Stuntman

Just commenting on this thread to reassure the Forum members that despite my username, I am not the Stunt Man 😉😁

Hurry! Last chance to purchase pure silver Mexican Libertad 1 oz bullion coins, each creatively and uniquely embellished with an artisanal hand(job)-finished lactate patina. Buy now before the market softens.

The 10 oz silver bullion version is indeed very nice. As someone who buys silver items as a collector rather than a stacker, I would recommend avoiding having to choose between 'the unicorn and the lady in a robe' and aim to acquire both. And perhaps also adding old George and the dragon. The 2018 version of the 10 oz Valiant in particular. Gratuitous picture below - 3 x 10 oz coins, 2 x 10 oz bars, 1 oz Una & The Lion bar, and a 50p for scale:

Awesome items. I'm pleased that someone has shelled out for one of them. The world's your oyster!

Only on the proofs and/or certain commemoratives. Their bullion pricing is often fairly competitive. Not often the best, but not massively out of line.

Nice items. Personally I would expect to have to offer both of them plus a few dollars more, in order to capture the Buffalo. I think the Buffalo is a fantastic coin, so I'd be more than happy to add those few dollars if I were in your position.

Cheers Lawrence. I was fairly sure that I'd actually seen a gold thirty shillings coin with XXX on it, either at a coin fair or in a museum, so it must have been a James I specimen. Anyway, many thanks! Stunters XXX 😉

For me, if the denomination is a shilling, I am taking the date from when the coin actually said 'shilling' on it, rather than when it said XII on it, being twelve pence. So in the shilling example, under my definition this would start from William IV rather than the earlier hammered coinage. I'm drawing a distinction between the literal name of the denomination itself being on the face of the coin, rather than any indications of its value on the face of the coin. But I am also agreeing with you 😃

Are you sure, Lawrence? 😁 I think the Farthing still 'wins' the denomination question because it actually has the name of the denomination on the coin, as opposed to something denoting its value. But all other answers are correct too! There are some really nice gold thirty-shilling pieces from way back when, that have III on them. (edited , they have III rather than XXX). I thought there were coins with XXX on them but I think I was mistaken.

Here are 3 examples of the 1799 Farthing currently for sale at the same coin dealer. Basic, better, best... https://www.thecoinking.co.uk/collections/farthings-and-fractionals/products/1799-farthing-george-iii-british-copper-coin-nice https://www.thecoinking.co.uk/collections/farthings-and-fractionals/products/1799-farthing-george-iii-british-copper-coin-very-nice https://www.thecoinking.co.uk/collections/farthings-and-fractionals/products/1799-farthing-george-iii-british-copper-coin-superb All are nice, although I'd probably choose the middle one myself from a value perspective.

The history of coins page on the Chards website that Lawrence linked to is the sort of thing that makes people interested in collecting older UK coins. The first UK coin that actually had its denomination written on it was the Farthing of 1799. These are relatively easy to come by, and are a nice coin to have in a collection that has 'a bit of everything' in it. The modern sovereign from 1817 onwards came out after this date of course but most UK circulating coins didn't actually have their denominations written on them until the 1830s-1860s. Some denominations even later. Halfcrowns not until 1893 and Crowns not until 1927, I think! So the Sovereign has probably just never needed to evolve in such a way to include its denomination, given that it is made of gold and its basic specifications have remained unchanged. Most other coins have changed metal composition and/or size since 1817, multiple times!

I agree on Boob 1, it appears to be showing the obverse of the 1823 double sovereign.

Others will be in a better position to give advice regarding the proofs. I don't collect them, and I would say that your resale market is much more limited. Plus they are a lot more expensive to buy in the first place. That said, anyone who bought and then sold some of the recent gold and silver proofs in the Great Engravers series is likely to have done very well indeed. The challenge is getting hold of them on release...

I prefer gold to silver, but the same amount of money buys a lot more silver... As a non-facetious answer, "it depends". I love some of the 10 oz silver coins and bars, because they are visually very spectacular. The 1 and 2 oz silver coins are also spectacular, but I haven't been collecting the as a series unless you count the Oriental Border Britannias of 2018-2020. There are no bad decisions here, except for the damage to your bank balance in the short term!

(Note that my comments above related to the release order of the Gold and Silver bullion coins, rather than the proofs).

I agree with the advice already given. Collect the set if you seek pleasure of ownership, but be prepared to sell them as individual items rather than the set as a whole, if you want to maximise your return on investment. Otherwise, just buy individual items that you think will be popular. The sensible/pragmatic approach in my opinion would be to buy more of the early coins in a series as an each-way bet on the series becoming popular later on. This, with hindsight, was the best approach to take on the Queen's Beasts coins - the Lion, Griffin and Dragon and to a lesser extent the Unicorn are holding up best. They were the first four coins. So in my opinion it would be worth buying several Tudor Beast Lions if you want to go down this route. There are 3 advantages (it's the first coin, it's a Lion, and it will hold 'England' appeal) and no downsides compared to buying a different bullion coin (the 1 oz gold bullion price is extremely similar to other bullion coins). If I was 'investing' in Tudor Beasts I'd also go big on the Dragon.

^^^ Now that is full-on geekery! I had to look those up! Very apt indeed 😊

The Royal Mint doesn’t just make objects: It makes memories and values which can be passed down through generations. Yes it does. Generally it makes bad memories, and passes down the values of not giving two figs about quality or indeed the purchasing experience. 886? 404 more like 😁

If they put a sovereign inside a Kinder Surprise egg, I will willingly risk contracting salmonella. 😉

Wow to the above from @richatthecroft 😍 Today I received a 1 oz platinum Britannia bullion bar. Something that we probably don't show too many photos of, so enjoy these ones of the outer packaging sleeve, and then both sides of the bar (despite their poor quality). I've also photographed it next to its gold and silver minted bar sisters. The gold ones are my favourites, they look visually more impressive than the platinum bar - despite all being 1 oz bars. The price of platinum has gone down a bit since I ordered mine, so currently this bar would cost a fraction under £1000 from the RM including VAT and delivery. For reference, I paid £1010. It's one for the collection, rather than one to make my fortune...

The Midland coin fair will be mostly aimed at collectors of UK predecimal coinage, but there will almost certainly be a few dealers who have silver Britannias, bullion sovereigns etc. I haven't been for about 5 years but I imagine that's probably still the case today. Prices will be competitive and you may be able to negotiate with them a bit, depending on what you are buying. If nothing else, it's a good day out and will be fascinating if you are interested in seeing a lot of rare and beautiful historical coins. Be warned though... it's a slippery slope 😉

Goldfinger? Just don't get any ideas about watching Goldmember, especially with your Missus!

For silver, I love both the 10 oz coins and the 10 oz bars 🙂 A 10 oz gold anything is well out of my league!

^^ It's always a good decision, but sometimes there are better decisions for a given amount of money. Although those decisions usually involve a degree of risk, or judgement. Pay down your most expensive debt first - that is, interest-bearing credit card balances, unsecured loans etc before paying down your mortgage.

Interesting question and discussion! I think that 100g is right on the cusp of cast versus minted. 250g and above, I would say cast all the way. I have a couple of 1 oz minted bars and they are very lovely indeed, but they will remain in their protective packaging and I will never hold them in the metal. I bought a 100g cast Metalor gold bar on behalf of someone else a few years ago, and it's actually a very lovely thing to hold. If I was making this decision myself, I'd go for the cast Metalor bar and enjoy actually holding it as lump of metal.