VickySilver

Ah, good research there Sir. Thanks. I would imagine some such as the Abolition coin did not exactly have a big following as the subject fine but the design? Well, ummm, terrible.I recall in this era BU coins were packaged and sold separately and even have one of my hero, Charles Darwin from 2 years later...

Uh, this should not be about egos. Just keep the identity of the place that has become rightly recognised as a decent auction house with respect. Well, at least they didn't go with "Nimrod"!

I had to share these, and courtesy of Richard am able to & the lustre in hand is really wonderful albeit the coin a bit softly struck:

https://dl-mail.aolmail.com/ws/download/mailboxes/@.id==VjN-YoNgdl_7XRxfciTKLGOrLByUaQk198b-E2AX4bWlT0_G_jmE5a7d8Eek-JT9ao1XGH4nkLovJSeSm65J69qU1w/messages/@.id==AA7xRox2TnegYmVpkAwCOFDw_3A/content/parts/@.id==3/raw?appid=aolwebmail&ymreqid=402608f5-e79f-238f-2f2c-5a000a010200&token=dBAJtFy9f4pINgAJ03jj4J8Q_Pwrdk6L88KBc1_OGy7AC9j-z3GnN71mIG4uPe5kw0iOLSDxIOemOommMp53L8b-OYTlrt3wR6T4lP1qjVcYfieQui8lJ5Kbrknr2pTX

Ah thanks, when I saw it for sale I had to jump. Sadly, where we live the humidity is not kind to copper and so some of the "redness" has subdued. The lustre however is astonishing. Yes, wish it was the italic date/number 5.

Ah, that would be nice (and lazy of me!) always interested in such. Probably never much overall interest but who cares?

I am still impressed by that hoard - has to be I would imagine a bit unusual. How does your coin(s) look? I will try to get a better photo but as usual a bit hamstrung embarassingly.

Courtesy of young Richard & plenty of lustre:

Ah thanks for that. I have a couple of the 1970s and will have to look, even at the pattern one just to check. An entire bag? My goodness that is something and must of itself be a scarce event - I hope you have a bit of the story behind that one! I'm just not crazy about those special issue 50p even if technically currency - I think I like the earlier 5 & 10p because of them sticking to the old pre-decimal standards but will not collect them by date (I think many of the coins I collect have gotten nearly unreachable & crazy priced nowadays). The blimp story really good - 2,000? Ouch!

Oh, yes that was a fight over the IMHO obvious with crazy defense on the part of many for the colour - including "respected" numismatists/dealers (the latter label more appropriate) jumping in on the side of this blue colour being somehow a natural attribute. I have a quite rare farthing that some clown cleaned with it giving a thankfully only mild pale blue sheen that probably can not be removed.

What are your thoughts on this coin Pete? Scarce or not? I got two for approx. 14 pounds.

Yes, this type of business model is IMO destroying at least some of the market for GB coins, resulted in great profits and chasing true collectors out of the market in droves. Understandable is a slow(er) upward drive in prices but pump and dump methods with log value raise in "value" of coins reflects naked greed that we see now so often in the market. BTW, I believe the blue color has been imparted to the surface by application of the product "MS 70" which when incompletely washed seems to do this to coin surfaces. I have seen some absolute rubbish about the solvent(s) in it removing overlying toning and revealing supposedly true colors beneath the toning. That IMHO is an absolute load of BS.

Ah thanks for the input! Yea, don't care for those 50 P coins as IMO they are overhyped and not ordinary currency coins generally (although there are some marginal coins to be sure). The 2008 "no date" I agree is entirely overrated and have seen auctions with up to and greater than THIRTY STRAIGHT LOTS! I have heard some rumours, likely not proven that some of the reported 1981 10p mintage were actually 1980 coins. I saw Gouby's coins and had a bit of a laugh as I just got two for 21 USD including tax, shipping, etc. - or about 8 pounds per coin & mine are nice uncirculated coins with decent lustre. I have had a look at some other smaller denomination coins in the decimal currency series and have not been impressed although for some reason I like the large modulus 2p coins... I got one of the Martini 1983 sets featuring the 2 New Pence coin and have kept it in original packaging although the red lustre is beginning to fade a bit despite my best preservation efforts.

They were printing those off as fast as they could to fund an abysmal cause & rapidly turned almost worthless to be made good on conclusion of the war (well thank God it didn't go their way). To me, I always felt like holding any confederate anything was akin to holding items from Nazi Germany, or possibly worse. Anyway, I suppose these things serve an educational purpose....

Go team! Well, some of these coins are likely so rare that it is luck now but knowledge has a way of enhancing luck!

Thanks Richard. LOL. I even have trouble getting the obverse here but will try again.

Gaaak!!!! Well, I collect this type of coin but NOT at this price and glad mine came from a saner time. Nowadays I am most careful with my purchases and only splurge on particular items that I know are especially scarce or have other attributes. I would imagine there are others that have somewhat retreated in this market as well...

I just saw this posted and was appalled (surprise, surprise!) at the quality or lack thereof and the grades obtained. For specifics, check the 1935 Specimen Rocking Horse Crown in SP66 (?!?!) - marks on the cheek are absolutely unacceptable IMO for that grade. And then there is the poor 1965 Churchill crown somehow graded MS65 but given what appears to be a "GVF" or thereabouts in the description. I simply can not believe that grade. As some may know, I am actually a fan of this crown in higher grades - which this certainly is NOT - but this one won't do. I have gradually over the years been filling out the Old Head Regnal years but even with those I'm lacking feel I must pass on this lot for sale. What say our readers?

