jgenn

By the end of the 19th Century, so many countries had issued silver world crowns that I generally need to focus on selecting just one example per country for my custom set, that I have playfully named "My World Crown Affair". Chief among my criteria is that the coin was minted in the country. If not locally minted, then a design element should be strongly representative of the country. Quite a few examples of coins issued for colonies lack any flavor of the local culture and thus fail to interest me. An additional selection preference is that when issued, the country was independent. This last criteria can be a serious constraint for countries that issued silver crowns during brief periods of independence. The country that we commonly refer to as Vietnam has had many official and unofficial names. In the early 19th Century the independent empire of the Nguyen dynasty was called "Nam Viet", "Viet Nam" and "Dai Nam". Increasing French influence undermined the empire's independence and after 1845 the name "Annam" was used for the French protectorate followed by "French Indochina" when the French consolidated their rule in 1887. I have seen catalog descriptions of coins issued during the period of independence listed as coins of Annam. While it may be convenient for a catalog to broadly group issues together under one name I consider this, at best, misinformed; at worst, downright disrespectful. Dragon Dollars or Silver Dragons are names for the Asian silver dollar sized coins issued in China and Japan at the end of the 19th Century in emulation of the Spanish Colonial and Mexican 8 reales that were the dominant trade coin. But the first of these silver coins with a prominent dragon design was actually issued by Emperor Minh Mang of Viet Nam. The earliest of these are undated and the first dated coins show the number 13 indicating the regnal year, 1832. The specific denomination that corresponds to the 8 reales trade standard is the 7 tien, weighing almost 27 grams. The casting of coins in East and Southeast Asia had been established since ancient times and some opinions that you may find on the internet claim that the silver issues of Minh Mang and subsequent rulers were also cast. Fortunately, there are more informed resources to consult. The Standard Catalog of World Coins lists these as milled as do many of the top auction house catalogs. And a few of the finest examples are encapsulated in mint state grades by TPGs indicating that the coin surfaces still exhibit the luster that occurs from the metal flow when a planchet is struck. If you examine enough good photos of these you can notice some instances where the planchet was not perfectly centered -- a feature of a coin struck in a open collar press. My example is from the 14 regnal year, 1833, shown in Chinese characters beneath the dragon, the obverse shows the characters for Minh Mang and Thong Bao (general currency). It exhibits circulation wear and environmental damage in addition to the holes where it was likely used as a garment adornment. Having examined many 8 reales of the contemporary time I am comfortable with the assessment that this is a milled/struck coin just from the appearance of the surfaces. Devices are sharply defined, there could be a die crack and there may be a bit of toning shadow that is sometimes seen next to a device but always toward the rim where the stress from metal flow alters the way the surface forms its patina. Ultimately, the examination of the edge provides the necessary proof. My photos of the edge clearly show that the coin was run through a single die edging mill (a parallel edging mill would show a second gap opposite the one gap in the oblique reeding) and you can see from the uneven profile that the coin was probably edged after it was struck (otherwise the flat surfaces of the coin press would have provided a more even profile). Both the dentils on the rims and edge designs were features added to milled coins to make them harder to counterfeit and to clearly show if any slivers had been shaved off. Of course, my example may be atypical or even a counterfeit. However, it was purchased through the Stephen Album auction house and came with a provenance. It's just unfortunate that you never get to see the edge of coins unless you can examine an unencapsulated example in-hand. I should add that the Standard Catalog of World Coins notes that there is a variety of presentation pieces without milled edges. *I apologize for omitting diacritics but you just can't be sure everyone's browser can display them properly. ~jack

What a coincidence to have another journal post related to Gustav III of Sweden. Thank you for an immensely informative article! ~jack

Back before streaming became so popular, one of my local cable channels would broadcast a great selection of international television content in the original language with English subtitles. My favorites were the detective shows such as Inspector Montalbano, Commissario Brunetti, Blood of the Vine (aka the Wine Detective), Beck and Wallander, all set in contemporary time, and the period shows Nicolas Le Floch and Anno 1790. I highly recommend all of these, which can be streamed from various services in addition to the novels that many of these were based on. I found the show Anno 1790 to be particularly fascinating because the time period matches that of many of the coins that I have chosen to collect. In this series, which is unfortunately limited to one season of 10 episodes, the viewer gets to experience a bit of late 18th Century Sweden through the eyes of a police commissioner of Stockholm. Sweden, like many European counties at this time, experienced a shifting balance of political power between monarch and parliament. The ideas and ambitions that led to the French Revolution in 1789 were present here as well. King Gustav III, reigned from 1771 to 1792 and died in a politically motivated assassination. Needless to say, acquiring a nice silver crown of Sweden of the date 1790 was a collecting goal that I finally achieved earlier this year. ~jack

It's been some time since I last posted to my journal. I have lots of new coins to share but I will start with one that is connected to two of my older posts. Since I have been fortunate to maintain my income close to that at the beginning of the pandemic, I have taken advantage of the surge in interesting coins appearing at auction this year. I won't speculate as to why the numismatic areas that I follow have experienced a bountiful supply, as there are many likely reasons, but I have answered with my demand. The featured coin of this post is a lovely 1560 Mansfeld thaler that I acquired this Spring. What makes it noteworthy is that it replaces the Mansfeld thaler that I sold to a fellow collector that specializes in that region. I do not regret that sale and the collector responded with a wonderfully detailed write up on the Mansfeld region and the House of Mansfeld and their coinage in the 16th and 17th century. Although my replacement coin is of the same date and mint (Eisleben) it is a different variety (DAV-9481, according to the NGC label). However, it is extraordinarily well struck for a hammered coin of the 16th century. ~jack

No, you don't want too much egalitarianism in coin collecting as in the example of Antonin Prokop. (I would have preferred to link to my source but that does not appear to be on the internet anymore)

"But she's the real MS70" Aww, how sweet!

