GoodAsGold

I don’t believe I’m saying this but my interest in the 3 Graces is starting to wane as we continue to wait for the RM releases. After several versions of gold Una by the likes of the RM, Alderney, St Helena, Hattons of London and anyone else I’ve missed, it just seems to me that there’s too many parties getting involved in the Great Engravers series.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s good for collectors who want to secure any affordable gold or silver version, but maybe the RM issue of 200(ish) 2oz gold Unas alone would have created fantastic rarity which has already been diluted by lesser versions. 
The Graces do look stunning but in recent years some of the very first coin releases in a series achieve greater popularity than the rest of the series. The 2016 Lion of England in the QB bullion series and the 2016 silver proof Peter Rabbit in the Beatrix Potter series being prime examples. Admittedly you can’t compare the Graces to a rabbit, but I can’t compare them to Una and the Lion either. 
I’m not saying I won’t be trying to get involved in the buying frenzy, but maybe (just maybe) there’s too much hype for this follow up to the Una release?   

Nobody knows and if they did and told us they’d get into a lot of trouble and lose their dealer licence.
They won’t do two releases on the same day.
I spoke to a dealer today (by chance and got talking about 3G’s) who said they had over 2,000 emails asking to reserve a Royal Mint Three Graces coin for them. The dealer is getting all of their allocation graded. They don’t know when either yet. 
Apparently they will also all be raw coins from Royal Mint!
There will be a lot of disappointed people wanting the Three Graces coin. 
2,000 emails is not the same as how many want one of these coins. It also sounded like the mintages are not increasing so it really will be a lottery.
Best of luck everyone.

That’s what I was thinking... 
Its a numismatic first to have a SOTD as a 50p BUT how many Graces can you potentially buy with that cash.
I don’t think I’m the only one holding out on buying other coins at auction, etc. until the ladies are released (which is now looking like late February at the earliest).

Well that presents a dilemma for those who have just enough cash for a few Graces coins.. And if this SOTD 50p is bought, it could upset the applecart. 
It is quite a unique SOTD, the first of its kind, but the thing that bothers me is that there already are other versions of the coin, that are even lower mintage. The normal proof has a mintage of 400 I think, and then there's an even rarer one from the annual sets with the early portrait. Mintage 90?

It is crazy to think that it really is potentially life changing money. Hang on to a small 2oz for a couple of years and that is someone’s deposit on a house, a way to get out of debt or even a fancy holiday. Oh wait.... we can’t go on holiday. Scrap that idea, but you get my point
All this waiting and the entire launch will be over in less than a minute. It’s going to be a race to the finish line.

@CoinStruck also broke that news last Monday. I thought it was a clever shout so I’ll risk not setting an alarm pre 9am for the first Monday since last November when I initially expected the Graces release. Probably won’t sleep well though (Gracemares).   

Just looked it up and this site says mintage was 65.
https://onlinecoin.club/Coins/Country/United_Kingdom/Gold_Five_Ounces_2019_Una_and_the_Lion/

I'm not a 100% sure how the price will fair long term but looking at the population reports I wouldn't say a PR70 is a rarity, unlike older coins that grade top of their population reports and there's only a couple of known examples of them.
Also what's to stop the Royal Mint producing another re-strike of the coin? They are a money making commercial organisation after all.
Spending £6k on one might be a bargain in 10 years time but you can get plenty of other decent coins for that amount of money with a longer price history.
I see some of the coins have been graded PF64, I wonder what happened there 😅
 

You’ve all done veryy welllllll.... 😇

Well if the Mint can grow a 4th leg onto the Martian TRIpod on the HG Wells coin design, then why not chuck in a 4th grace as well? My vote goes to young Mr Grace. 

Well if the Mint can grow a 4th leg onto the Martian TRIpod on the HG Wells coin design, then why not chuck in a 4th grace as well? My vote goes to young Mr Grace. 

Well if the Mint can grow a 4th leg onto the Martian TRIpod on the HG Wells coin design, then why not chuck in a 4th grace as well? My vote goes to young Mr Grace. 

I received my silver Una back from grading. Sadly no 70 but can't grumble. 

Well if the Mint can grow a 4th leg onto the Martian TRIpod on the HG Wells coin design, then why not chuck in a 4th grace as well? My vote goes to young Mr Grace. 

This is not true. Proof is minting technique just like BU or UNC, not a quality. With a BU coin you are not guarantied to get a MS70 aswell.
I can still understand if people are disappointed if the do not get a MS/PF70, but this is not something any mint can promise on a new coin!! 

I’ve got 69 grades on £4,700 coins, small 2oz gold ones, so I wouldn’t expect a totally perfect coin on a bigger one. Also, I wonder if it was conserved first, a speck of gold dust could make a grader lower his grade perhaps.
I graded a kilo silver coin recently, had it conserved and luckily it got a 70.
Seems to be a lot of luck involved 

Any tiny mark on those large fields and it’s a 69. The bigger the coin the more difficult usually.
The 5oz silvers are a nightmare to get a 70 in. Hence their huge premiums. Imagine how this would be as a PF70!!

For me and forgetting all the problem coins that come out of RM and playing the devils advocate; I don’t believe RM have ever said their high end coins are guaranteed a particular grade? The grading of coins has become a secondary activity after minting. So after watching numerous grading openings and my own experience of grading sometimes the difference in grade needs high magnification and a leap of faith to understand why one coin is a 69 and another is a 70.
Don’t get me wrong Id be fuming if I didn’t get a 70 on a very exclusive and high end coin but it doesn’t surprise me when it happens. Also when it happens you are left with little to no options as RM never said you’d get a 70. So many factors in this and small margins that when it happens you’d like to ask the grading company what they saw.

Yes, including with who is doing the grading, too. I know that both NGC and PCGS use a procedure that requires multiple graders to review, but I have recently submitted a coin to PCGS that previously was graded as a 69. I took it out of the holder and resubmitted it afresh (with no) restoration and it came back as a 70. There are a fair few considerations, I guess... apologies though for taking this off topic.

You would expect if the Royal Mint were going to mint just four one kilo coins, they would all be ‘perfect’ (in grading terms), right? I would love to know the reason from the graders as to why it was not a perfect 70. Could it have been through handling after the Mint released the coin or perhaps due to the mint just not being perfect?

Meh. Get back to us when you actually get serious about stacking gold. 
 

By the way, good job. My goals are more modest but hey we have to have goals.

Doesn’t everyone in Manchester?

A magnificent achievement. Well done sir.
Equally matched by getting in and out of the security doors at your safe box facility, locating and opening up your box and finding somewhere suitable to take your photos - ALL WITHIN 15 minutes.  Mission impossible!

A magnificent achievement. Well done sir.
Equally matched by getting in and out of the security doors at your safe box facility, locating and opening up your box and finding somewhere suitable to take your photos - ALL WITHIN 15 minutes.  Mission impossible!

A magnificent achievement. Well done sir.
Equally matched by getting in and out of the security doors at your safe box facility, locating and opening up your box and finding somewhere suitable to take your photos - ALL WITHIN 15 minutes.  Mission impossible!