Frenchie

My latest pick up and one of my fave libertads

Adding to my endeavor for a 1979 to current full Sovereign proof run, received the 2013 Gold Sovereign PF66 Ultra Cameo from the @Numistacker Collection.

A few pickups from the last few weeks. Starting with a nice piece of old Swiss gold together with a modern shiny Swan. The 10 francs Vreneli is not one you see so much of, compared to the 20 francs. 
Then some auction pickups. Nice haul of bullion Libertads in a mixed lot: happy to find some of the old and lowest mintages (1999 was second lowest year @95,000) and cool to see the transition from 1999 to 2000 in the Mexican coat of arms. In the same lot were a dozen Kookaburras - all in perfect shape. Most interesting was this 2008 in its original card. That happens to be my favorite Kook design ! 
A really characterful 8 reales from 1763 (with a chopmark in the globe), love these historical pieces. May not grade it though because NGC will probably find something to downgrade: these coins had a colorful life so i dont really care what the grade could be?.
Was after a different year (1860s)  - as i already have one, but picked up another 1870 Australian sovereign (this one probably better than my earlier one). 
Finally - at a price less than the going rate for the single proof, a 1989 double sov proof.  Did not realize how low (2,000) the mintage was - so hopefully these will go up over time.  This one is definitely headed to Numistacker for NGC??

Hello, the new 1oz silver tiger and dragon coin started selling at the Perth Mint today. Nice coin, picked up five of them. The cashier at the bullion room said I was the first buyer, so as the mintage is 50,000 there's still 49,995 left! 

Liquidated a lot of my medals and bits and pieces to get my hands on these lot.

Same story for me, I also ordered from Dios a few Endeavour proof coins and never got them, though the track status said "delivered" . But here I have no clue about a neighbour who could have got it, and I am pretty sure it has been stolen at my local postal distribution center.  I have of course put a claim to my local post office (the package was "lost" locally), but there is no result.
First time I have this bad experience, and I receive a lot of packages. It's surprising how many of us have the same problem with shipment from Dios. I don't say they are dishonest, but maybe something wrong with the way they prepare the packages, they are maybe not too discreet and there could be temptation. 
I have a good communication with Andres from Dios and he is responsive and helpful, so I hope everything will end nicely as the shipment is insured correctly. Happily, they did not have the gold Endeavour anymore when I ordered,, so it could have been worse for me, but I think about others in this situation, having way bigger orders than mine 

Hello, a 1992 proof sovereign arrived in the post today. Purchased this one earlier in the week from EBay. Very nice coin. 

I've been investigating and trying to sort my order out as of yesterday.  I had no idea my order had shipped until I contacted him yesterday to ask about it.  He gave me the tracking number and was sent 2 weeks ago.  I checked tracking and it showed it had been delivered last Thursday to a neighbour with an attempted delivery on Wednesday.  I checked my CCTV for both days at around the delivery times and there was no attempt from UKMail.  I contacted my local depot where they confirmed that the tracking number I had was not for a parcel addressed to me and there could have been a mix up during the re-allocation of the UK Mail tracking from DHL Germany.  I was told to ring a dedicated number in the morning to look into it and if I had no joy with them to then to ring back the Manchester Office so they could look into it.  I went round to where the parcel was supposed to have been delivered (there about anyway) and they denied receipt of any incorrectly addressed parcels.  
This morning I had a delivery from UK Mail so asked the driver (reg driver who I'm on good terms with)if he had done my round last week where I explained that my parcel had gone to the wrong address.  I showed him a pic of my parcel along with tracking and told him the name of the person who'd signed for it and on which road.  He knew who the person was so would retrieve the parcel.  Unfortunately they were not in so he phoned the depot to investigate for me and told me he would come back round after he'd finished as he now had the full information of where it had been delivered and where it was addressed to (according to their system) and just to leave it with him as management were now aware of the issue and steps were now in motion.
A coupe of hours ago I received a call from the depot.  The parcel was retrieved but was already opened and contained a small clock.  Additionally, the parcel was not addressed to me but the German tracking number on the parcel does match the one attached to my parcel which explains why it was delivered and tracked to where it was.
At the moment it looks like my parcel was opened, contents replaced and delivery address replaced.  Tomorrow I will be going around to where the parcel was delivered to to speak to them and confirm that it was an unexpected parcel even though it was addressed to them.   I do not believe the tracking label would come off easily so if it was an expected parcel, then my tracking label would have been taken off mine and placed onto theirs.   If UK Mail redeliver the retrieved parcel I can inspect the parcel myself.
As it stands now, the parcel is pretty much written off.  Dios is filing an investigation for it but whether I'll be compensated is a different story.  I'm not holding my breath.
It is a big hit for me but sooner or later this kind of thing was going to happen.  Why?  Because I'm unlucky and laws of probability says so.  A similar thing happened last year when Parcel Force handled domestic German DHL parcels but that was human error and was sorted out without loss but was a bit of a pain as I was out of the country at the time.

Today is a good day in the Backyard bullion household!

 

Let’s round out the silver received with some dragons...
The new 2018 Australia 1 oz Silver Proof Dragon & Phoenix complimented with, 
Three (3) 2018 Great Britain 1 oz Silver Two Dragons BU

Year of the Dog 2018 Opal silver proof.

 
 

S2 1/10 gold to date, with a 1/4 mouse, 2005 1/2 kilo rooster and S1 complete set 1oz.
 

mine arrived today

I know some aren't keen but loving the Bulls  
And my first piece of Gold!!!!! 
oh and if anyone can point me in the right direction for some snug fitted 1/10th oz gold capsules that would be awesome. I could quite easily fit 2 or 3 more in mine. Cheers.

Angels from Mexico

Chiwoo Cheonwang 2018. After two delayed launch dates, finally got them and picked up today. Significantly different from the vivid painting effect as shown in the marketing pictures, but looking from different angles, change in the light reflection presents interesting contrasts.

Hello all, package arrived in the post today from Noble Numistatics. This was my only successful bid in their April auction that was held in   Sydney over three days. Bought the 1952 South African 11 coin proof set. They had two sets available in the auction and I think I paid a fair price for it given condition. As you can see from the photos there are some condition issues with respect to copper spotting (the King seems to be staring at it on the £1 coin!) but I think they will come out of conservation ok if I have them graded in the future. 
I saw a Numistacker YouTube video on this set a few months ago and I recall he said the mintage was 12,500. 
A bit disappointed about how they packaged the coins. They were loose and had moved about in the case during transit and were not in flips. 

Wet day in Perth today and so dropped into the mint and bought the new 1oz silver bird of paradise coin. See photos below. Took a look at the gold version which is much nicer but will give that one a miss for now (the gold have a 5,000 mintage and so will be available for a while yet).

A good result on a 1oz Griffin!
 

Not every time a proof purchase is even better than i hoped. Love this one. A real bugger to photograph these convex coins, though.

Small pick ups this week...

I guess most coins like this are melted down, but I find it interesting nonetheless.
Engraving reads "mother to george 1856", no mounts or anything so not sure what the purpose of it would have been?
 

Today I received a 1/4 ounce Gold Britannia. Just steadily adding to the very modest stack, not very interesting you might think.
But the journey DHL managed to send it on is the real story...longest route from Bristol to Cambridge ever?

The Perth Mint released a number of new coins today so I dropped in and bought the 2018 1oz silver Dragon Phoenix proof and the 1oz silver Wedge Tailed Eagle in high relief proof. 

2x Elephants