Edward VIII Sovereign sold for £1M - BBC article

[Paddy 1,831]

This from the BBC today:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51134884

Honest guv, wasn't me!

[Sword 1,516]

I got to say the buyer was gutsy (or more likely just very rich) to pay a million for it considering it only sold for £516,000 in 2014.

[1949threepence 3,368]

Quote

The coin was last sold for a then-record £516,000 to a US collector in 2014, revealing its status on both sides of the Atlantic.

So double what was paid 5 or 6 years ago.

[terrysoldpennies 782]

Will he have to pay export duty on top of that to bring it back to the uk . ??

[Peckris 2 2,163]

I got 6/6 on the associated quiz, though one was a guess!

[Sword 1,516]

8 minutes ago, Peckris 2 said:

I got 6/6 on the associated quiz, though one was a guess!

Let me guess, "How many different portraits of the Queen have appeared on UK coins?" 😀

[Peckris 2 2,163]

19 minutes ago, Sword said:

Let me guess, "How many different portraits of the Queen have appeared on UK coins?" 😀

No! Who designed the £2 reverse?

[Sword 1,516]

£1 reverse. It was quite well advertised at the time that a 15 year boy's won the competition and we had a tread talking about it.

[Peckris 2 2,163]

On 1/17/2020 at 11:03 PM, Sword said:

£1 reverse. It was quite well advertised at the time that a 15 year boy's won the competition and we had a tread talking about it.

I didn't see that, or hear about i. But it seemed a reasonable guess as why else would they have put that as an answer?

[UPINSMOKE 456]

 

[Sword 1,516]

11 hours ago, Peckris 2 said:

I didn't see that, or hear about i. But it seemed a reasonable guess as why else would they have put that as an answer?

The original design entry:

It  was then refined by the coin artist David Lawrence. 

 

[copper123 1,536]

It' s quite a good bet that most serious sovereign collectors are quite well heeled

[Stuntman 264]

Still, a million quid buys a lot of other vices 😉

[JLS 210]

9 hours ago, copper123 said:

It' s quite a good bet that most serious sovereign collectors are quite well heeled

I think something which puts off a lot of lower-income collectors is that unless you leave out all the common pieces, a decent sized collection of sovereigns ties the value of your collection to the gold price in a way which a collection of e.g. early milled, hammered or celtic gold doesn't. 

For the same reason, I'd rather spend a few hundred quid on a choice Napoleon III bronze piece than a common date 20 francs. 

There is the counter-argument that the gold value might protect you against a general crash in the numismatic market, but as a dabbler in precious metals on the commodity market, I'd feel rather more confident in the appreciation of numismatic assets in the long run. 

[Stuntman 264]

Interesting perspective @JLS.

I've actually taken almost the opposite approach - in that I've changed my main coin collecting focus towards new UK precious metal bullion coins, and away from predecimal numismatic coins.  My reasoning being that I'm not going to lose my shirt on these coins (assuming the intrinsic metal value doesn't fall through the floor) if I need to turn them back into hard cash at short notice, and I can buy them at a relatively small premium compared to their intrinsic resale value.  I also think that many of these bullion coins are beautiful in their own right.

Currently I'm not looking to buy any older sovereigns although I would love to own some of the 19th Century Double or Quintuple sovereigns.

I did still buy a good few predecimal coins last year, but this year they will much lower down the priority list.  I need to save up to buy 6 more gold bullion coins this year first!