Serendipity

You guys really are bug*ers.  
 
I have avoided reading this thread since it was created, and have just read it and *have* to have a significant number of these beautiful coins.  
 
Nice photos!
 
Best
Dicker

Victoria, Sovereign, 1871


DESCRIPTION
Victoria (1837-1901), gold sovereign, 1871, London, Tower Hill Mint, third young filleted head left, W.W. raised on truncation for engraver William Wyon, date below, hint of doubling in legend both sides, Latin legend and toothed border surrounding, VICTORIA DEI GRATIA (“Victoria, by the Grace of God”), rev. struck in reverse alignment, crowned quartered shield of arms, laurel wreath surrounding, die number 14 below, emblems below, Latin legend and toothed border surrounding, BRITANNIARUM REGINA FID:DEF: (“Queen of the Britons, Defender of the Faith”), raised hairline flaw in last A of legend to rim, edge milled, weight 7.97g (Bentley 558; Marsh 55; M.C.E. 531; S.3853B). Tiny obverse rim nick, otherwise pleasing good extremely fine. Ex-Douro Cargo, Spink Auction 118, 20-21 November 1996, lot 1377 (part). Calendar year mintage 8,767,250.
HISTORY
RMS Douro was a slender iron-hulled, screw-driven steamship of 2,824 tons - distinguishable by her graceful clipper bow and two brigantine rigged auxiliary masts - built in 1865 by Caird & Company on the River Clyde at Greenock, Scotland. She measured 326 feet long by 40 feet wide and served from 1865 to 1882 with the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company.
Douro initially served the routes between the United Kingdom and the West Indies. Early in her career, she was running mates with RMS Rhone until Rhone was sank in 1867 by a hurricane in the West Indies. In 1869, Douro switched to South American service on the Southampton, England-Buenos Aires, Argentina, route. As a Royal Mail Ship, she carried mail and newspapers under contract. She also often carried precious cargo, including gold and diamonds.
Douro sank in the early morning hours of April 2, 1882, off Cape Finisterre following a collision with the Spanish steamer Yrurac Bat when en route to Southampton from Buenos Aires. Her captain, Ebenezer C. Kemp, along with five other officers went down with the ship, but all 144 other crew and passengers were saved. 
The wreck was eventually salvaged in 1995 By Sverker Hallstrom and Nigel Pickford using a remote-operated vehicle (ROV) at a depth of 1,500 feet. The cargo of gold coins, mostly British sovereigns dating from the reign of Queen Victoria, was sold at auction by Spink, London, in 1996.
https://gmic.co.uk/topic/418-the-true-story-of-the-rms-douro/

This photo shows Douro, sister of RMS Rhone, at Charlotte Amalie Harbour, Saint Thomas, just before the 1867 hurricane; she did survive that force!

TO THE MEMORY OF CAPTAIN E. C. KEMP, THE OFFICERS, ENGINEERS & CREW OF THE ROYAL MAIL STEAM PACKET COMPANY’S SHIP “DOURO” WHO PERISHED AT SEA ON THE 1ST APRIL 1882 NOBLY SACRIFICING THEIR OWN LIVES THAT OTHERS MIGHT BE SAVED.

Route of the RMS Douro.

Queen Victoria by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1842.

Victoria, Sovereign, 1871.

Yes I would agree. However at the time I wasn't to know whether this audit trail would remain forever or at least until the time I wanted to sell.
I decided that the Douro provenance wasn't important to me so I assessed my holding the coins on their merits alone. I decided to take the Douro link premium and sell while the provenance was still there.
As I didn't pay any Duoro premium when I bought, you could say I took the profit when I could😉

The Coinworld article is informative, I think I remember reading it before,
The NGC page also makes sense, mainly.
So, shipwreck sovereigns are likely to be unharmed by their immersion in salt water, and most will have remained in the conditon they were when their ship sank.
At the time, we did not participate in any of the Douro auctions, but not for any particular reason, and we were busy in any case.
Whenever there is a big coin hoard, or wreck recovery, there is always plenty of publicity, and a degree of hype. 
There are effects on both supply and demand. Suddenly there is a greater than normal supply on the market, but also greater interest stimulated by the publicity.
The increased supply can depress prices, whereas the increased interest can increase them.
For the collector who is nore interested in acquiring something "new", it might not matter if he pays a premium price. For others, ther might be the opportunity to grab a few bargains.
The "Douro", or other wreck / hoard provenance will usually remain with the coins, which can never be a bad thing.
My view, when wearing my dealer's hat, is to buy and value the coin on its own merits, rather than because it is from a particular source.
When it comes to selling, I might just be tempted to allow the provenance to add some value, though!