I don't know just not the Spink of the past says one who is reluctantly becoming an old-timer... It's just that I used to get so many quality pieces from them, although admittedly many from the SNC when notified early....

I suppose the dies were not necessarily even produced at the same time. Who knows, so much controversy. IMO, I do not things always ticked as smoothly as a good clock at the Royal Mint in the good ole days and I never understood how it was that only one reverse might be used for the 1882 (London) coins when it seems at least to me that 2 or three different reverses made at different times could have been made. Always curious to me what gets accepted as dogma, even on occasion without concrete evidence. I was referring to 1882 of course....

I thought that was the 1875 Heaton penny? Regardless, I like the 1864s even without micro-varietals......

As some are perhaps aware, I collect circulating/currency coins of the Franklin Mint and of the Caribbean especially - although I make exceptions for Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands to some extent, and mainly because it is a rare day that I find a decent Vicky or late pre-decimal silver at a real world price. Anyway, some 6 or so months ago right on ebay appear TWO Guyana coins of exceeding rarity & these are the Uncirculated (U) 1978 Guyana $5 and $10 pieces. These had an original mintage of 100 each and were NOT sold to collectors. As best as I have been able to make out, they were struck by the Franklin Mint as were other such coins to "legitimize" their offerings of silver (and gold) proof coins and sets to be sold to collectors; most of these NEVER made it to their country of origin at all. From what I have been able to gather over the years, and this dates back to the 1970s when I could not afford much of anything besides maybe my next meal at University, the putative currency issues were struck by the Franklin Mint at a truly marvelous private minting facility in Pennsylvania and then sacked up into bags and sent to the issuing authority in whichever country & usually the Central Bank. A few uncirculated sets were occasionally and erratically struck for the non-focal countries, which I will presently explain, but most of even these sets were sold to collectors in wealthier countries such as the USA, Britain, Germany and the formerly titled Benelux with only a few going to host countries. In any case, and back to the story. These currency coins were then sent to the Central Banks as stated and faced varied fates: some were dumped out into circulating channels through the banks & this generally applied to the smaller denominations, usually one cent through one dollar or equivalents. This has been disputed by some but then debunked on the evidence that circulated examples ARE indeed found from the time. The larger coins, and by such I really mean that, ofter up to 45 mm diameters and on occasion even LARGER were after 1973 nearly always struck in copper nickel which meant they had essentially no melt or intrinsic value (until the recent meteoric rise of nickel prices!). They were struck in quite small numbers, often only 50 to 250 or so examples and evidently for the most part languished in bags or other storage with a few possibly being pulled out by curious or maybe in cases knowing bank personnel or their friends. There is very scant to poor to minimal direct evidence of any of this and comes from stories that I and others have gathered. Point being that few were made, those made were NOT treated specially & often received rather poor treatment with bagmarks and handling/storage hairlines, etc. Because some are so very scarce, many either are still lost in the bowels of Central Banks or possibly melted or even THROWN OUT as appears the case with mates to the two subject coins. Bottomline: abyssmal survival and coins that are likely extremely rare. In the case of Guyana, the poor Guyanese dollar has suffered severe damage in exchange ratios which is important as shall be pointed out. In 1978, it took roughly 10 Guyanese dollars to equal one USA dollar and gradually this has eroded to over 200 Guyanese dollars to one USA dollar now in 2022. So at time of issue, and according to records 100 each of the 5 Dollar and 10 Dollar coins were sent there to the Central Bank in Georgetown, Guyana. Allegedly, also an unknown number of specimen uncirculated (but NOT including proofs) in the prooflike or (U) quality were made - in 44 years since issues I have NEVER seen one of these sets. So until 6 months ago, I had not seen any of the uncirculated specimens of these two larger denominations when all of the sudden one of each appeared on ebay but the seller wanted an atrocious amount of money that even I was unwilling to pay. I tried to bargain and (s)he came down only marginally and so decided to see what they might sell for; they did not sell and so some time later I offered a bit higher price which was refused and the seller then offered a HIGHER price. ERGGGGGHHHHHH! I then waited even longer and the coins languished unsold & so made another offer and thankfully he dropped the price just a bit more so I agreed and sent my payment. The next day I thought back and vaguely recalled that the seller was in Eastern Europe. A cursory check then showed he lived in Kyiv, Ukraine of all places! Four weeks went by and no coins, and so I then figured I was out of my money even though a good seller (seller responded that he had moved - evidently Westward - and that he had posted them). But then I came into work, and tah dah!!!!!, there sat on my desk an envelope from UKRAINE. Only one likelihood and that was that these coins were included. Indeed they were and undamaged at that with a Kyiv postmark which appears to be either 22 or 24 February, and so after a bit of restoration now have my two coins!!! If anyone can volunteer through email to post these pictures please let me know. I am on my laptop now, but will try my old method of using cell phone again which is a method that recently has failed......

Wow, nice then did you happen to notice the date? Many are the Royal Mint 1970 version which is decidedly common. If another date like 1977 or 1979 Franklin Mint uncirculated I would really want to know. There is an ebay seller in I think Washington state that has a 1976 in unc. for over 700 USD which is just far too high (and I have two of that date in any case as it is the most common).