Collection of Scottish coins including rare Robert the Bruce penny sells for £90k

A collection of Scottish coins, including a rare Robert the Bruce silver penny, has sold for nearly £90,000 at auction.

The large coin collection was amassed over the last 50 years by an anonymous collector and were sold at Noonans Mayfair for £86,270.

The Robert the Bruce silver penny from the mint of Berwick fetched a hammer price of £4,200 – almost three times its high estimate. Coins of Robert the Bruce are always popular, and this coin sold to a collector in the USA.

James II coin.

James V coin.

Elsewhere, from the reign of James II, an exceptionally well-struck groat from the Edinburgh mint sold for a hammer price of £2,400 and was bought by a UK Collector.

From the mint of Holyrood Abbey was a groat from the reign of James V that also sold for a hammer price of £2,400 by a UK Collector. The coin was decorated with a fine Renaissance-style portrait, which bore no resemblance to the King who was only 14 years old at the time and had a distinguished provenance.

Alexander III coin.

Groat, Aberdeen

A rare and important sterling from the first coinage of Alexander III from the Kinghorn mint in Fife – the place where Alexander is known to have died in a riding accident on a stormy night in March 1286 – fetched a hammer price £2,200.

From the very rare Aberdeen mint was a groat from the reign of Robert III that realised a hammer price of £2,000 and was bought by a collector from the USA.