CollectForFun

As stated above - MA-shops just run the site, the purchase will be from a coin dealer identified when you click on a coin. Most dealers I ever saw on that site are well-known and reputable, including e.g. SVCollector whom we know from here on TSF.

What is then important is to check the country of the dealer of your chosen coin to make sure you are aware of potential customs impact of the delivery. While most are from the EU, there are also a few from the UK or the US.

Happy Birthday TSF! 

25 minutes ago, Dankanugget said:

Has anyone used heritage auctions....if bought from the USA does it get expensive?

Some nice half shields in there 

I would recommend contacting them about the shipping quote in advance to not be surprised after the purchase. Don't know the rates for the UK but for here to Europe they charge $50-100 per shipment so could be similar.

7 hours ago, JMN said:

Can anyone help determine if its silver, from the pictures?

Hello there, to your question, no one can tell from a picture if the bar is silver, I'm afraid. It says on it it's silver, it does look like (patinated) silver, but that's all that can be reasonably concluded from a picture.

But, to echo what Petra asked, why exactly this "obscure" bar as your first purchase? That is a very unusual choice...

Thanks, I was mainly wondering if such signs of circulation are on your coin, as that would be surprising. It's indeed an interesting coin, I've never seen such gold version of this coin yet. Do you remember where you acquired it from?

My first guess is that it's one of those modern miniature gold reproductions of famous historic coins (or else you have something quite unique 🙂). As I said, I'm not aware such coin originally existed - there was no reason nor use for it. Also, a gold coin of such a small size would be extremely unusual for early 20th century Europe.

The silver version of the coin was produced as an equivalent of Maria Theresia taler. Here is a short summary of the background of its production (as well of its predecessor): https://en.sewasew.com/p/tallero-eritreo. In brief, Italians were not very successful with any of their versions, due to which the next time they had expansion plans in Eritrea, they borrowed actual Maria Theresia taler dies from Austrians and started minting them in Rome in mid-30s...

Hi, this is just a guess, but it seems there is similar damage, although at much smaller scale, right across the coin at 6 o'clock. One explanation could be that the coin was set in a frame and those marks indicate the spots where it was held by small clips to prevent the coin's movement and rotation in the frame. The cuts could have been made either to help the coin be held more firmly in the frame, or when removing the coin from it.

In any case, the edge looks otherwise perfect and the coin face does not bear any typical signs of being ex-mount such as excessive polishing. How does the reverse look like?

Also, I have a French Ecu coin in my collection with very similar cut to its edge and my theory about it at one point was that it was made to check if the coin was solid silver and not just silver-plated. But, with an object over 200 years old, anything could have been happening with it during all that time...

10 hours ago, sterlingstacker said:

This 

Is this the close-up of the actual small gold coin please, or just a pic of the standard silver thaler version of the coin used for illustration?

Is it this one?

https://www.jmbullion.com/1-oz-asahi-buffalo-silver-round/

1 hour ago, jultorsk said:

That ٢٢ = '22'  

Thanks, learnt something new today! 

4 minutes ago, jultorsk said:

They're counterfeit, but the countermark says they're 22ct. Doesn't mean they've been XRF'd though lol. It is misleading from A&C to list the catalog references for these fakes.

https://www.ngccoin.uk/news/article/3382/Counterfeit-Sovereigns/

I did have a look at that NGC article and the countermark which they refer to as indicating 22ct. looks different to me than on the coins above. Do you please know for sure these countermarks say 22ct.? It wouldn't be surprising as this group of counterfeits is typically made of more or less the right gold content.

Let me revive this thread with these new auction listings:

Described rather deceptively as "Gran Bretaña. 1914. Jorge V. 1 libra. (Fr. 404) (KM. 820). Contramarca de cambista en árabe en anverso. AU.", i.e. basically an Arabic countermarked sovereign. No mention of it being possibly an imitation/replica/counterfeit of a sovereign.

Aureo & Calicó - Coin Auction

Aureo & Calicó - Coin Auction

And by the way, there's quite an interest in the coins with bidding already at EUR 420, i.e. almost GBP 425 including the fees... Any chance these specimens being genuine?