Auction lot numbers and receipts have always been good evidence of provenance, particularly if the lot was illustrated. Also helpful if you have a copy of the catalogue. In recent years online auction records and archives have made this easier.

The name Gold & Silver Bureau rang a bell, and with a negative connotation. A quick Google search turned up:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/opinion/money-opinion/p-s-investigates/a-right-coinman-533667 from August 2002.
I can remember seeing John Coppin's adverts in Exchange and Mart way back in the 1960s, and at that time assumed he was a straight dealer. It seems that some time later, he got greedy or desperate, possibly both. 
He expanded and set up at least one high profile business, Gold & Silver Bureau being one of them, employing a large staff of telesales people. His businesses failed and defaulted more than once, owing customers large amounts of money. G&SB was based in Ilford, Essex. Coppin lived in Chigwell, Essex.
When he and his companies finally left the scene, a number of his previous employees set up similar but smaller businesses, in and around the Essex area. I seem to remember some of them using prestigious sounding London postal addresses.
Although we have dealt with at least one of these some years ago, none of them appeared to have had much numismatic knowledge or interest, their main skills appeared to be in salemanship. None of them ever impressed me as having great integrity.
I can't give any meaningful opinion on their certificate.

This thread has been created for anyone with a Sovereign overdate, variation or error etc who would like to ask questions or have them checked out by other forum members.
If you are asking for advice on errors please refrain from posting blurry mobile phone pictures! Ideally attached pictures should be taken with a macro lens, or some kind of handheld microscope that will clearly show the part of coin in question as you can see it, this saves a lot of guess work.
Thanks and happy hunting!

https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/cheffinsfineart/catalogue-id-srche10195/lot-73da0c50-1c87-4acd-8e1b-ab84011859c1
This lot comes with a Certificate of Origin from something called the Gold & Silver Bureau.  Would that be the sort of thing NGC would accept?  It dates to 1997 so after the Spink auction.

Purchased off an independent seller, so again limited knowledge of the COA pedigree. I have been searching for any indications of the COA based on “AMS, 2011”, Doug Thomas, RMS Douro Gold Hoard, etc... not finding much...I would believe there would have been collaborative provenance for NGC to grade these coins, just not certain of what documentation took place following the findings in 1995. Also, I don’t necessarily think it is a fake, but those possibilities always do exist.

Here is 1 example on Ebay. 
The cerificate would have been sent to NGC to look at for a match on the coin.

Thanks. Who issued the coa? they must have collaborated with NGC on these

Steve, It was purchased as is, so obviously limited pedigree other than what is stated as being graded by NGC. It does show up in the NGC Registry with no photo...suspicious? Not sure what dates NGC started taking representative photos of their graded coins for documentation purposes. 

The certificate should have the picture of the coin on which they have to be able to match it with the said coin. If it doesn't match it will not be graded as Duoro Shipwreck coin

It is all to do with provenance.  The salvaged coins were sold at a number of auctions and were certified as such, but they really need photo certificates, otherwise anyone could produce a piece of paper say that the coin had come from the Douro.  The grading agencies do mention the Douro on their slabs but they obviously need to be convinced that the coin has actually come from the wreck.

Yeah I would be interested to know if all you have to do is send the certificate through it seems like a slam dunk to produce as many of these graded as needed..

Yes, I did pick that up. 😉 
 
i wanted to know what physical change does that bring to those coins? 
 

They were salvaged from the wreck of the RMS Douro after being on the sea floor for about a 100 years (see the history at the top of the thread).

What makes these sovs different than most other same year sovs? 
 
i must miss something here. 

Super nice thread! 👍 Just today was watching as four ungraded ex-Douro Cargo sovs were auctioned off. In order below pics & hammer prices (incl. premium): 1879S £660, 1880S £960, 1881M £720 and 1881M  £750. Would've been a challenge to pick a favourite! 😅
 

 

 

