Fenntucky Mike

Either someone goofing around or a chop mark, impossible to say which unless you can figure out the origin of the stamp. Some people collect notes with chops from circulation, nobody pays a premium for them, at least nothing much above face. Supposedly, chops are more common on higher denominated bills which have come back to the U.S. from overseas. There's been talk of individuals putting together a reference for chop marked U.S. bills but they always seem to fall through from a lack of interest and being able to match chops to a source.

On 3/26/2024 at 1:16 PM, Youngmoola said:

They actually switched the ink up with the 2017 A series to differentiate from the 2017 bills. Maybe it's an official trademark who knows..

Purportedly, in 2019 the BEP changed suppliers for some inks and switched to "improved" blends for others. The BEP made a determination that those "production" changes warranted a series change and that is why they went from series 2017 to 2017A. The stamp has nothing to do with the BEP or the actual printing of the note.

On 3/23/2024 at 10:16 AM, ZAR details said:

South Africa left the Commonwealth in 1961 but rejoined in 1994 after the end of Apartheid. Part of the reason for Queen Elizabeth's visit in 1995 was to commemorate this. 

Noted, I stand corrected, even more of a reason that the obv and rev parings should have matched the coinage of that date imo. 

I did some more checking on this piece after my post this morning and it appears that NGC will authenticate these but they have been labeling them as fantasy pieces, I'm not sure if that is still the case though. 

On 3/22/2024 at 8:30 AM, ZAR details said:

Thanks for your comment, in my opinion, those 2 crown-sized coins are most likely medallions, but I don’t think that the sovereign is. I think it is just a commemorative legal tender piece for the following reasons:

1)      It weighs exactly the same as the standard sovereign, and it has the same dimensions. It is also struck in 22-carat gold.

2)      The design on the coin is the same as sovereigns that have been minted in South Africa before (with some minor adjustments on the reverse). Please see the photos below.

 

 

3)      The SA Mint got permission from the Royal Mint to strike the coin. This is the largest indicator for me that this is a legal tender coin, and not a token/fantasy piece.

However, I might still be mistaken.

Someone will have to prove that these were authorized pieces produced with government approval and monetized. Seeking permission from the RM proves little, the SAM could have been looking for permission to replicate the design, who knows, that does not mean that this is a LT coin. The piece having the same weight, dimensions, composition, etc., also has little meaning as "Fantasy" pieces are produced all the time that closely match real coins.

Here is my take on this piece. The Gillick portrait is used on the obverse, this portrait was in use until 1968 and then retired, the reverse is dated 1995 which should have been paired with the Maklouf obv. There is no documentation that any government approved and/or monetized this piece, this most likely would have required that a law be passed or an amendment to existing law. While the sovereign is still LT in England I don't know that it is anywhere else, South Africa ceased being a commonwealth long before this piece was made and I doubt that a sovereign is on the books as being LT in that country or tied to any current denomination. To me this is a fantasy piece/medal, that's not to say that it is not rare or desirable to collectors, it probably is.

On 3/22/2024 at 3:42 AM, ZAR details said:

My question is, is this set (and in particular the sovereign) a recognised rarity overseas?

Sure.

South African coinage has a pretty good following, I'm sure this set is know in those circles. The only issue with the three pieces created for the set is that I don't know that they are considered actual legal tender coins, several places that I've seen this set call them out as medals or fantasy pieces which could make them less attractive to some collectors. 

Pretty dead over there, doesn't seem like they were able to entice people to participate on yet another forum or to drop others in favor of MC. I'll pop in over there once or twice a week to see if there is anything interesting, usually it is bupkis.

I believe Sedwick's specializes in these types of coins, I'm not sure if the prices realized are any better or worse than the other auction houses mentioned though. Your best bet would be to do a little studying and make a determination as to the value of the piece, referencing past auction archives at all of the sites mentioned would probably be sufficient in determining an estimated value. Once you've determined a general sell price you could potentially sell it in a private sale with some effort, if you're not concerned about getting top dollar then listing it with an auction house would be a good option.

https://www.sedwickcoins.com/

On 3/14/2024 at 2:59 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

Is it just me or do these kind of "True Views" look like they don't show any luster ?