Just for both the seller's and buyer's info, not a Franz Joseph, but Wilhelm (William) I, German Emperor and King of Prussia 

1 minute ago, modofantasma said:

Czech Lions?

Czech Lion is actually also a Niue coin...

I would say the most "established" bullion coins, in addition to those you already have + Kangaroo, are Athenian Owl and Noah's Ark, if that's what you are looking for in your Big 10.

Hi there,

I'm not sure what exactly you would like to know so in general, this item is a so-called First Day Cover to commemorate issuing of a new stamp. Fleetwood was the company producing it, it has since been acquired by another company named Mystic Stamp.

There can be different varieties of these covers, usually without any coin, medal or bar inserted, but in your case this one apparently includes a silver bar depicting the stamp itself. As I said, not sure what else there's to say about this, should you have any further questions feel free to ask 

What a great story @Blacksmith876, thanks for sharing! If you wish to find out more about your coin, you may check out the list of similar coins on offer on https://www.ma-shops.com/shops/search.php?searchstr=Illyria+Drachme and compare them with your coin. Interesting reading about this coin type can also be found here https://asklapiadas.ancients.info/05a1DrGen.html. Enjoy your great coin! 🙂

My experience with Heritage Auctions is that their shipping rate to Europe was quite high - almost $100 for neither too heavy nor too valuable lot, although they do offer also slightly more favourable rate if the delivery goes through their Dutch branch. But that would probably not make sense for UK buyers anyway as the goods would then have to go through the customs twice.

The bigger argument against buying from them for me is that those Americans or whoever bids with them seem to be willing to pay crazy prices for coins. Don't know how about you, but coins that I put on my tracking list mostly go well above my limits of what I would consider a fair deal... 

21 hours ago, stefffana said:

Nope, Bert!...

If would be written on the certificate the weight of the diamond, maybe it would add some few pounds on top. Because It is not specified, I presume it is cubic zirconia.

Look at some proper certificates with specifications of the stones:

I don't quite agree that just because the weight of the stone is not specified on the certificate, it is not diamond. That would be quite irresponsible from the mint to claim the coin is set with diamond while applying cubic zirconia instead. They are two chemically different types of stones, albeit with similar appearance.

Granted, it is most likely synthetic diamond and hardly of any significant value, but still a diamond. And where it is even set on the coin by the way - I assume it is that triangle to the right of Pegasus?

The gold content of 2 escudos varied over all those years. 2 escudos of Isabel II were .900 gold again so presumably that is the coin which the list refers to. 

On 19/08/2023 at 12:52, 8ace said:

I was looking at the Spanish Gold 2 Escudos coin around 1750-1850. Looking at the reasonably priced ones around it'll be Carlos IV or Fernando VII. 

As with any numismatic coin, it's probably best to set your budget and then see what condition you can get for that money. The prices may hugely wary depending on the condition, year and mint.

For the start, you may check what's on offer on MA-Shops - The World's Most Trusted Numismatic Marketplace, where you will see listings of many smaller coin shops from all over the world, but mostly Europe. The prices tend to be on the higher side over there, but still you can find a fairly priced coin sometimes.

However, it's probably better if you do not purchase from a non-UK seller, unless you really like the coin and are happy to pay VAT, as this coin is .875 gold and therefore would not meet conditions for VAT exempt investment gold, even if it was an after-1800 coin.

As regards the stamping quality, I would assume with coin of this age it's more about the wear it accumulated over those years, than any stamping imperfections. Many of the coins would be stamped slightly off-center and some may even be adjusted (parallel lines across the coin to remove excessive material from the coin blank in order to reduce the weight to the specified level). Personally, I don't mind slight off-center strike as long as it does not cause some detail to be missing on the coin.

