Changing Attitudes

[davidrj 194]

spotted this on ebay,

What strikes me is the amount of circulation this major misstrike has seen. A 2 sol piece minted in 1792 at Arras - I suppose in a time when addressing a neighbour as monsieur, as opposed to the politically correct (at the time) citoyen could send you to the guillotine; nobody saved an odd looking coin - more likely it was regarded as dodgy and a priority to pass off to the next customer ASAP.

The same coin, if minted today, would be on Ebay in at least EF with a hefty price tag

Got me thinking - is the collection of error coins a recent phenomenon, and were mistrikes shunned by 19th C gentleman collectors?

[Peckris 579]

spotted this on ebay,

What strikes me is the amount of circulation this major misstrike has seen. A 2 sol piece minted in 1792 at Arras - I suppose in a time when addressing a neighbour as monsieur, as opposed to the politically correct (at the time) citoyen could send you to the guillotine; nobody saved an odd looking coin - more likely it was regarded as dodgy and a priority to pass off to the next customer ASAP.

The same coin, if minted today, would be on Ebay in at least EF with a hefty price tag

Got me thinking - is the collection of error coins a recent phenomenon, and were mistrikes shunned by 19th C gentleman collectors?

I think you may be right about this, and it could be thanks to the humble hobby of philately... coins were always collected for their beauty and historic value, whereas stamps were always prone to the odd printer error. So stamp 'misprints' were eagerly sought after for the rarities they were and I suppose that attitude filtered through into numismatics too? It definitely does seem recent though - I can't remember that such things were regarded as being of particular interest in the late 60s.

[Gary1000 41]

spotted this on ebay,

What strikes me is the amount of circulation this major misstrike has seen. A 2 sol piece minted in 1792 at Arras - I suppose in a time when addressing a neighbour as monsieur, as opposed to the politically correct (at the time) citoyen could send you to the guillotine; nobody saved an odd looking coin - more likely it was regarded as dodgy and a priority to pass off to the next customer ASAP.

The same coin, if minted today, would be on Ebay in at least EF with a hefty price tag

Got me thinking - is the collection of error coins a recent phenomenon, and were mistrikes shunned by 19th C gentleman collectors?

I think you may be right about this, and it could be thanks to the humble hobby of philately... coins were always collected for their beauty and historic value, whereas stamps were always prone to the odd printer error. So stamp 'misprints' were eagerly sought after for the rarities they were and I suppose that attitude filtered through into numismatics too? It definitely does seem recent though - I can't remember that such things were regarded as being of particular interest in the late 60s.

I think it has to be a celebrated error to get any interest. You often see error coins on ebay that seem to attract very little interest.

[Rob 3,152]

I think it has to be a celebrated error to get any interest. You often see error coins on ebay that seem to attract very little interest.

Part of the problem here is that too many things are identified as errors when they quite patently are not. Call it misattribution overload.

[scott 144]

yea back then such larger coins were too valuable to worry about errors.

[copper123 1,488]

Funny enough the 1855 ww raised farthing is far rarer than the ww incuse coin but it often struggles to reach even a premium over the price of a ww incuse coin - it seems collectors are very reluctant to pay any sort of premium for it .

Maybe collectors only want one example of this date.

[Peter 615]

I have Colin Cookes/Dr Johnson's incuse.

It does need a loupe.

[Rob 3,152]

I have Colin Cookes/Dr Johnson's Johnstone's incuse.

It does need a loupe.

Misprunt. Go to the bottom of the class.