DAY, Robert. Catalogue of the Highly Important and Valuable Collection of Naval and Military Medals & Decorations. The property of Robert Day, Esq., of Myrtle Hill House, Cork. To be sold by Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, Monday to Thursday 14th April – 17th April 1913.

Illustrated. London: Dryden Press, 1913. pp. 78. Small folio. Handsomely bound in full black morocco, titled in gilt on upper cover, ‘Irish Medals / from the / Day Collection / sold at Sotheby’s / 14th to 17th April 1913’. From the library of Sir Edward Clive Coates with his monogram stamp in red on front pastedown and his signature on upper wrapper. Minor wear to spine ends and lower corner. A very good copy. €675

Robert Day (1836-1914) of Myrtle Hill, Cork, antiquary, dealer, and co-founder of the Cork Historical & Archaeological Society, formed the most comprehensive private assemblage of Irish military and volunteer medals of his time. The four-day Sotheby auction of April 1913 is the standard printed record of that collection and an indispensable reference for Irish Volunteer, Militia, Yeomanry and rifle-club awards of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The catalogue’s clear engravings capture many unique or exceptionally rare pieces (e.g. Londonderry Fusiliers, First Ulster Regiment 1787, Waterford Artillery, Lorha Rangers), often the earliest published depictions of those medals. Copies annotated with prices realised, as here, are especially valuable for tracing provenance and early market values. This copy’s provenance is distinguished: Sir Edward Clive Coates, banker, MP and noted numismatist, assembled an important working library on coins and medals; his ownership lends further research interest. Scarce in any state and rarely found complete with prices realized. The Day sale catalogue remains a cornerstone source for collectors, museum curators and historians of Irish militaria.

[Cat 163]