ColonialCoinsUK

I was interested in a coin at a recent auction with an estimate of 600-800 which I thought was a little low and wouldn't have been surprised at 1200 - it went for 3500! It was a top pop but was the 2nd most common issue of the series to find in uncirculated condition, I will wait for an ungraded example to appear.

I think top pop coins are attracting bids that really can't be justified - often 5 to 10x just one grade lower - sometimes I think that the coin doesn't warrant the grade at all and people are buying the label. I am more than happy with a grade below 'top pop' as long as the coin is nice

Hope everyone is OK, moderns and multi-holder wasn't me!

Nice photos, I think the angled shots are much better at showing lustre and clean fields etc, this doesn't really show up on the 'head on' pictures. Also why people love gold.  I really need a proper camera!

On 9/1/2021 at 11:55 PM, coinsandmedals said:

Hi Mike, it is nice to see you posting here again. I'm sorry to hear about your recent health issues. You seem to have a good outlook, and it's nice to see that numismatics can remain an important part of your life. I know next to nothing about Napoleonic medals, so I am excited to learn as you share your knowledge with us. Please let us know how the local auction turns out! 

Thankyou - managed to get to look at the lots today - even though I have no hope in ever owning one I got to see a gold 5 guinea and it always amazes me how heavy they are!

Saw this and thought you may be interested - from the catalogue, I tried taking a photo but it was much darker than the listing.

Thankyou both for your kind comments, unfortunately the condition is progressive, with no cure* although I plan to do everything I can to limit its impact for as long as possible. Coins, medals and their associated stories provide a welcome break with the added bonus that we have a local coin auction coming up for the first time in several years so I will spend a few pleasant hours actually going through some real coins before deciding what to bid on!

* As a scientist who works in translational drug discovery that challenge is now No1 on the 'to do list' 

@coinsbygary thankyou for your comments,  although I prefer paper copies of things I do have a number of catalogues/books etc that are now PDF downloads which is great as that is cheaper and takes up much less space!

I am aware of the NNP, and have some coins with the Newman pedigree, although it seems to have a US focus which is understandable, although it sounds like I need to check it more regularly if they are updating things as articles on individual Napoleonic medals etc have appeared in various periodicals which are always an interesting read and often contain information not available elsewhere.

Great coins, as my username is based on my interest in British Colonial issues the history of the EIC is fascinating.

Quality British colonial prices have been going up for a while and are now silly, banknotes are even worse. Top grade Napoleonic coinage is the same - I missed out on a coin recently that I was prepared to break the bank for at £3K which was a bit above current catalogue prices (even put some lots into auction to help cover it) and it went for over £10K I wonder who bought it and why?

I am currently looking at some of my low grade sets to see if it is possible to put a series of good examples together for less then £500 per coin - probably means no gold and no crowns and needs to be a short set. It may have to be a 'on paper' set

Very nice coins! Collecting LMU coins is very popular and plenty of designs are available - you can get a lot of them for not much more than bullion however some are really quite rare, some of the Albania issues seem to be key targets.

http://www.rene-finn.de/lmugold.html

The list is not strictly LMU but the specification is the same. Then there are all the silver and copper issues too and a full set of gold coins of the German States is probably even more of a challenge!

I have only one item with the three graces - a medal depicting Pauline, one of Napoleon's sisters - a bit of a party animal by all accounts!

So sorry to hear what has happened, we have been following it on the news here in the UK.

A friend here was flooded out (we tend to get floods rather than burst pipes although we had -13oC/9oF a few weeks ago) and they had to move out for 6 months as it took that long to dry the place out - cool and damp here in the north of the UK so hopefully when the weather returns to normal it will not take that long in Texas!

My wife has decided that, as her parents now have solar and all the utilites bills have just gone up, moving our off-grid plans forward is now a good idea.

Although unlikely, part of me hoped to see a rapid rise to >$50 as I could have sold my bullion silver for a very good profit and released funds for more numismatic items  - it would have generated plenty of space too!

Babylon 5

There are some fantastic custom sets demonstrating real knowledge of specialist areas in world and ancient coins - something I can only aspire to.

