TIL - Silver Brits were previously supplied in sheets

[MBTPSilver]

I recently purchased some older Brits to add to my stack and was interested to learn these used to be supplied in vacuum sheets. I believe this is still done for gold Half Brits today.

On the downside you can't open them up like you could a coin in the capsule. But on the plus side for 10 year old coins they look fantastic! I haven't inspected all ten coins yet, but there's no sign of tarnish, milk spotting or even any marks.

This method of packing presumably is much easier to protect the coin, particularly while in transit where the current tube system just leaves them rubbing up against each other. No chance of them switching back I suppose, but I was interested to learn something new all the same!

[TeaTime]

Whilst the Britannia was manufactured in .958 silver the standard of the coins was brilliant uncirculated (they were still sold as bullion) and dealers would get them individually sealed (at least the dealers i used did). To maximise profits the RM changed the manufacturing process with the switch to .999 and, somehow, managed to con people into accepting the new bullion coin definition (zero quality control as opposed to metal content) that is common today.

The BU Britannias now sold by the RM are of the same quality as the old 'bullion' coins of yesterday - but sold with a hefty premium. 😕

I suppose the .958 coins were more for collectors than stackers...

 

[MBTPSilver]

12 hours ago, TeaTime said:

Whilst the Britannia was manufactured in .958 silver the standard of the coins was brilliant uncirculated (they were still sold as bullion) and dealers would get them individually sealed (at least the dealers i used did). To maximise profits the RM changed the manufacturing process with the switch to .999 and, somehow, managed to con people into accepting the new bullion coin definition (zero quality control as opposed to metal content) that is common today.

The BU Britannias now sold by the RM are of the same quality as the old 'bullion' coins of yesterday - but sold with a hefty premium. 😕

I suppose the .958 coins were more for collectors than stackers...

 

These would be 999 though I believe. 2013 was the first year they switched to pure silver I think, so an interesting crossover perhaps where they're pure Brits but on the older manufacturing process.

[Shinus73]

24 minutes ago, MBTPSilver said:

These would be 999 though I believe. 2013 was the first year they switched to pure silver I think, so an interesting crossover perhaps where they're pure Brits but on the older manufacturing process.

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.

Edited March 25, 2023 by Shinus73

[Pete]

I bought several sheets when they minted the 2013 Britannia.
Definitely not vacuum sealed and just pressed together.
Awful packaging.

[TeaTime]

Have just remembered that a friend of mine who previously collected the Britannias stopped at this time. The reason - he was miffed that they changed the size of the coins and the .999s didn't fit in his custom made holders. 😵 The change in quality was a big deal at the time and the RM tried to blame it on the use of .999 silver over .958 (stating it was softer and damaged more easily). The reality was the manufacturing process changed to accommodate higher production runs rather than the silver content. Britannias are now treated as circulating coins by the Mint... but priced as collector coins. 

[Pete]

When the Royal Mint issued its first runs of this coin in these flimsy sheets it was almost impossible to obtain a coin that didn't have lots of abrasions on Lizzie's cheek.
I bought around 100 coins and might have seen 2 that were acceptable.
Some regular coin dealers on eBay were even adding a disclaimer in their description warning of significant abrasions - think of ice hockey at the goalie.
Really shocking quality and compounded when many people ( lemmings copy & paste ) blamed the scuffs as rubbing inside the tube.
Ha - total bollocks when you have each coin in its own cell in a flimsy plastic sheet.
The scuffs were attributed to a hopper feed that was causing severe abrasions.
Later in the year the quality improved, meaning acceptable, but not necessarily scratch free.
The mirror polish highlighted all imperfections.