The new GC pics look pretty good.  BuffaloHead's pic above also shows shine and luster.

The images from PCGS and NGC that I've viewed lately have been, for the most part, gawd awful. The GC images blow them away imo.

On 3/10/2024 at 10:56 PM, hr1704 said:

I think I will go with Great Collections in the future.

I hear good things about Great Collections, and have picked up several coins from them, but it'll be hard to get top dollar for non U.S. coins there, especially a specialized piece like this. 

Thought that they may have installed one of those gold bar dispensing ATM's like they have over in Dubai and Egypt. 

Better than the one with a snake living in it. I'll post the video in the watercooler, kind of creepy.

On 3/7/2024 at 6:47 PM, Jason Abshier said:

@Fenntucky Mike I wouldn’t be surprised if the bid price went up over $500-$600 ? If I’m close ???…. I do a lot of bidding on auctions as much as I can for coins I want in my collection… It’s no shocker to me when some yuppie with fat pockets who comes by at last minute and bid recklessly high !!! to get a coin that sparkles in their eyes…

Sold for $840 with the BP.

On 3/7/2024 at 6:47 PM, Jason Abshier said:

next you see them trying to flip it on EBay or heritage auctions for much higher price than they got it for sadly it sits there collecting dust … I see it all time , some coins I’ve lost out in auctions to a high bidder a month later see it up for sale on ebay with an outrageous price !!! Nobody buying it … I keep track of cert numbers even on coins I’ve lost see them later on somewhere else up for sale or up for bids again 

I see this all the time as well, a coin I missed out on at auction winds up on ebay and sits there. Sometimes a pigeon strolls along and pays the outrageous price but usually they just sit there for years.

On 3/7/2024 at 1:59 PM, Ty Gemberling said:

Hi everyone!  I have some exciting news!!!  Please see the emails below from WildWinds.  I had reached out to them, and below were their responses.  I am working with Dane on getting pictures to them of just the coin so they can add it to the website.  Pretty Cool!!!  Question is, what's the value now??  (I am not very concerned about the price, but when I do go to sell it, I will hopefully have an idea of what it is worth)

 

"Just found the BMC page with your coin type on it:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_1924-0107-9
It cites RIC IV, 60 but that is only the general type,
listed only as laureate head right.
It also cites "RE5" (which is more commonly known as
BMCRE), vol.V: Pertinax to Elagabalus (113, p.39) but I
don't have that volume, I only have vols. I, II, III,
and VI.
The cited article "Mattingly & Salisbury 1924 / A find
of Roman coins from Plevna in Bulgaria (210-238)" was
in Numismatic Chronicle 1924 and refers to this exact
same BMC coin. In the summary list of Cohen numbers in
that large hoard on p. 212 in that Num. Chronicle, it
has "396 var (bust draped)". Mattingly apparently did
not attach any special significance to this coin, there
is - in contrast to the coins of Philip I & II in the
hoard - neither a detailled description of it, nor an
image of it on the plates.
So it is, as I wrote before, a very rare coin with only
a single other one known. I also checked
CoinArchivesPro with auctions going back to the mid
1990s, but there were none on there.
So now you can share your new knowledge with the NGC
chat board members :-)"  From WildWinds

"The obverse legend is L SEPT SEV PERT AVG IMP V (the
last P has a split seriph like /\ which makes it look
like an X abd the V has a flat bottom), and the reverse
legend is PM TR P III COS II PP which would normally
make it RIC 60; RSC 396, but yours is laureate, draped
and cuirassed (you can see the ||| lines of the cuirass
at his shoulder), so it is BMC 1924,0107.9.
It's odd that the RIC authors did not spot this in the
British Museum. From the BMC number, it was obviously
acquired in 1924 and RIC IV was written 12 years later.
In any case, it's a rare baby."  From WildWinds

Awesome, congrats. 

I have no idea what the value might be for the coin but do have one question for you. How did you come into possession of the coin? Did you cherry pick it, got lucky? Congratulations again. 

