Shinus73

In fairness, you’d struggle to see any of my issues with the naked eye, but I take your point.

Mine too - lots of little black marks, a bit scruffy generally.

They'll be on both sides of every trade, as always.

I’m guessing you might get £200-£220 for the set with a box. My experience of complete sets is that people expect to pay less, rather than more. The first coin in this series has a special place in my stacking heart. My first large silver purchase from Germany was two tubes of the Timber Wolf (2010?), as they seemed an exciting variation. At the time you could only get Philharmonics, Eagles, Maple Leaf and Perth Mint (expensive). I paid £19.50 per oz all in and sold them for an average of more than £40 per oz. No such premium for them these days.

It’s less of a lottery than the actual lottery, but I take your point. The only 1oz proof gold I’ve bought in recent years was the completer coin, it graded 70 and sells for double RRP. Combination of pot luck and some good judgement.

Indeed, but you miss out on the odd one that takes off. Choices..

In nearly all cases, you will only get that back if you get a 70, which I suppose is the point of this thread. Sell it raw, or graded below 70 and you’re losing money. I’ve been grading coins for several years and enjoy that aspect of collecting, but can increasingly see the folly of grading every proof that the Mint releases and am now trying to limit my purchases to pre-graded versions at a decent prices, especially dirt cheap silver PF69’s. I’ve no idea if this is a good strategy long term. Having said that, I’ve just had the e-mail telling me my 1 oz silver proof Merlin has been despatched, so still have work to do on limiting my purchases…

2007 1/4 Oz Proof Platinum Britannia - £450 posted Not perfect, probably not gradable, but a hard to come by coin. Payment by BT or Paypal F+F. Thanks Peter

I tested positive for COVID on the day the Queen died, so my 10-day isolation period coincided perfectly with the official 10-day mourning period. Rolling royal coverage and fever dreams are a potent mix. Not sure my brain has sufficiently recovered to go through another lengthy royal event just yet.

I really like them, but I’m a sucker for grading everything, and I might be mistaken, but I think you’re unable to grade a lot of the pre 2017’s unless they’re still sealed, as you can’t tell them apart from the standard sovereign for that year.

I know, I bought it! 😀 As mad as it seems, an MS69 with tiny mintage currently qualifies as ‘graded badly’. I haven’t seen a raw one for less than £500. I’ll buy anymore I see at this price.

As reasons for commemoratives go, the first Coronation for 70 years is as good as it gets. Given the amount of other proof nonsense I buy from the Mint, these are a proper no brainer.

This is true. None of the post 2017 SOTD's are available for anywhere near £400, unless they're not advertised correctly or graded badly. I've been looking constantly - if anything they're one of the few coins that have been going up recently.

I think you’d be better off with one of the three Royal Mint Bond 1/4 oz gold proofs, if you can find one for around £475-500 in the secondary market. These haven’t been a roaring success either though.

2 oz silver now also sold out - mintage of only 1000, so this looked like another winner beforehand.

I remember him playing the Royal Albert Hall in 1994 when I was a student in South Kensington, but as an indie kid I would have been dismissive.

I think The Police might be stretching the Music Legends title.

I have Elton, Bowie and the Who in PF70, but couldn’t remember if I had this one. Too late by the time I’d checked.

I think it's a stretch to refer to tradition, when it hasn't happened for 70 years.

You beat me by around 3 seconds! 😀

The 'Ounce' is a bit busy for my liking, much prefer the understated Crown for the Crown. The SOTD with crowned portrait is surely a must have?

2013 was the first year of the mass production of Britannias (millions of the 999 versions vs roughly 100,000 of the old 958 versions). The mint didn’t finalise their design / production of tubes until the second half of 2013, so the coins from early in the year were provided in the sheets. I remember this specifically because I had to return two sheets of 20 from the very early runs to a dealer in Germany, which were of the most appalling quality. They were covered in dings, scratches and gouges. The replacements from later in the year, came in tubes. The tubes from 2013 (and possibly 2014) also contained only 20 coins, rather than the 25 the current tubes hold. Your coins look like they are from a run between the disastrous early run and the adoption of the tube.

It’s a hippocampus, lots of varying images.

I could be wrong, but I suspect webbed front feet are a better bet for pulling mythical carriages under water.

'The figure of the seahorse was important in Ancient Greek mythology, and it was the half-equine half-aquatic ‘Hippocampus’ that pulled the chariot of Poseidon, God of the Sea. This monstrous creature combined an equine head (from the Greek ‘hippo’ or horse) with a serpent, fish, or seahorse-like tail (‘campus’ meaning sea monster). The Hippocampus featured on coins of the Roman empire, meaning Jonathan’s design, just like Britannia, is rooted in both ancient history and modern times.'