Views sought on this St. Helena Una and the Lion PF70UC

[Aran]

I’m new to the forum and just received today this gold proof St. Helena £5 Una and the Lion coin which I bought already slabbed as PF70UC by NGC. I was going to post it on the ‘Today I received...’ thread. However when I received it there appear to be ‘dimples’ or flaws on the obverse mirror fields. The reverse is perfect. Planchet/die faults? Does this affect the value/desirability of the coin? I’d welcome members views and advice.

[Pete]

I have no experience with grading but this cannot possibly get a PF70 surely !!
I though anything PF or MS 70 described perfection i.e. FDC but your coin looks awful - sorry.
Don't shoot me for saying so but I am only using unqualified observations but if I had bought this I would be rejecting it.

[Shep]

From the NGC website a 70 grade coin is described as follows: “A coin with no post-production imperfections at 5x magnification.”

If the coin was produced by the manufacturer looking like that then it can still achieve a 70 providing it hasn’t been damaged (scratched, handled etc) following production.

Even if a coin may look awful to some folk, who are the grading companies to say the coin wasn’t meant to be produced like that? Granted it doesn’t look great though.

@Aran Are you able to return it under the conditions of the sale? Though IMHO I think it will have precisely 0 effect on the value of the coin. Most people seem to buy holders rather than the coins in them.

[Aran]

No need to be sorry @Pete, honest opinions welcomed. Thanks for your view on rejecting it.

@Shep, your explanation for how it made a 70 makes sense. Ta for that.

 

 

 

[Arganto]

Even though it can still achieve a 70 with manufacturing issues if what you show wasn't obvious on the sales photos I'd say you have good grounds for returning it. Did you pay much over the cost of a non-graded coin to have this? 

[Aran]

Thanks @Liam84 for your comments. Yes I paid the usual 70 premium. I also have an ungraded example without this issue. So I think it will be going back.....

[Frenchie]

Could it be considered as a mint/die error/strike ? 

[Arganto]

1 minute ago, Frenchie said:

Could it be considered as a mint/die error/strike ? 

It likely is something like that that's the cause but I'm unsure that it would have a positive effect on value, unless certain coins from this mint gained popular collector's status at some point like the Royal Mint sovereign. A known mint error usually makes it onto the slab label as far as I'm aware, it would have to be looked for/recognised by the grader. I may be utterly wrong though.

 

[Stuntman]

It's one of those cases where the grading is correct, but the eye appeal of the coin is not great.  Or indeed awful!

Personally I'd rather have a coin or bar with good eye appeal rather than one that may have fewer technical flaws but more visual flaws.  But I don't have any graded coins and therefore I'm not chasing the 70.

If it was mine, I'd look to return it if I could.

[GoodAsGold]

@Shep hits the nail on the head with the grading definition, but I would be gutted to buy any 70 graded coin and see an obvious flaw on it with the naked eye.

Out of curiosity, is it the classic design Una or the reimagined Una (as per the NGC First Releases slabbed version currently for sale on the Coin Connection website)?

[Gypsy]

On 13/04/2021 at 16:09, Aran said:

I’m new to the forum and just received today this gold proof St. Helena £5 Una and the Lion coin which I bought already slabbed as PF70UC by NGC. I was going to post it on the ‘Today I received...’ thread. However when I received it there appear to be ‘dimples’ or flaws on the obverse mirror fields. The reverse is perfect. Planchet/die faults? Does this affect the value/desirability of the coin? I’d welcome members views and advice.

Iv had this problem before. Bought an expensive coin ,graded 70 and it had black marks around the rim of coin. I sent it back and got a full refund. I would rather not say which company it was from. 

[Aran]

Thank you @Frenchie@Liam84@Stuntman@GoodAsGold@Gypsyfor your comments over the last couple of days. The coin has gone back and I have been refunded by the dealer. Great to ‘meet’ you all on my first post on TSF. Btw it was the 2019 Una from St. Helena, the inscription on the obverse is slightly different on the 2020 and 2021 coins.

[GoodAsGold]

20 hours ago, Aran said:

Btw it was the 2019 Una from St. Helena, the inscription on the obverse is slightly different on the 2020 and 2021 coins.

Thanks Aran. I think St Helena only brought out the classic Una design in 2019 whereas the designs that followed in 2020 and 2021 are a new design. I have the 2019 classic version brought out by Alderney. St Helena used the Roman numerals for 2019 (as did the Royal Mint), but Alderney used the Roman numerals for 1839 (as per the original 1839 reverse). Alderney released 400 pre-graded 2019 golds (389 of them were PCGS PR70) whereas I believe the mintage for the St Helena golds was only 200 coins (but you probably already knew that when you decided to buy the coin).

