ColonialCoinsUK

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!

Well it has been a while since I actually bought a coin and 2020 turned out to be the first year in a long time that I didn’t pick up multiple lots at the major European auctions over the autumn. I should say this was not from a lack of trying, it is just that I was outbid on the lots I was interested in – sometimes quite spectacularly – so I was delighted when I picked up a 1809 20 Lire from the Milan mint of Napoleonic Italy in AU58 (although the mintage is 52,640 there are only 27 coins graded at NGC for this date and my coin is tied with one other at this grade with only a single coin finer at MS62). Just to complicate things there are two known varieties for the 1809 issue which, like 1808, these differ in the stars on the reverse. For the 1808 varieties there are 3 or 6 stars on either side of the standard whereas the 1809 coins both have 3 stars in the design however it is the star below the crown which is now different and this has either 5-points or 6-points. In some examples the 6-point star looks very much like one 5-point star on top of another and these two interpretations exist in the reference books. Corpus Nummorum Italicorum (1913), Pagani (1965), Krause and NGC do not differentiate between these varieties. Gadoury (2019) and PCGS highlight 5-pointed (4@XF45 and 2@AU53) and 6-pointed stars (one each at XF45, AU53 and MS62) whereas Montenegro (2020) describes the second variety as a 5-pointed star over another. Gigante (2021) highlights a total of four varieties, which are a combination of the normal 5-pointed star and one with extra points on the reverse coupled with two obverse dies depending on the position of the M mintmark relative to the 0 in the date, with this latter difference being known for the later dates. I find coins endlessly fascinating however it is such details which means that the search is never over and it looks like I need to find at least 3 more varieties for 1809M!

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

There are a few extremely impressive lots which are in my area of interest and which I have only seen in reference books. I doubt I will be able fill the gaps in my own collection as I expect the estimates will mean they are worth more than my house, I did mention options to deal with this to my wife but she didn't say anything and just looked at me - I am going to take that as a 'no'

Short version – do all the things I still haven’t done from 2020, 2019, 2018 etc Longer version – I bought less coins in 2020 than I have done for many years, and this is not because of the current environment we all find ourselves in, but that the higher grade coins in my collecting areas, even the minors, seem increasingly scarce and have rapidly moved beyond by budget making completing sets effectively impossible. At least partial acceptance of this fact prompted some specific research into ancients and banknotes, two areas I have always been interested in and still follow, and the situation is very similar – quality examples are very expensive, even more so than coins. Financially it looks like I should have concentrated on banknotes of the British colonies rather than their coins! So where does that leave things? It is no doubt apparent that I have an interest in varieties, this coupled with the rapid improvement in photography of auction lots, has made identifying such things much easier which is great – and even negates the need to buy the actual coin which is a bonus when you can’t afford them. Documenting this level of detail may not always be possible within the standard references, which makes rarity etc somewhat difficult to establish, and it would be useful to have such information available. This Journal would be a good place for me to start, and evolve, such a study for the series I am familiar with as committing to paper, albeit electronic, often highlights gaps in the information available which my memory just doesn’t do any more, so it was a nice surprise to receive another Journal Award from NGC. This was particularly appreciated as friends and family would probably describe me as more of a practical person and allergic to paperwork. I do hope to continue adding to my collection however a shift in focus from date-runs means that Custom Sets will be more appropriate although the current possibilities for these still have plenty of empty slots before they are coherent enough to be added to the Registry. I hope everyone makes progress on their goals for 2021 be it coins or anything else (apparently my wife thinks the kitchen needs painting etc etc).

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

The auction catalogue for 1927 for Prince d'Essling's collection on the coins & medals of the 1st Empire Napoleon I to Napoleon III - bought from an auction of numismatic literature. This gives the Essling/Ess/E numbers used for Napoleonic Medals. The other references used for these are Bramsen (1907 which is actually an attempt to list these) and Julius (1932 which again is an auction catalogue of a private collection) which are the main ones but auction houses vary in terms of which and how many references they cite. As there are 1000's of Napoleonic medals none of these are complete and don't cover any of the restrikes which the Paris mint produced at various points - 1840's, post 1880, 1920's and 1970's. My retirement project was to write the first proper reference book however enough collectors/auction houses have asked me so I have now started this - 20 year clock to publication is now ticking ! (Using auction house pics as there is no way of buying examples of them all and almost any examples in silver are way beyond my budget and the gold ones can be worth more than my house)

I seem to have 100's of auction catalogs - just highlights which coins I should have bought years ago - i.e. not the ones I did I have just bought another one from 1927 which gets cited alot in current auctions (will probably not actually get it until the end of February though) and lost out on another one from 1959 which went for >5x estimate

Congratulations to all the winners - some amazing coins and sets, it just makes you want to collect everything! This year my contribution has been a bit intermittent, and not as regular as I hoped, so another Journal Award from NGC was an extremely nice surprise. As @Star City Homer said 'real life' probably got in the way for most of us this year - personnaly everything seems to take much longer done remotely so it was good to get back to work as my day job really needs specialist facilities. Major post-COVID complications didn't help either so I won't be running anywhere for a while - not that anyone would notice the difference.

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.

A week or so ago I thought a recently completed set would form the basis for a Journal entry given the interesting range of denominations, metals and mints. The basic set is made up of 12 coins and my set is currently comprised of ungraded coins and coins in both NGC and PCGS holders and as such is a long way from being suitable for the NGC Registry. It is a good start though as it does include some key dates in top grades. However, whilst assembling the coins for a 'group photo' I found that I was missing one and I can't find it anywhere From memory (which is now highly suspect) this was an ungraded coin which are so much easier to misplace than ones in a slab. Just in case I can't find it, and now having an increased need to complete the set, I looked at the current auction listings where there are less than a dozen for sale, all common dates and in low grade/damaged or part of bulk lots, although one appearing in January is a bit better. Graded populations total ~60 for all years across both NGC and PCGS and these do not appear for sale very often so a fresh coin seems to be the only option - I just can't bring myself to bid on coins in 'fine' anymore so it looks like finally completing the set may be a little while yet.

As I have mentioned my original goal in coin collecting was to assemble all the die numbers for the British sixpences from 1864 to 1879 which resulted in many other collectors questioning my sanity as there are about 600. So many years ago, having nearly acheived this goal which the acquisition of 100's of different die numbers my focus shifted to colonial coins and the Napoleonic period yet I have never quite shaken the die number challenge and always check auction listings although I have usually resisted the urge to bid. A few weeks ago I failed to control this impulse and submitted bids for two graded sixpences, both of which would be upgrades from the examples I already had in my collection. As this sale was not live I was not tempted to just increase my bids until I secured them and as a result only one of my bids was successful. I am now the pround owner of a 1865 sixpence with die number 18 in MS63 which is an improvement on my original VF example. I am sure I am not the only one who 'reverts to type' although unrecorded overdates in my more recent collecting areas is probably the start of another slippery slope.