Welcome to the Journals. Those of us that have been here before had to adjust to a rather jarring change that the new format brought about. Best wishes on documenting your passion here.

I started a bit later than you both, also a renewal of a childhood hobby. It's never too late to re-discover a wonderful passion.

I have to say that I believed, based on past award winners, that our host only recognized sets with lots of high grade and/or top pop coins. However, last year I won one of the 10 Best Classic Set awards (for my Spanish Colonial Mexico City 8 reales pillar dollars, no less) and this time it was the Best World Custom Set, yet these sets have almost no MS level coins and many "details" graded ones. It is gratifying to see that some sets can win awards based on the vision of the collector's goal rather than technical standards.

The only quirk to this is that the "View Coin" button is not available for the "Want" coins on your main set listing page. However, the photo button will take you to the individual coin page. Fortunately, the gallery view will show these slots with photos and notes.

My raw coin in custom set example: https://coins.www.collectors-society.com/WCM/CoinView.aspx?sc=684092

When you add a coin to a custom set you can select "Want" instead of "Own" and fill that new slot with images and notes for your raw coin. I plan to do that for several new crowns that I've picked up but haven't yet sent in for certification.

Setting competition aside, the registry format allows individuals, assuming there are accompanying photos and notes, to virtually publish a catalog of their collection to share with others. Some examples in the registry are quite scarce, such that you may not see one come to auction very often, if ever, depending on your collecting attention span.

All I can contribute are these pictures

The 80% concept works in the other direction too. The least valuable 20% of the collection will be the hardest to sell for anything like what it cost to acquire. Please consider just donating those to a coin club with young numismatists.

Yowza! The top set, representing the angled setup, I think, are astounding!

In February of 1797, ongoing war and the threat of invasion from the French Republic triggered a run on the Bank of England. To meet the demand for silver coinage, in March, the Bank was authorized to release foreign currency from its silver reserves, almost entirely Spanish 8 reales. These emergency issues were countermarked at the Royal Mint with a small oval stamp with the bust of King George III -- a stamp that had been in use for hallmarking silver plate. One of my earliest journal posts featured an example of this type. The dollars had a fixed value of 4 shillings and 9 pence but as the price of silver dropped counterfeiters began passing 8 reales with false stamps and eventually forced the recall of these issues in the Fall of 1797. In 1803, renewed war once again affected silver circulation and countermarked 8 reales were issued in January of 1804 using an octagonal stamp of the king's head. False stamps quickly followed and forced the recall of the issues by June of 1804. Clearly a method that would be hard to counterfeit was needed. Fortunately, for the Bank of England, the Soho Foundry of Matthew Boulton and James Watt had been established with Boulton's newly invented steam powered screw press. In May of 1804 the foundry was commissioned to use a previously designed dollar pattern to fully overstrike the 8 reales. These issues were much harder to counterfeit and proved to be so successful that they were issued from 1804 to 1811, although all show the 1804 date, and were not removed from circulation until 1816. The power of the steam driven press typically obliterated the host coin's details, but occasionally you will see one that still shows some underlying details and that's what attracted me to my example. This one, a new purchase from Heritage Auctions, is a raw example so I took the opportunity to examine it in detail. Curiously, a section of the host coin is thinner -- where CAROLUS is visible under George's bust and ET IND shows on the reverse. I can make out a date of 180? but I can't see a mintmark. Of interest is the edge which still shows much of the alternating rectangle and circle design albeit oddly curving from top to bottom. Now the funny part. This coin only weights 25.67 grams and compared to a full weight 8 reales at 27.0674 grams, even with loss to circulation, it seemed too low. That plus the uneven thickness and the wandering edge design made me suspicious. So I measured the thickness (averaged over four spots) and diameter and calculated its volume. After converting the volume from cubic mm to cubic cm you can divide the weight by volume to get the specific gravity. A 90% silver/10% copper coin has a specific gravity of 10.3 but mine is 9.5 which means there could only be about 40% silver content. Assuming that the overstrike is genuine (I have to trust Heritage on that) this appears to be a contemporary counterfeit 8 reales host coin ("contemporary" meaning that it circulated at the same time as genuine issues) . Now, I'm not at all disappointed to discover this -- I think it's a much more interesting coin this way. 8 reales have been heavily counterfeited over time and the problem remains between distinguishing contemporary ones, later ones made for trade with China and modern forgeries. With the overstrike occurring in the 1804-1811 time-frame, this one falls into the contemporary counterfeit category (a collectable category on its own). ~jack edits for typos and clarity.