The Madrid Holey Dollar - world record price.

Coinworks is proud to announce the sale of the Madrid Holey Dollar for a world record price of $550,000. Acquired by a Queensland buyer, the coin will take pride of place in a superb colonial coin collection that includes one of the finest 1813 Dumps, an absolute choice quality 1852 Adelaide Pound and a simply glorious Gold Taylor Pattern.

His aim with the coins? Capital growth with the ultimate vision of bequeathing them to his two children.

Struck from a Silver Dollar that had been issued at the Madrid Mint in 1802, the Madrid Holey Dollar features the Crowned M mintmark and is the only privately held Holey Dollar with ties to the mints in Spain.

It also is one of the very finest Holey Dollars, ranked number two or three for quality out of the 300 known.

Referenced 1802/2 the coin is featured on page 27 of the book ‘Holey Dollars of News South Wales, a Pictorial Record of Known Surviving Specimens’. Published in 1988, it is still to this day a major reference on the known surviving Holey Dollars.

There are five other Holey Dollars with ties to the mints in Spain, all of which are held in institutions and all of which are lesser in quality to the coin just sold.

Three have ties to the mint in Madrid, the remaining two have ties to the mint in Seville. The five coins are detailed below:

1. Referenced 1793/7, this Holey Dollar was created from a silver dollar that was produced at the Seville Mint in 1793. The coin was donated to the State Library of New South Wales in 1973 by Philip Spalding.
    
2. Referenced 1798/10, this Holey Dollar was created from a silver dollar that was produced at the Seville Mint in 1798. The coin was donated to the National Gallery of Victoria in 1903.
    
3. Referenced 1799/1, this Holey Dollar was created from a silver dollar that was produced at the Madrid Mint in 1799. The coin was acquired by Yale University in the 1940s from the reverend William Owen, curator of the Yale University Museum.
    
4. Referenced 1802/1, this Holey Dollar was created from a silver dollar that was produced at the Madrid Mint in 1802. The coin was donated to the State Library of New South Wales by Sir William Dixson.
    
5. Referenced 1805/26, this Holey Dollar was created from a silver dollar that was produced at the Madrid Mint in 1805. The coin now resides in the Mint and Barracks Museum Sydney.