Let us know if you find something you like or were unsure if you should go for a coin you find - it's quite refreshing to be able to discuss about some other old coins than just the sovereigns 🙂

Hi,

Which 2 escudos coin are we talking about please? A gold coin with this denomination was produced over the span of 3 centuries and like 12 or so emperors, so it may be worth adding a few more details about the coin in question. The coin strike techniques were certainly different in the 16th and 19th century 🙂   

Looking now on the photo of the test result, I noticed the coin was tested only for 5.1 seconds before the reading was captured - according to what I know about this type of testing, that can be too short to get an accurate result. I would expect the testing to take a bit longer. We discussed about this in this thread:

So that may explain the difference in the measured composition against the expected one...

On 11/06/2023 at 22:25, John316 said:

Hi @CollectForFun, thank you for the info! I have gone to a few coin shops in my area and no one seems to have a lot of knowledge on these. I received them from a family member & am not sure when they were acquired.

It looks to me like the edge strike is struck deeper into the coin on the original strike photo you uploaded. Most of mine don't appear to be struck as deeply. Here are some detail photos of one of my coins that the edge strike appears to be a little deeper struck than most of the others. 

Thanks again for the info!

Thanks for the photos! Whether original or one of the newer strikes, it is still a magnificent coin!

Anyway, the best way to distinguish the strikes I am aware of is the shape of the stars on the edge - as you can see on your photo, the "rays" of the stars get noticeably thinner towards their tip and overall their strike is "finer". While the original strike is more "coarse" and the rays have almost the same thickness for their entire length. I found this great photo of the original coin which hopefully illustrates this difference quite well:

10 hours ago, John316 said:

Hi Tib,

I have some 1908 100 Koronas that at read direction of the edge inscription some angels are up and on some the emperor is up (photo attached). I was trying to determine how to tell an original strike from a restrike when I found this forum searching online. I sent two coins to NGC to be graded that the angels are up when reading the edge inscription. NGC labeled them as restrikes, when I questioned them asking if the edge inscription had any significance in determining an original strike they couldn't really give me an answer. I was wondering if you or any one on this forum would recommend getting a second opinion from PCGS or if NGC is more than likely correct in labeling them as restrikes?

Thank you,

Hi John, personally, I didn't know that the orientation of the edge inscription, which Tib mentioned on that other thread, could be used as a differentiator of the original from the restrike. Although I assume there may be some validity to it if he has experience with these coins.

In any case, as I noted on that thread, unless you knew your coins were originals (which should have been apparent at least from the acquisition price), you should assume they are restrikes, especially as a lot of them was produced for the US market. My way of telling the original from the restrike is looking at the detail of the ornament and the stars on the edge, so if you could post images of both sides of the coins and that particular detail of the edge, that would be helpful. Based on your photo above my first guess would be that it is a restrike.

Edit: Actually, I found this photo of the original strike on which you can see there is a noticeable difference in the quality of the edge strike from your coin. Also, it can be seen that on this original strike, the orientation of the edge inscription is such that the emperor is up, so Tib's rule clearly isn't quite correct. But if you could still provide more photos of your coins for comparison, that would be great.

@ank seeing where you're from, this forum may be a little bit UK-centric, therefore you'll read a lot about the sovereigns, the Royal Mint, bad Royal Mail service etc., but there are still a few of us over here also from the good old Europe ☺️

Problem with silver coins which you correctly identified is that they are sold for much more than the value of silver in them. This is mainly caused by VAT which is charged on silver. On the contrary, gold coins are exempt from VAT, therefore they can be bought for almost the value of metal in them.

On the other hand, when you sell silver coins privately, i.e. not back to the dealer, you can achieve the price which as if contained that VAT element. But of course it may be more difficult to find a buyer than just sell back to the dealer, so if you don't want to worry about private sales, then gold is better for you.

I don't know much about the gold market in your country but it seems Tavex, which is a popular dealer among the TSF members, has a branch there. So maybe have a look at what they offer, especially their buy prices. Then of course you may buy from elsewhere if you find cheaper option.

As to what exactly to buy, a lot depends on your budget. The larger the coin, the closer will be its price to the value of metal. 1 oz coins are the "standard", but at a price of over 1800 euros per coin, not everyone can afford to buy one. So maybe if you have an idea of how much you want to spend, we will then be better able to recommend what to buy.