at 19A Hampshire Road, Glen Waverley, Victoria.  

For sporting lovers, the auction will commence with sporting memorabilia and collectable items including cricket, football, boxing, horse racing, motor racing before devoting the afternoon to coins and banknotes.

Abacus Auctions comprises several well-known experts in both fields including philatelist Gary Watson and Max Williamson, who has been an Australian sporting memorabilia icon for more than 30 years.

Most of these have come on board following the collapse of Mossgreen in late December last year.

The sporting memorabilia section is highlighted by Tasmanian-based Don Wigan’s collection of cricketers autographs formed over many years.

Australian Rules football is well represented with the highlight being the 1939 Premiership Medal awarded to Melbourne vice-captain Jack Mueller.

The coins & banknotes section features more than 500 lots of Australian currency beginning with the 1855 Taylor Pattern sixpence.

The extensive Australian gold section features three Adelaide Pounds, including a Type 1, as well as more than 100 high grade sovereigns from the 1855 Sydney Mint, Type 1 through to George V, interspersed with similar grade copper and silver half-pennies and florins.

The Australian banknote section includes scarce decimal specimen notes as well as pre-decimal and decimal star notes topped off by a 5 million pound serial TC/12 100000*’.

Some of the auction highlights include a Neale Andrew sculpture of cricketing icon Don Bradman showing his classic cover drive, classic cricket cards featuring former English Test cricket captain Mike Atherton and English batsman Robin Smith.

Australian Rules attractions include Greg Williams State of Origin Victorian v Western Australia jumper, a 1909 Essendon Football Club membership medal and a James Hird Essendon jumper.

One of the most decorated footballers of all time, Hird captained Essendon and won the 1996 Brownlow Medal, five club best and fairest awards, named an All-Australian player five times and is a member of the Australian Football Hall of Fame.

A 1956 Melbourne Olympics calendar features a pin-up girl on an Australian flag.