Although the Alderney government issue their own coinage, they’re actually minted by the Commonwealth Mint and sold through third party coin dealers. Prior to 2017 Alderney’s coins were struck and sold by the Royal Mint.

There was also a 2019 release of Alderney Una which was exclusive to Hattons of London. These are 24 carat gold coins which also bear a VR mintmark. They came in various weights - 5oz, 2.5oz, Quintuple Sov, Double Sov, full Sovereign, Half and Quarter Sov. The mintages were also all over the place with the lowest mintages being 199 coins for the largest 3 sizes. These Hattons of London coins also differ in that they display the year 2019 (not in Roman numerals) on the obverse side below the Queen’s head. On the reverse side (below the Una design) the coin description is worded (£5 Sovereign, £2 Sovereign, etc, etc). The Hattons release is taking liberties with the original £5 which was purely a Quintuple and didn’t come in all sizes such as offered here. They just about rearranged (rehashed) everything else on this release that I’m surprised Una isn’t on one side of the coin and the Lion on the other.

Obviously the most desirable 2019 Una and by far the most expensive on the secondary market is the Royal Mint’s 2oz Gold. Anyway, I thought I’d pass on this info to you, should you decide to try again for another Una some time in the future. Welcome to the forum.        

 

[GoodAsGold]

@Aran If you’re still interested there’s a 2019 St Helena Una PF70 gold available in next week’s Coin Cabinet auction (lot 66). It’s currently sitting on a pre-bid of £3.2K ahead of live bidding next Sunday.

As a rough guide to the St Helena version, the Alderney PCGS PR70 version was fetching a 5 figure sum on its last 5 appearances in their auctions last year. However, it last featured in the 31 Jan auction this year and the winning bidder managed to get one for £9K. As stated in my previous post, the Alderney coin is the only version that stays true to the original design in using 1839 Roman numerals. The reverse doesn’t have any add-ons either, such as the East India Company mintmark or Hattons of London awful coin size description and VR mintmark. 

[Aran]

Hello @GoodAsGold. Thank you for sharing all that information. A very concise and yet comprehensive summary of the Una and the Lion coins. The total mintage for the Helena says 400 on the COA, but 200 in the boxed presentation. So I wonder if the other 200 have been released yet? There is only one other point that I would add, I feel the relief on the Helena is higher than on the Alderney. On an aside, do you know anything about the unaandthelion.com website which is under construction? The full website was due to go live on 18th March, but didn’t.

[GoodAsGold]

Sorry Aran, but the only thing I know about the Una website is what you’ve just told me. It sounds more like a marketing ploy to promote and sell future “Una reimagined” releases. East India Company and St Helena collaborated with a 3 coin set in 2020 and I recall seeing a 2021 design as well, though these new style Una coins don’t interest me.

The classic 1839 Una design has now been done to death by various companies prior to the 3 Graces release, which, in turn has also been released by the usual suspects in different guises. No doubt they will all bring out their own versions of future Great Engravers releases too.

I recall somebody commented on the RM Una having a higher relief than the Alderney version, so it wouldn’t surprise me if you’re correct with the St Helena version too. I can’t compare each version side by side but I have to admit Alderney’s is pretty flat.

As for the St Helena 200 coin mintage in boxed presentation versus 400 maximum mintage, I think I’ve found the answer to that in the link below. Thanks for your comments by the way.

https://www.theeastindiacompany.com/bullion/the-2019-five-sovereign-gold-proof-5-coin-set/  

[Aran]

Thanks @GoodAsGold. That explains the 5 coin set in the latest Numistacker video (about 2 mins into the video). Btw I can’t see any ‘dimples’ or marks on the Una and the Lion in that video (nor are there any on my ungraded example). 
I think you are correct about the relief on the RM releases, I feel the same when I compare the Alderney Silver 3G with the RM 3G side by side.

Enjoy the weekend!

[GoodAsGold]

3 hours ago, Aran said:

I think you are correct about the relief on the RM releases, I feel the same when I compare the Alderney Silver 3G with the RM 3G side by side.

If you can compare them side by side that’s an opinion worth listening to, so thanks for that. 

I’ve got both the 2017 Quintuple proof sov and the MS-DPL (BU) version, so I’ve also been lucky enough to compare 2 beautiful coins side by side.  When comparing the finish on the reverse of both coins they look as good as each other.  One is classified as proof and the other as proof like. The only real difference is that the obverse of the MS-DPL is BU. It’s an excellent and cheaper alternative to the 2 sided proof. The quintuple proof has a mintage of 750 which only appeared in the 5 coin box set. The MS-DPL has a mintage of 1,000 which were all in individual wooden presentation boxes. My PF70 proof was acquired on the secondary market whereas my DPL is still raw.

Have a nice weekend too.