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ozjohn

1920S Halfcrowns

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I recorded the distribution of listings on ebay for 1920s halfcrowns on 25/3 as follows:

Date Number Listed Mintage

1920 110 17,983,077

1921 64 23,677,889

1922 51 16,396,744

1923 110 26,308,526

1924 27 5,866274

1925 86 1,413,461

1926 20 4,473,516

1927 43 6,852,872

Conventional wisdom would suggest that 1925 should have the lowest number of listings but in fact it was the second highest with 1923 tying with 1920 for that honor. The lowest numbers of listings fell to 1924 and 1926. I think 1920 has been skewed as it includes words like pre 1920 and 1926 contains ME listings. From this small sample it would seem that1924 and 1926 exist in smaller numbers than the favored 1925 halfcrown.. As the Royal Mint mintage figures only record the number of coins released not the number with a certain date it is impossible to say what the true mintages was for the various dates but I have to say I have tried this exercise in the past several times with similar results. Also the listings for 1927 include a couple of proofs from the new coinage set issued that year. Again there is only supposed to be 15000 of these but there is always a few listed on ebay at any one time with a price of about GBP 100 which is a remarkably low price for a coin with only 15000 examples from the sets issued that year. Another question is how many pre 1920 halfcrowns were waiting to be issued in the stocks held by the Royal Mint when the silver content was reduced from ,925 to .500 and were issued during the early 1920s or were they all melted and reminted food for thought?

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You find that with a lot of the key dates, John. Much more people fished 1925s out of circulation than did 1924s, because of the awareness of key dates on the run up to decimalisation, so although there may be plenty of 1925s listed on eBay, they'll all be duffers!

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Yes, as Declan has mentioned, this is the way with most identified collectables.

To offer another example, a large number of Elizabeth I coins, numbering around 3000, were studied for research purposes and for the compilation of a book (BCW). In the book they provide numbers for each type of coin studied. So, moving on, we've all read on here about the 1599 anchor sixpence being a rare mark and date, yet BCW studied 16 of them in their research collection, which is better represented than say a 1573 Eglantine, or any of the Scallops, plus many, many, more.

The key thing is, known rarities tend to get identified by collectors and non collectors alike, and are subsequently kept back over the years, giving the illusion that they are more common than they really are!

The mintage for the Anchor with 3 dates (try and find the other two!) is around 200,000, the Eglantine 6.5 million (over 5 dates)! Quite a difference.

Good post though John, and welcome aboard! :)

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I recorded the distribution of listings on ebay for 1920s halfcrowns on 25/3 as follows:

Date Number Listed Mintage

1920 110 17,983,077

1921 64 23,677,889

1922 51 16,396,744

1923 110 26,308,526

1924 27 5,866274

1925 86 1,413,461

1926 20 4,473,516

1927 43 6,852,872

Conventional wisdom would suggest that 1925 should have the lowest number of listings but in fact it was the second highest with 1923 tying with 1920 for that honor. The lowest numbers of listings fell to 1924 and 1926. I think 1920 has been skewed as it includes words like pre 1920 and 1926 contains ME listings. From this small sample it would seem that1924 and 1926 exist in smaller numbers than the favored 1925 halfcrown.. As the Royal Mint mintage figures only record the number of coins released not the number with a certain date it is impossible to say what the true mintages was for the various dates but I have to say I have tried this exercise in the past several times with similar results. Also the listings for 1927 include a couple of proofs from the new coinage set issued that year. Again there is only supposed to be 15000 of these but there is always a few listed on ebay at any one time with a price of about GBP 100 which is a remarkably low price for a coin with only 15000 examples from the sets issued that year. Another question is how many pre 1920 halfcrowns were waiting to be issued in the stocks held by the Royal Mint when the silver content was reduced from ,925 to .500 and were issued during the early 1920s or were they all melted and reminted food for thought?

You find that with a lot of the key dates, John. Much more people fished 1925s out of circulation than did 1924s, because of the awareness of key dates on the run up to decimalisation, so although there may be plenty of 1925s listed on eBay, they'll all be duffers!

Yes, what Declan says re. the 1925s.

As for the other points:

1921 is quite a scarce date (comparatively) but you wouldn't think so from the mintage figures. It's my bet that some of that figure includes halfcrowns minted in 1921 with a date of 1920.

It is not likely that the RM held much of a stock of pre-1920 coins - the big era of inflation was WW1 when you see a massive increase in the mintage of silver : from an average of 3 million a year 1911-13, to an average of 24 million a year 1914-18. That reduces to 10 mill for 1919 so you could see that demand was falling and the RM was already planning ahead for the silver reduction. The large mintages for 1920-23 simply reflect the withdrawal of .925 silver coins which needed to be replaced; there wasn't a huge demand for new issues. This can be seen from the big reduction in mintage 1924-26 when that job was done.

Actually, the Mint only had a limited success in withdrawing .925 silver coins - the public, knowing that silver coins were being debased, hung on to their solid silver coins in quite large quantities. Which is why you see so much silver dated 1914-1919 around now, in an average of GVF condition.

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Thanks for your comments they are largely in line with what I thought and it's good to have them confirmed. I certainly think 1924 and 1926 are rarer than the mintage figures suggest and the chances of getting a well struck example of these dates even less so. I had a couple of 1924 halfcrowns that I acquired over the years which I thought were GF to VF but when I looked at the book on grading coins by Rotographics I realized they were of a higher grade but light strikes. It seems that the reverse is best place start grading these coins then turning to the obverse to judge its condition there. to grade the coin correctly.

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Thanks for your comments they are largely in line with what I thought and it's good to have them confirmed. I certainly think 1924 and 1926 are rarer than the mintage figures suggest and the chances of getting a well struck example of these dates even less so. I had a couple of 1924 halfcrowns that I acquired over the years which I thought were GF to VF but when I looked at the book on grading coins by Rotographics I realized they were of a higher grade but light strikes. It seems that the reverse is best place start grading these coins then turning to the obverse to judge its condition there. to grade the coin correctly.

Yeah - I bought a BU 1924 from Colin Cooke in the 90s, but it had even lighter hair detail than normal. I queried his selling price (£33!) and was told they were shooting up in price and very hard to get in that grade. I decided to keep it.. V glad I did :D

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