Britcoin

Update is that I have now obtained the 1999 "Millennium Crown" entire set. Boring National Hero series but possibly rare?? Only sets missing are the 1997 and 2002 - the later may not exist, and the former is only known from a picture in a bulletin. If any readers know anything of these two sets, I would be interested in pictures or stories to share. Maybe Krause will add the missing dates in sets. I still have been unable to confirm whether the "mintage authorised" had anything necessarily to do with how many were actually released and sold - in other words, net number released to public and not melted or recalled or lost for whatever reason. What is the real mintage of some of these. My experience is that not all dates are equally accessible even when mintage limits or authorization is identical.

Looked at the images again. Well, pre-decimal is my specialty but would have to reject the pound as counterfeit despite the weight. Border beading/denticle devices are offset compared to rest of coin, mushy overall strike. Edge terrible quality and not just misstruck type terrible. As for the other, I doubt much value but you could always try our favourite internet venue....Guess I have to be careful what I say.

OK, there is rumored by correspondance to be a 1997 Jamaica World Wildlife (Fund?) Commemorative crown in probably the 25 Dollar denomination that may be in a proof set of that year and possibly issued by itself. Has anybody further information on this coin, or possibly it or the set for sale? BTW, source stated that it was pictured as part of a set in a 1997 Royal Mint Collector's Bulletin. <<snip>>

The first with quite a bit of wear; I think I would vote for machine doubling. Please don't get too excited on the second pound coin as these have been extensively counterfeited, often with wrong date/design combos. Pictures need improvement however as well. I would weigh the second and see if it is in spec. I would try for better pictures as well, but think it likely spurious. Royal Mint is also a possibility but they are notoriously slow and unhelpful these days...

Except that if you saw coins like in the 'Millennium Collection' you would see that with a big enough consignor they DEFINATELY let some hairlines go in some circumstances.... Also, hairlines are visible to me as well and even more glaringly under 30x power.... Subjective is what I'm saying...

Yes, I want to show a Matte61 1951 halfcrown that looks definately as good as the recently sold 66. Crazy, beautiful coin with NO hairlines or rub under magnification, no rim or edge defects and very nice muted lustre with no toning issues. I would really like to hear the grader on it. I will add another disillusioning bit: a friend submitted a 1905 halfcrown to PCGS and it came back "58" despite it being one of the very nicest I had seen. I wrote a letter along with the resubmit before that was an official option and it came back "63". That was probably fair, but even a 4 might have been appropriate. I think the point behind this is that their grading is very subjective. Can you imagine submitting a modern US and trying to fathom how they pick between a 69 and a 70? Sometimes you can find a pinpoint lustre break and other times not, be it the 69 or 70 (usually a bit less frequent on the latter, but I have definately seen 70 pieces by BOTH services that are problematic). And people pay huge premiums for these differences as well! I really would hate to see the repeat at 70 grade for resubmissions.

I am going to give posting pictures a try Monday, but in my opinion they have trouble telling a 60 from a 66 (okay maybe 63 from 66). I would include the 1902 issues in silver and gold right on through the satin 1965 Churchill. This is a pet gripe of mine, but have seen coins high and low in my esteem and think the consignor is able to "pull" grades. The1902 Edward VII 5 sovereigns is one where rub and original hairlines are allowed on some and not on others. This is also true of the crown of that year where some very fancy prices have been based IMO on the TPG grade as opposed to appearance (this same phenomenon seems to occur with non-matte coins of this year and also the Victoria 1893 coins as well so not just an isolated occurance with the mattes IMO) Also, the non-standard very rare patterns and other coins are just not predictable. As readers will know, it is generally thought that Royal Mint workers gave coins a swipe with their apron or towel to "improve" appearance. I would say this could be written off as a personal bias but have mini-experimented and have submitted one coin that came back 60 and then resubmitted came back 63. Also, I have seen several "61" graded specimens that had NO hairlines or rub that I would have given a "64" or 5 to. The recent Goldberg sale had a pretty fair number of 1937-1953 matte coins and virtually all were 65 or 6. These absolutely were no better than the 63 graded ex-Norweb specimens of 1937 that were sold about two years ago; the latter had been submitted and NOT designated as such for evidently a not well-connected consignor and likely cost him or her. One that I have personally is the 1965 Churchill in satin specimen - PCGS graded it 65, and I would challenge the viewer to find anything to mark it down from a 67. That one I will try to find a picture but is up on the PCGS site, don't have the cert. number at the moment. The point for me is that this is one area that is so very subjective for them that it appears to defy logic, and that buyers should beware. I would be interested to hear what others think.

Left the set at the office, along with the 1991 and 1996 but will post on Monday hopefully. Always fun to get a coin or set not previously known or documented!

Hi all, I have the 1998 set in hand am glad to have it. The crown is an ugly bit though - the soccer commem for the 1998 championship in France....

OK, not going to give you a blow-by-blow, but the Brit coins contain no rarities. A bit of silver value - to give you an idea there is .1818 oz silver in an uncirculated British half crown (0.500 for the years 1920-1946), and the other coins are fractions of that so get your calculator. I can not tell what you mean about the 1939 in your description. Most of the others are relatively common, but you really need to check out the back side of the 1916 dime - is it a mercury dime or a barber dime? Is there a "D" mintmark if it is a mercury on the bottom to the left of the fasces?

Update: evidently the 1998 set is known and will confirm this with the coin type as I am able.

I have another question related to these sets. The Royal Mint after 1985 (mintage 1000 sets) says something to the effect of "500 authorized". Now how many were actually struck, how many released? They are a bit tricky and I know (and have purchased) sets from Bank of Jamaica that were nearly 20 years old - and they denied knowledge of how they got there or how many they had or what years they had. Yikes! Does anybody know the answer? They also struck sets for countries such as Cayman islands where the 1984-88 mintages were quite low. Not sure if the reported mintages of 200-318 are accurate either, at least as to final AVAILABLE number sets.

Franklin Mint stopped them in 1984 year, and then the Royal Mint took over. They have not responded to my requests for information.

Confirmed, beaded. The toothed are rev. 1927. I think you can get a specimen set, unique in private hands that has a Specimen64 1922 rev. 1927 (two known in specimen) on Heritage for 60,000 USD!

Do any readers have further information? I have tracked these and managed to find the following dates: 1985 1987 1988 1989 1990 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 - was on ebay, and did not win 2000 2001 I have not found the 1991 or 2002 listed in Krause, the 1996 there was no record of until about two months ago one sold on ebay. By repute a collector in South Africa has the 1991 which I have not seen. Are there any other dates? Kind of fun chasing them, but they certainly are NOT attractive, what with boring portraits of National heroes on the lesser bits and VERY ugly renditions on the larger crown. I suspect there are not a lot of currency bits being produced now that the Jamaican dollar has essentially fallen in the toilet for value (I believe about 200/US 1 Dollar).