lordmarcovan

Oh, sorry about the discrepancy on the second link- I wasn’t paying close enough attention. As to the Numista plate coin having an “E” between the date and the cross, that’s the mintmark. Your coin may lack any mintmark. Note that further down the page in that Numista listing, it mentions that there were 1643 coins without mintmarks, which would account for its lack on yours. It’s likely the same type, just a non-mintmarked one, unlike the illustrated example.

PS- the weight sounds within tolerance? And for €10, it was not a bad buy at all. PPS- let me also say that I’m envious of how you live in an area so rich in history. Here in my area, the oldest surviving historical structures are at the Fort Frederica National Monument: a colonial British town from the 1730s. That’s what passes for “old” around here.

I’m not qualified to judge, here. The definition of the date numerals (the way they stand out on the surface) looks a little odd to me, though the style of the numerals themselves looks OK. Other than that, I see no obvious red flags that are apparent to me. Maybe the coin was cleaned/wiped at some point, which is why the date numerals look strange to me? Don’t know. That could be all it is- or it could mean nothing at all. As mentioned, I’m not qualified to say. Let’s just say it looks 90-95% convincing to my (semi-uneducated) eye. 😉

More beautiful gold for some dead bugs, eh? 😉 I heartily approve. Say, speaking of butterflies, do you have any of the modern gold coins with butterflies on them?

I’ve got a pretty nice Lafayette dollar. It’s not an MS65, but a pretty respectable MS63. According to the PCGS priceguide, it’s an $1,850 coin in that grade. I happily paid $1,275 for it.

Re. the gold posted by @Bonshaw and @expat - I must agree. NCLT gold is a fun way to hold some of the precious metal, and is often more appealing than straight bullion coins. Especially when the NCLT are proofs. i have a half-ounce Canadian $100 like @expat posted, though I went with the 1977 rather than the 1979. You see, right after I started collecting as a young lad in 1976, the 1977 Queen’s Silver Jubilee $100 pieces were advertised in Coins magazine. Still in middle school at the time, I had no prayer of ever owning one, but I was tantalized by the lovely bouquet on the reverse. So decades later, I finally added one to my collection. The “Bermuda Triangle” $60 piece is also fun, and contains slightly more than an ounce of gold. The 2020 British Mayflower piece was a worthy addition for me, as I am a Mayflower descendant. It is a one-ounce coin. I find it interesting that the Brits struck a commemorative coin for the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage, while the United States apparently didn’t! (Basketball Hall of Fame, but not the Mayflower? Really?)

My stance on NCLT coins is: if I like it, I buy it. While they’re often unlikely to be a great investment (except maybe when there’s precious metal bullion involved), they CAN be aesthetically pleasing. Some countries also issue NCLT with interesting gimmicks. For example, one that resembles a Coca-Cola bottlecap, or is colorized, or oddly shaped, or with a superhero on it, whatever. A lot of these “gimmick” coins are supremely tacky, but there have been a few I thought were cool. It’s mostly a matter of personal preference. For example, the coin that currently represents China in my collection is an NCLT issue with gilt enamel peaches on it… and bats! Seems a strange combination, but I believe that has something to do with longevity, which was the theme for this issue. I thought it was handsome, and not too tacky. So I bought it. 🙂

Here’s the Numista page, if that helps. I guess some 1643 pieces were struck without a mintmark. This appears to be one such. https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces52949.html And here’s one on eBay, simply by way of comparison. It’s a bit rough, like the coin shown above. In my (very limited) experience with copper double-tournois coins of this era, that’s often the case. https://www.ebay.com/itm/194950002727?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=8RaXV-BJQ6i&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

This recent purchase is my first Young Head Victoria sovereign and also my first Shield type sovereign. It also fulfills another item I’ve been wanting: a piece of gold with a shipwreck pedigree. The nice thing about gold is that it can survive seawater immersion for centuries without corrosion, so this coin has a straight Mint State grade with no “shipwreck effect” qualifiers. The coin was struck at the Sydney mint in 1877 and was part of the cargo of the British Royal Mail steamship Douro, which sank in a nighttime collision with the Spanish ship Yrurac Bat off Cape Finisterre near the Spanish and Portuguese coast, on the evening of April 1, 1882. All of Duoro’s passengers and 32 of her crew were saved, but the captain and five of his officers- and the ship’s treasure of gold coins and bullion- sank with Douro in 1,500 feet of water. 53 people aboard the Spanish ship also perished when it too sank. The wreck was found in 1993 and salvage operations were completed by 1996. There were some 28,000 gold coins brought up from the Douro wreck. Most were gold sovereigns, but there were also some rare Brazilian and Portuguese coins. I find shipwreck coins fascinating. I guess there’s the natural appeal of a historical gold coin here, but also some touches of romance, tragedy, and adventure. To me, it would have been a lovely enough coin anyway, but the added history behind the shipwreck pedigree made it irresistible, so I threw caution to the wind and did what I had to do to beat the competition and win the auction. https://www.pcgs.com/cert/49106726

BTW, I have completed the Twelve Caesars set now, and the last two additions (Julius Caesar and Vitellius) have finally arrived from Europe. I bought a fancy wooden case for ‘em, and now all that’s left to do is to submit the last four raw coins to NGC. Once that’s done, I’ll try to do a proper celebratory post and maybe make a YouTube video about the collection, eventually.

No- I did not know that- I have no knack for such research. (And am quite impressed by those of you who do.) Thank you!

Edit- aha. I see the good news was already posted above, so never mind this.

Bought some gold and silver- mostly just bullion stuff- today. That big sideways stack are hockey-puck-sized 10-ounce Australian 2011 Kookaburra coins.

Father-in-law Don has the right idea for a hot July day.

This is what happens any time someone is in our kitchen and unwraps anything with a crinkly cellophane wrapper.