A rare piece of New Zealand history has sold for a record price in the capital over the weekend.
A New Zealand Cross awarded to one of Wellington’s founding figures, Isaac Featherston, in 1875 went under the hammer for $180,000.
Mowbray Collectables managing director David Galt told 1News many of the medals end up in museums “so they’re not easily acquired by collectors”.
Just 23 New Zealand Crosses were issued in the 19th century to both Māori and Pakeha.
Featherston earned his medal by showing “great gallantry in battle in 1866, where he was responsible for offering leadership to a group of Wanganui Māori who were fighting at that time”, Galt said.
Historian John Martin said the group “refused to turn out alongside the British troops unless Fetherston went up from Wellington and personally led them on this very arduous campaign”.
Featherston had also played a key role in shifting the capital from Auckland to Wellington.
“Part of that was to bring Parliament down to Wellington, which was the geographical centre of the country,” Martin said.
“That was particularly important at that time, with travel being so difficult, to try and bring the MPs all together in a central place.”
Another military cross, awarded to Lieutenant Maurice Luxford in 1918 for his part in the New Zealand liberation of the French village of Le Quesnoy, was also auctioned off.
“He later went on to California and Hollywood, where he became known as Mr Golf,” Galt said.
“He also played gold with General Eisenhower, who became the US president in the 1950s.”
It wasn’t just medals in the spotlight, with coins and stamps also sold at top prices.
Among the treasyres was a bundle of old $100 trillion Zimbabwean bank notes.
“You would have needed a wheelbarrow load of them to buy a loaf of bread, so they weren’t so exciting at the time but collectors like them,” Galt said.