Victoria, Sovereign, 1871


DESCRIPTION
Victoria (1837-1901), gold sovereign, 1871, London, Tower Hill Mint, third young filleted head left, W.W. raised on truncation for engraver William Wyon, date below, hint of doubling in legend both sides, Latin legend and toothed border surrounding, VICTORIA DEI GRATIA (“Victoria, by the Grace of God”), rev. struck in reverse alignment, crowned quartered shield of arms, laurel wreath surrounding, die number 14 below, emblems below, Latin legend and toothed border surrounding, BRITANNIARUM REGINA FID:DEF: (“Queen of the Britons, Defender of the Faith”), raised hairline flaw in last A of legend to rim, edge milled, weight 7.97g (Bentley 558; Marsh 55; M.C.E. 531; S.3853B). Tiny obverse rim nick, otherwise pleasing good extremely fine. Ex-Douro Cargo, Spink Auction 118, 20-21 November 1996, lot 1377 (part). Calendar year mintage 8,767,250.
HISTORY
RMS Douro was a slender iron-hulled, screw-driven steamship of 2,824 tons - distinguishable by her graceful clipper bow and two brigantine rigged auxiliary masts - built in 1865 by Caird & Company on the River Clyde at Greenock, Scotland. She measured 326 feet long by 40 feet wide and served from 1865 to 1882 with the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company.
Douro initially served the routes between the United Kingdom and the West Indies. Early in her career, she was running mates with RMS Rhone until Rhone was sank in 1867 by a hurricane in the West Indies. In 1869, Douro switched to South American service on the Southampton, England-Buenos Aires, Argentina, route. As a Royal Mail Ship, she carried mail and newspapers under contract. She also often carried precious cargo, including gold and diamonds.
Douro sank in the early morning hours of April 2, 1882, off Cape Finisterre following a collision with the Spanish steamer Yrurac Bat when en route to Southampton from Buenos Aires. Her captain, Ebenezer C. Kemp, along with five other officers went down with the ship, but all 144 other crew and passengers were saved. 
The wreck was eventually salvaged in 1995 By Sverker Hallstrom and Nigel Pickford using a remote-operated vehicle (ROV) at a depth of 1,500 feet. The cargo of gold coins, mostly British sovereigns dating from the reign of Queen Victoria, was sold at auction by Spink, London, in 1996.
https://gmic.co.uk/topic/418-the-true-story-of-the-rms-douro/

This photo shows Douro, sister of RMS Rhone, at Charlotte Amalie Harbour, Saint Thomas, just before the 1867 hurricane; she did survive that force!

TO THE MEMORY OF CAPTAIN E. C. KEMP, THE OFFICERS, ENGINEERS & CREW OF THE ROYAL MAIL STEAM PACKET COMPANY’S SHIP “DOURO” WHO PERISHED AT SEA ON THE 1ST APRIL 1882 NOBLY SACRIFICING THEIR OWN LIVES THAT OTHERS MIGHT BE SAVED.

Route of the RMS Douro.

Queen Victoria by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1842.

Victoria, Sovereign, 1871.

Pics only!
 

If you were meaning us, I can give a few insights, but this will need to be the short version, although there is already a longer version on one of our websites, probably TaxFreeGold: 
Managing and balancing supply and demand is always our main problem, and that includes not only stock but also cash. 
Once upon a time:- 
Back in about 1964/5, there was only one gold bullion investment product available or frequently traded on the UK market, which has always been small compared with bullion markets in many other parts of the world. 
That one single product was the British Gold Sovereign. 
For some time, we used to run a weekly advert in Exchange and Mart, which read: 
Gold sovereigns £4 each, £365 per 100, £3500 per 1000... 
Krugerrands had not been invented, or even thought of. 
No serious investor bothered with half sovereigns, they were relatively more expensive, and the market was not sufficiently liquid (and still isn't). 
There were some other gold bullion coins, some of which I guess were important in their own domestic markets, but none were important in the UK. 
Keeping track and control of stock was easy, we could do it with pen and paper, or even just in our heads. 
There were actually a few options, such as: 
"New" sovereigns (QEII), Old sovereigns (anything earlier), Kings (Edward VII and George V), Victorias (sometimes split into different heads and reverses), 
but, most investors simply bought "sovereigns", which in effect was "our choice" of sovereigns, a category we still use and run today. This was always the cheapest and best option for investors. 
Sometime after 1971, most high street banks (remember them?) joined in, and started offering to sell gold sovereigns via their foreign exchange departments. 
Whey were always more expensive than us, but of course, they had a vast branch network, were trusted household names, and for a few years they dominated the market. 
One odd side-effect was that because they lacked the local experience to check incoming "old" sovereigns, they almost exclusively sold only "new" sovereigns, and "new" sovereigns went to a premium price above "olds". We always advised people to buy the cheapest within reason (and still do), which usually meant "old" Sovereigns. Some investors wanted to pay more for "new" sovereigns, and we always tried to advise them, but we remained happy to supply them if they were adamant. Similar stuff still happens. 
When there was a wave of selling, most investors owned new sovereigns, so the market flooded with them, and they went to a discount compared with "old"; then when the market changed, "new" would go back to a premium. At those times, we made an active market in "swaps", where we would take in the higher priced coins from our customers, and swap them for the lower priced ones, sharing the cash difference with them. Sometimes we did the same in reverse a few weeks later, so any investor who did two opposite swaps ended up with the same type of coin they started out with, plus a cash profit on them, almost for nothing. Incredibly, some of these investors were only prepared to swap half their holdings at any one time, so they, and we, lost out. 
Then Krugerrands happened. 
At first, this did not affect the UK market, for a few reasons. First, in 1966, the UK government had banned the British public form buying gold, and this continued until 1971; then there were international embargoes on South Africa and its products, because of apartheid. 
In 1971, everyone wanted Krugerrands, partly because they were cheaper (lower premium), although the previous high market premiums on sovereigns gradually reduced, and partly because the concept of a one troy ounce gold coin was a piece of marketing genius, which made it easy for anyone to understand and compare prices and premiums, whereas traditional gold bullion coins such as sovereigns require arithmetic, a calculator, or a transparent dealer enlightened enough to quote percentage premiums. 
So, now we had two different gold bullion stocks to manage. In truth, this was not much more difficult than managing one, but then... 
Then: 
 
