David Gee What Did He Really Copy

Gee, why would you even bother?

This is a Stokes.
Stokes purchased the Kangaroo Office press and stock when the store went bust.
In around 1917 he did some restrikes of the Kangaroo issues in gilt white metal.
Quite nice but just restrikes. Restrikes of the Kangaroo issue tokens using the same dies as the originals. A lot of what Gee did was restrikes from original or repaired dies or dies made from an electroplate.

I did bid on the Stokes last night and it quickly blew past the estimate and then past what I was prepared to pay. Ended up costing the buyer over $5k; for a gilt white metal restrike.
Why would you even bother you might ask of that?

Instead of getting involved in a bidding war I just bought a Gee which looks great and will look like the real deal once gold plated. The Gee also has that X factor of being dated 1854. An 1854 date just invites a colourful story, just like the 1853s have.

The real thing, a Kangaroo Office 2oz, is over a million. There are a handful of them.
A Stokes is about $5k and climbing in value. Not a lot of those.
A Gee is a couple of hundred. Not a lot of those.
None of them are from a mint or are State sanctioned.
They are all just tokens.
They all look pretty much the same on a cursory viewing.

The Gee has the best story because it opens with the Kangaroo Office story, it has the Stokes story in the middle and then for the finale it has the Gee story.
That is why I bothered with the 2 ounce bronze 1854 Gee Kangaroo Office.
A nice gilt and it will look the goods. It has the full story gilt or not. Maybe I wont gilt.

I have items that are about the investment, not much of a story with a lot of them. Low mintage, the first of its type, first/last prefix note, the top PCGS pop and so on. boring.
Say you have a 1930 penny; lots of value but not a lot of story.
The Gees are a whole different kettle of fish.
A lot of Gees' work relates to coins with big stories.

The Stokes.
Why did the buyer bother?
Because it is a Stokes. And Gees are Gees.

We do know that William Morgan sold a complete set of the four kangaroo patterns to the British Museum and was said (hearsay) to have informed the museum staff that a total of 27 sets were struck, of which all but one had been melted down. Reginald Scaife also told Sydney numismatist Dr Walter Roth that only one set had been issued in Melbourne. This set was displayed at the 1854 Melbourne Exhibition but what happened to it after that is unknown.
Between one and three pieces have come to light over the last century. The US Collection in Philadelphia has 1/2oz and 2oz pieces. In 1892, Sotheby's London sold a 1oz, 1/2oz and ¼oz coin as part of the famed Montagu Collection: the 1/4oz eventually becoming part of the Quartermaster Collection.

What do we know?
We know enough have popped up that there is, on the balance of probabilities, likely to have been more sets survived that Morgan (and the story) says and that some tokens from these sets ended up scattered around the world as partial sets or single items. We know Gee lodged a gold set as security at a bank. A Gee set.

J SHARPLES : "THE KANGAROO OFFICE"A NINETEENTH CENTURY "STING"
"The Melbourne Morning Herald carried the story in their Commercial News section. They add that they were intended for the Exhibition and were struck with gold of superior purity supplied by Mr. Khull, and that they were at present in his possession.
What a wonderfully complex situation! Here is a group of "objects of curiosity" which were "intended for the Exhibition" of 1854 the purchase of which, the inhabitants of Mel¬bourne are told will give the "talented artist" the encouragement he deserves. They are not told that the dies were cut in London. Yet while the defunct plan to "manufacture tokens as a circulating medium" is mentioned there is clearly no intention to proceed with this programme nor is there any suggestion that the pieces struck are considered as pattern or experimental strikings. They are mementos of the 1854 Exhibition, medals!
There was no Kangaroo Office. Nor was there ever an attempt to establish one. The ship Kangaroo carried one bale of ironmongery, but the £13,000 invested in the venture had little to do with that. The main business was in colonial stores. Bale after bale are listed on the ship's manifest. Scaiffe set up as a merchant in Franklin Street West to sell that merchandise. This was why the venture continued even after it was clear in London that the price of gold had risen. The primary purpose of the voyage of the Kangaroo was to bring Colonial goods to Melbourne. The secondary thought was that of multiplying their profit by converting the cheap gold dust which they would have accepted for their goods into full gold value tokens was of minor importance."

It is curious these tokens, mementos of the Exhibition, have the place they have in our coin history.

I feel Basil nails it when he says ".... the opinionated and hearsay pieces that infect Numismatists .... "

A Port Phillip gold token really fits that brief.

I'm loving this topic.

"I recently saw a note concerning the auction of a rare 1930 Australian penny. These were at first thought to exist only as proofs, I believe, and then later it was found that a very few, probably not many more that 50, had slipped into circulation.somehow. At any rate, the commentator mentioned Gee created a die for the 1930 penny that has never been found".

https://www.silverstackers.com/foru...d-gee.93666/

Thanks for link BB,I've read something similar a few years back.

Today on ebay.
Sold for $406 plus postage.