Somehow this coin got rotated almost 180 degrees in its holder.

I put in some strong bids but was not able to win any coins in several world coin auctions this Fall. For the 8 reales collector, it was a special time because quite a few ultra rare varieties were on the block. A 1733/2-MXF in VF-35 sold for $18,800 in Baltimore and a 1778 MoMF in XF sold for over 14000 euros in Barcelona.

Last month I was able to take Friday off and visit the Baltimore Show. I enjoyed the dealers room and got some opinions on a few of my ungraded 8 reales. None of the dealers I approached were very interested in the coins that I brought to sell and I didn't find any that I really needed to add to my collection.

What I did accomplish was to submit two coins to NGC for re-holdering. One coin I knew was going to be handled for free because the label was wrong. That was the Thaler that I bought at the previous Baltimore Show. The holder was terribly scratched so I really wanted the new holder more than the label correction.

My other coin somehow got rotated almost 180 degrees in its holder. I bought it that way so it was nothing that I did to it. It wasn't loose in the insert and I tried to get it to shift by tapping the case with no luck. Fortunately, the NGC representative accepted it as a free re-holder, too. So the 'fix' is to take it to a show and get NGC to agree to re-holder it for free. The return postage was paid by NGC.

The coin in question is a 1758 Écu minted in Bordeaux, France. It's part of my growing world silver crown collection. At the time it was minted, France was embroiled in the Seven Years' War, fought in Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines. In the US we call it the French and Indian War. It had a huge impact in North America when it concluded in 1763 -- France was forced to cede all of its North American territory East of the Mississippi to Great Britain and Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain as well. A few years later the nascent United States of America would claim all of this British territory south of the Great Lakes for its own. In 1803 Napoleon sold the rest of the French Territories to the US with the Louisiana Purchase, ending French colonialism in North America.

~jack

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