A lot more countries started issuing their own one ounce gold bullion coins, some people wanted Canadian Maples (they were 999 instead of 916 gold), others wanted... 
Rand Refineries introduced fractional sizes in 1980, being half, quarter, and tenth ounce version. 
Canada introduced 9999 then 99999 versions of its Maples. 
Some mints introduced fine gold (9999) variants of their own. 
From 1st January 2000, "Investment Gold" became VAT exempt in the EU including the UK, and this included gold bars in addition ot most existing "investment gold" bullion coins. 
Some time after that, we remembered that disposals of sterling used to be exempt from CGT (Capital Gains Tax). We researched and checked this, which was not easy at the time, then published our findings. The British Royal Mint undoubtedly noticed this on our TaxFreeGold website, and eventually started promoting the fact. Now (almost) everybody knows. 
Fast Forward to Now: 
I have tried, and generally lost count and given up, trying to work out how many different investment gold bullion stock lines and categories we now need to manage. 
A brief summary of the categories includes: 
CGT Exempt: 
"Our choice" gold sovereigns. (Still often one of the best options) 
"Minty" gold sovereigns. 
The current year's gold sovereigns (yes, some investors want to pay more to get this year's) 
"Our choice" gold Britannias (one ounce). 
 
"Minty" gold Britannias (one ounce). 
The current year's gold Britannias (one ounce). 
Other British one ounce bullion coins (I have lost count!) 
Fractional gold Britannias (why). 
"Our choice" one ounce gold coins, non CGT exempt, (usually the lowest premiums of all). 
Krugerrands (one ounce), usually only slightly higher premium than "our choice". 
Fractional troy ounce coins, half, quarter, tenth, twentieth, twenty-fifth, ounce, one gram (why?). 
Multiple ounce gold coins, 2 ounce, 10 ounce, kilo. 
Chinese metric gold pandas, recent years, 30 gram, 15 gram, etc. 
Gold bullion bars, mainly one kilo, half kilo, quarter kilo, 100 gram, 50 gram, 20 gram, 10 gram, 5 gram, 2.5 grams, 2 gram, 1 gram, one ounce, half ounce, plus taels, tolas, and a few other types. 
Gold proof sets and individual proof gold coins.
Traditional, previous circulation gold coins, the foreign national equivalents of gold sovereigns. 
Some older, historic "non-investment gold" coins, guineas etc. 
Not Only, But Also: 
Silver coins and bars. 
With almost as many variations as for gold. (Even got its own Forum!) 
Platinum. 
Palladium. 
Short Version?
You can imagine what the long version would look like!
Market Makers
We do not act as distributors or resellers for most of this stuff, but as active "market makers", which means we try to be ready to buy whatever anyone wants to sell, and to provide whatever anyone wants to buy.
It's not often, but people do sometimes want to sell 1,000 Krugers. That's about £1.3 million.
Similarly with gold sovereigns. Hey that's only £0.3 million!
Also, any and all of the above list.
Plus collectable numismatic coins. We recently bought in two collections, each for about £75,000; on two consecutive days.
The Result?
We have to spread our stock investment over a far greater number of products than we ever needed to in the past. I am not complaining about this, it's just another fact of life, and another challenge.
One Last Historical Note
During the 2008 global credit crisis, banking crisis, stock market crash, demand for gold bullion shot up. Stocks and supplies dried up. Big American demand hoovered up most of the physical gold stock in Europe, from which we used to source most of our shortfall. The British Mint could not keep up with our demand. Premiums jumped up to stupid levels. Some UK dealers were paying over 10% premium for sovereigns, and reselling them for 15% plus. I remember seeing a Krugerrand sell on ebay for an absurd 27% premium! We tweaked most of our selling premiums up slightly, but only by about a half percent. We took a decision that rather than charge what we knew to be rip-off levels of premium, we would maintain near normal premiums, and we offered investors the choice of buying provided they were happy to accept delivery as and when we could source actual physical stock. Many investors understandably wanted immediate delivery, bought elsewhere, and usually paid rip-off prices. Nevertheless, many investors placed their trust in us, and we sold considerable volumes of investment gold. The only world mint who could cope with demand was the Perth Mint. During the period, we had two x 3,000 ounce old shipments from them (think £4 million each at today's prices), including 66 x one kilo gold coins in one shipment (£2.7 million). We also had one shipment of 100,000 ounces of silver,mainly kilo coins. To ensure none of our customers were at any risk, at no time did we own less physical gold than we owed. At times, we owed about £4 million worth of gold, at 2008 prices. Naturally, we did deliver all the gold for which we had contracted. Our thanks to all those customers and investors who trusted us, at a time when most people did not trust their banks. In retrospect, I am still not sure that maintaining our low premiums was the best solution, but I still remain proud that we managed to cope with the demand in our own way, repay the trust of our customers, and deliver on all our commitments, even if not as quickly as we would have preferred.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