Some of them haven't been updated for a while which is a shame as they are impressive, this means they are not on the first page but you have go through the whole list looking for them!!

There are lots of varieties, both known and those yet to be discovered, which I find an interesting challenge, for example the known 1820 inverted 1 sixpence in the pic is still the only one graded by NGC so it was nice that it received a MS64 grade when I submitted it - NGC deemed it 'non-competitive' so it scored zero points though

13 hours ago, coinsandmedals said:

I like your sixpence! I have bid on a few of them over the years, but I haven't successfully obtained one yet. 

There is an interesting story about Droz and his move to London. As it turns out, he brought an entourage with him, which no doubt further inflamed the already suspicious Royal Mint officials. Long story short, Droz was carrying a secret new contraption in his luggage, which was used to apply a lettered edge to coins. It was this new technology that initially caught the attention of Boulton and soon became a selling point in his attempts to secure a coinage contract from the government. Droz's move brought a lot of skepticism, and his luggage was subsequently seized by customs officials and later inspected by Royal Mint officials. From the contemporary correspondence, it appears Boulton nearly had a full panic attack over the entire situation. Luckily the Royal Mint officials overlooked the gadget, and his luggage was eventually returned. At the time, his contraption was of the utmost importance. Ultimately it played little role in the Soho mint's happenings, mostly because Droz was too despondent to do the work he was already paid to do. 

That's interesting as Droz made a number of modifications at the Paris mint and some of the French coins have a lettered edge - I wonder which came first??

The only British coin by Droz I have is a pattern sixpence from 1790.

Many of the top engravers seem to have moved around Europe quite freely despite the wars going on!

Very interesting, particularly as the recoinage of 1816 happened at the end of the Napoleonic period. This period in France appears to lack the small denominations with only a single issue (1808BB) of the 5 centimes being in copper so I assumed there was plenty of the earlier small denomination coinage still available - I could easily be wrong as there doesn't seem to be much of that about either and certainly not in high grade.

There are many other things I would like to collect however I have enough trouble just collecting coins - does auction catalogues count??!

Many congratulations!

You have a much better choice of gifts - our 5th 'wood' anniversary was a pile of planks for a new fence

Beautiful coins and you have a very impressive collection - even more so given the quality of the coins. I have had a long standing interest in Irish coins & history although as I started as a sixpence collector this tends to be silver (free state) rather than copper/bronze - the one exception is this token from 1846 as this appears to have been issued by my family which is a bit odd as most of the family is from around Cork!

I have spent the last year or so trying not to buy certain banknotes issued in Northern Ireland.

Congratulations on your Best in Category Awards, particularly as they are US coinage - maybe you should consider a move to the dark side that is world coins as there is no ANA or anything like that to worry about

I recommend a trip to Italy as I have visited Rome and northern Italy for work reasons many times (do not try and drive in Rome though) although holidays tend to be in the south around Naples - we usually stay in the hills surrounding Sorrento and it has absolutely nothing to do with my interest in the coins of Napoleonic Italy or the relationship of the area to the French and Spanish, they still seem very fond of these periods of their history. You will need to resist the urge to start collecting ancients and this becomes much more difficult following trips to Pompei, the islands etc - the kids like running up and down Vesuvius although several times in one day is more than enough.

Wishing you all the best - take care.

I hope you are all able to get some sleep in the hospital, I could never sleep in a chair and everyone couldn't wait to be back in their own beds!

I spent the weekend looking through things but no joy - that may be because I got distracted by some old auction catalogues and spent time going through those instead

Congratulations - it is things like this when the kids realise mum/dad does actually have some idea what they are talking about!

Best wishes to you and your family, little ones are much tougher than parents give them credit for!

Take care.

Congratulations on your new coin as mintages may not always be a guide to rarity.

I just picked up a 1814M 15 soldi for my Napoleon collection and this has a mintage of just 371 however the 1809M issue is much rarer even though the reported mintage is much higher at 14,858.

I suppose the 1809M got a lot of use as it was struck early on and the 1814M coins were saved as Napoleon's empire was in collapse at the time.