✨ Are Shieldback Sovereigns more desirable? Is there a demand?

[Panda6Pack]

Just wondering if the Shieldback Sovereigns are worth the extra money? And on that note - what is a good selling amount? 

I know nothing about Shieldbacks  

Thanks. 

[modofantasma]

There are some listed on here by @shawy2510 at the moment. 

There are many people who buy them, very appealing in nice condition. Some hardcore stackers don't care much for them and wouldn't pay the extra but some would

For those more interested in the collector side there's a range of dates and mintmarks and varying degrees of rarity to go at 

[SeverinDigsSovereigns]

I totally agree with @modofantasma above. The general stacker probably wouldn't care about the shield design and condition in general. But there are plenty of collector type people looking for high grade examples and rare year/variety ones. For example 1855 is quite common, and a stacker will probably pay £400 for a worn 1855. But if you have an MS63 1855 in hand I could see people paying £1000+ if not more

Not to mention the FID DEE and Ansell/827 etc those will be desirable regardless of grade

Edit: of course St. G&D ones in higher grades are also desirable, essentially the ones before 1914 because all would have been circulated. It's fairly easy, on the other hand, to find UNC Gillicks and Machins. I've struggled to find 1903-1905 sovereigns in UNC condition that come at reasonable prices.

Edited November 14, 2023 by SeverinDigsSovereigns

[Orpster]

As a hard-core stacker of all Victoria Young Heads I will pay a premium for shields.

My target price on a decent bullion coin of at least gF would be upto 5% on G&D and upto 15% on shields.  This goes up depending on condition, rarity and for me variants.  For insurance purposes because I have had a lot of my coins for a long time and they have been bought at a wide range of premiums I try to simplify it by having a spread sheet that applies a % premium to current spot for each coin, that way I only need to update the spot price and the values are worked out for me.  Right now for G&D I only apply a 3% premium for commons unless they are gVF or better going up to 15% on rare years or very desirable variants.  Shields I value at 15% still (so £427 right now) for commons going up to 33% on rares (so £494 right now).  It is not an exact science and other coins I have I would value much higher, for example the below is both a rare year and in very nice grade and I would value it above what my spread sheet would say it was worth

 

[SidS]

Shield sovereigns are really the only sovereigns that interest me. I was always happy to pay extra for it not to be St George.

[shawy2510]

I much prefer shields & yes I agree with Orpster they are roughly £425-£430 area. I have some available at £422 if interested & also Young Heads at £390 in decent condtion too. Its just a great design compared to George/Edward etc.

[Silverlocks]

There was some hype about shields, and the market has settled on a premium of about 10-15% over spot vs more like 5% for G&D designs.  To some extent, I think the distinction is arbitrary, as there were a lot of shields manufactured - every sovereign minted in London between 1825-1871 was a shield.  Shields are not rare, although as they were circulated coins, examples in good condition are less common.

I will buy shields if a nice one comes up at a price where I'm confident I could recover it if I went to sell the coin.  Generally I try to be a bit picky about condition as there are lots of optimists flogging poor quality shields at rather inflated prices, and presumably a population of mugs willing to buy them.  Therefore, it does pay to have a handle on the numismatics if you want to go buying them.

As the market has already settled on a premium price for shields, there's no point in buying shields for their own sake - at least not if you're expecting to make a profit on them.  However, if a nice example comes up at a decent price, they can be worth buying.  My rule of thumb is that anything less than VF or gVF is probably best avoided.

19th Century sovs are a big old rabbit hole to go down, as there were loads of things like different numbered dies, variants where somebody had overstruck the dates on the die or used the wrong character for impressing the legend on the coin (A's and V's, for example).  Some of these will also pick up some value for rarity, although I've deliberately avoided chasing rare variants (although I wouldn't be unhappy if such an item were to come into my possession organically).

Edited November 14, 2023 by Silverlocks