That is my silver. I've started stacking 2 years ago and I'm in my mid 30ies.
I'm wondering how much space will it take me when it's time for retirement.

Victoria, Sovereign, 1871


DESCRIPTION
Victoria (1837-1901), gold sovereign, 1871, London, Tower Hill Mint, third young filleted head left, W.W. raised on truncation for engraver William Wyon, date below, hint of doubling in legend both sides, Latin legend and toothed border surrounding, VICTORIA DEI GRATIA (“Victoria, by the Grace of God”), rev. struck in reverse alignment, crowned quartered shield of arms, laurel wreath surrounding, die number 14 below, emblems below, Latin legend and toothed border surrounding, BRITANNIARUM REGINA FID:DEF: (“Queen of the Britons, Defender of the Faith”), raised hairline flaw in last A of legend to rim, edge milled, weight 7.97g (Bentley 558; Marsh 55; M.C.E. 531; S.3853B). Tiny obverse rim nick, otherwise pleasing good extremely fine. Ex-Douro Cargo, Spink Auction 118, 20-21 November 1996, lot 1377 (part). Calendar year mintage 8,767,250.
HISTORY
RMS Douro was a slender iron-hulled, screw-driven steamship of 2,824 tons - distinguishable by her graceful clipper bow and two brigantine rigged auxiliary masts - built in 1865 by Caird & Company on the River Clyde at Greenock, Scotland. She measured 326 feet long by 40 feet wide and served from 1865 to 1882 with the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company.
Douro initially served the routes between the United Kingdom and the West Indies. Early in her career, she was running mates with RMS Rhone until Rhone was sank in 1867 by a hurricane in the West Indies. In 1869, Douro switched to South American service on the Southampton, England-Buenos Aires, Argentina, route. As a Royal Mail Ship, she carried mail and newspapers under contract. She also often carried precious cargo, including gold and diamonds.
Douro sank in the early morning hours of April 2, 1882, off Cape Finisterre following a collision with the Spanish steamer Yrurac Bat when en route to Southampton from Buenos Aires. Her captain, Ebenezer C. Kemp, along with five other officers went down with the ship, but all 144 other crew and passengers were saved. 
The wreck was eventually salvaged in 1995 By Sverker Hallstrom and Nigel Pickford using a remote-operated vehicle (ROV) at a depth of 1,500 feet. The cargo of gold coins, mostly British sovereigns dating from the reign of Queen Victoria, was sold at auction by Spink, London, in 1996.
https://gmic.co.uk/topic/418-the-true-story-of-the-rms-douro/

This photo shows Douro, sister of RMS Rhone, at Charlotte Amalie Harbour, Saint Thomas, just before the 1867 hurricane; she did survive that force!

TO THE MEMORY OF CAPTAIN E. C. KEMP, THE OFFICERS, ENGINEERS & CREW OF THE ROYAL MAIL STEAM PACKET COMPANY’S SHIP “DOURO” WHO PERISHED AT SEA ON THE 1ST APRIL 1882 NOBLY SACRIFICING THEIR OWN LIVES THAT OTHERS MIGHT BE SAVED.

Route of the RMS Douro.

Queen Victoria by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1842.

Victoria, Sovereign, 1871.