On 3/6/2024 at 8:11 PM, Angelo43 said:

I have a date run of these and many raw pieces as I have been collecting these since I was in high school( I'm 69)  Many of them are going to NGC now    Just need one to grade

I'm working on a short run of the circulating coins, '58-'67, in BU blast white and one toned set. I had asperations of acquiring the coin in the OP but fell flat on my face instead.  

Good luck with your submission, feel free to post any of your 500L coins here if you like. 

On 3/5/2024 at 3:13 PM, GoldFinger1969 said:

If you mean the Annual Official Red Book of all coins....it just has some sketchy price estimates for a few grades for all the coins, including the DEs.  There is maybe 1/2 page or so talking about the coin series covering the entire mintage over many years -- basically, nothing. 

The Whitman Red Book on Double Eagles has about 1/2 page on every DE by mint/year....Liberty Head or Saint-Gaudens.....so tons more information.  And the pricing for commons for all those years was based on the gold price at the time of publication which was about $400...doing it NOW for $2,000 would be light-years better even if they don't do a complex and detailed price matrix or analysis like Roger did for his book.

One Interesting Thing: In the bio for Bowers page, it says that an expanded version of the book with much more detailed historical and numismatic information (sans prices) will be available to professionals, researchers, numismatists, etc.  I don't know if anything ever came of that but it sounds like all the stuff Bowers and Whitman cut out but which I think would have been -- and might still be -- of interest to Double Eagle collectors.

Yep, I was talking about the Annual Official Red Book. 

A 2nd edition of the DE book sounds more warranted and interesting than a 6th edition of the 100 greatest U.S. coins, not sure that it will have a wide enough audience though to justify publishing a 2nd edition. 

On 3/5/2024 at 1:18 AM, GoldFinger1969 said:

I'm biased, but I really want to see the Whitman Red Book on Double Eagles get a 2nd Edition -- the first was way back in 2004.  This book has information year-by-year on both the Liberty Head DE and Saint-Gaudens DE series.  I don't know of another good Liberty Head book (the other Liberty Head DE book by Bowers isn't really an annual review of that year's coins but an annual financial/economic/cultural review).  So much has happened in 20 years that the commentary sections and the data/price/certification totals could really use an update.

Isn't most of that covered and updated yearly in the Official Red Book? I think that another edition would only be justified if there were major additions or amendments that needed to happen, the yearly price, data, and small blurbs can be covered by the Official Red Book. Same goes for the 100 greatest U.S. coins, if you're barely going to change the list why bother? 

Have you tried searching wildwinds? 

https://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/septimius_severus/i.html

I was just reading Garrett's latest NGC article and in it he writes about putting together a 6th edition of the 100 Greatest U.S. Coins book to be released in the fall and I can't help but wonder is there really a demand for a sixth edition?

In the article he lists the coins in the 4th & 5th editions and it only looks like there are a handful that were not in one edition when compared to the other, the order in which they were ranked is different but little else, are collectors clamoring for another edition of the same coins?

He also laments the possible inclusion of condition rarities in the next edition, would U.S. collectors like to see condition rarities take the place of some of the coins currently in the 5th edition?

Will a new edition boost sales enough to justify publishing it?

Will Garrett change up the current format enough to make it interesting to people who already have an earlier edition?

What changes would you like to see made and included in the 6th edition? 

Is there another book that would have wide collector appeal that should be published instead of this?

These are just a few questions that popped in my head while reading the article and was curious what others thought. 

Link to the article. https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/12698/ 

On 3/3/2024 at 12:03 PM, zadok said:

...true, a significant premium n as u suspect the toning was a major contributor...but this coin is also very difficult to find with unblemished fields, the wide open spaces usually show every little mark, this is an exceptional example..

Yes, but they are out there. I'd say the pre '68 coins are difficultish to find in acceptable condition, the supply is starting to dry up though. The mint set coins are readily available for the most part.

On 3/3/2024 at 12:03 PM, zadok said:

..plus there has been an increased interest in early 20th century italian coins lately....

I know and it's killing me.