Coin collecting by tales or themes
This is a guest post by one of our collectors. He has collected a wide range of different coins, across different themes and designs. He shares his thoughts on how to collect.
With the greatest respect to Eric, and in particular his News Wire article about collecting the gold sovereign, I think there is a far better way of collecting sovereigns other than by numbers, if only to avoid the reality that certain sets can’t be completed on a budget: Indeed, having bought most of the South African, Great Britain and Canada sovereign sets, I was frustrated to find that I either couldn’t find or afford the 1923-SA, 1924-SA, 1917 London, or the 1916-C sovereigns. Completely frustrated, I sold most of my colonial set in order to focus on a collection that I was happy with. So I came up with the following alternatives that are both cost effective and are easy to collect.
“Just forget the year and type!” my numismatic friend exclaimed, “and go for the “hair.” What on earth has “hair” got to do with my coin collecting, I wondered? My numismatic friend produced some coins from his collection and laid these before me with the obverse side facing up: There, before me, were a George III 1817 sovereign, an 1821 George IV Laureate Head sovereign, an 1826 Bare Head sovereign, and a George II 1745 Lima guinea. “Collecting Queen Victoria sovereigns is a complete nightmare,” my numismatic friend added. “Who’s interested in so many boring die numbers and types, most of which are adorned with Pistrucci’s St George slaying the dragon? Yawn!” He then laid before me an 1870 Sydney Mint sovereign graded PCGS MS62+. The hair is plaited to the side and crowned with a wreath of native banksia and is quite breathtaking, as is Queen Victoria’s hair bound with a double fillet and collected into a knot. I compared these wonderfully engraved and coiffed hair designs with my collection of balding Edward VII, George V, and George VI sovereigns and, with the exception of George V’s beard, I was quite disappointed. A short back and sides certainly didn’t compare with those wonderful hair styles engraved so expertly years ago!
Collecting sovereigns by the lusciousness of and detailing in the monarch’s hair is a unique way of approaching the hobby.
“Helmsman stand to… steer hard to port and ring up flank speed!” But sadly the orders of the officer of the watch were too late. The steamship “Yrurac Bat” ploughed into the RMS Duoro off Cape Finisterre at 10:50 pm on April 1st 1982, and sank within 30 minutes taking over 28,000 gold and silver coins to the bottom. Just over 113 years later these coins, mainly sovereigns, were recovered by Nigel Pickford and Sverker Hallstrom. The wreck of RMS Duoro makes compelling reading as does the recovery of the coins. No collection is complete without having one of these salvaged coins in a pedigreed collection. Equally famous pedigrees include the Samaszko’s Carson City Hoard, Louis E Eliasberg, Sr Collection, Pittman Collection, Terner Collection, Cheshire Collection, Reserve Bank of Australia, and Quartermaster Collection, to name a few. Any pedigree coin adds hugely to the interest of a collection and over time their rarity will add to the value of the coin itself.
If you collect by coin pedigrees, you’ll have a collection of many different types of coins, designs, and grades. A collection of pedigreed coins could be very interesting.
”Show me The gold!” exclaimed Auda Abu Tayeh in sheer desperation, as he rifled through a chest full of paper money in Aqaba. Lawrence had promised him payment in gold if they captured Aqaba, but discovered only chests of paper currency. At the time, Lawrence was fighting in the Ottoman Empire’s provinces of Hejaz and Greater Syria. Britain went off the gold standard and a large majority of sovereigns went into the melting pot, thus creating rarities. The huge debt owed to the USA at the end of the First World War was settled by Britain in both gold bars and sovereigns. For a time, the gold sovereigns were stored at Fort Knox but eventually all of these were melted down into gold bars. The sovereign, the very thing so desperately wanted by Auda Abu Tayeh, soon vanished like sand hills in a desert storm, and so would the world it financed. Due to the ravages of war and the Great Depression of the 1930s, gold coins disappeared as an everyday medium of exchange. Many of the sovereign coins came from the new mints set up at Ottawa, Pretoria, Bombay, Perth, Melbourne and Sydney as well as London. By far the easiest and most cost effective way of collecting sovereigns minted at these mints is to collect, say, British Commonwealth Sovereigns of George V. Finding and collecting Commonwealth Sovereigns is exciting and intriguing, and high grade coins are easily found. The source of the gold used to mint the sovereigns came from such places as the Klondike in Canada, South Africa’s Hoëveld, the Australian gold fields in New South Wales and Victoria, and later Western Australia.
Collecting coins by mintmarks will take you all over the world.
“Don’t forget her majesty!” Not interested in balding kings, or the repetitive coin types and die numbers of Queen Victoria? Then salvation is at hand in the form of Elizabeth II sovereign reverse designs, which are both captivating and affordable, even in high grades such as PR68 to PR70. These include the 1989 Sovereign with the Tudor Rose reverse, the 2002 sovereign special shield reverse, the 2005 sovereign redesign reverse, the 2012 sovereign diamond jubilee reverse, and the popular 2017 Pistrucci sovereign, celebrating 200th Anniversary of the design of St George and the Dragon. Of the regular issues, don’t forget the 2014 Proof Sovereign the lowest mintage of all modern sovereign Proof coins. They are like hen’s teeth!
Collecting sovereigns of Queen Elizabeth II is an affordable alternative to collecting by other ways.
Happy collecting and remember the higher the grade the better and stay safe with graded coins by PCGS and NGC.