Mr T

Good luck. I haven't been able to find mintage figures for non-UK coins let alone something like the trial of the Pyx results. Some government library might have them. Further to what Rob has said, I remember reading that the selection of coins is now entirely automated, so if they're all tested together at the end of the year say, then the discovery would be made too late to do anything. I wouldn't be surprised if the testing it mostly automated too.

As Declan says Above, G5 was a coinie which i'm sure those at the mint knew, so you'd think they'd be on the ball when minting a new or variant of coinage considering the crap they had been pushing out in the earlier years of his reign True but I don't think it's that noticeable - I didn't give it a second glance until it was mentioned here, and I was looking at the coin at twice normal size. Maybe it was made to get the new portrait rather than the new reverse approved - the old portrait had been giving the mint grief for some time so I can understand them wanting to get the new design approved as soon as possible, so maybe they cut corners. Anyway, hopefully Mr Freeman can shed some light on the matter.

Although as I think about this, maybe this specific coin was struck for royal approval or something like that and the mint (probably rightly) thought that a coin that appeared to have been minted two years ago might not convey the most professional appearance to the King.

I was under the impression die production was somewhat expensive so if it's only a test, why not reuse an existing die? But then again, why bother redoing the date if it's just a test.

Thanks for doing the hard work and counting the beads!

I've bought a few sovereigns from this guy before: http://www.drakesterling.com/coins-for-sale He seems to have branched out into coins that aren't sovereigns in recent times but I think the bulk of his stock is sovereigns and he seems to know them well. International postage may be a bit annoying though.

Is S-4054A the book reference or something else? And any provenance? Does Michael know who the owner of the coin is? btw...I can't see that the index finger is any shorter than the regular coin. Is there another identifier? Coppers just posted a helpful link but I was going to say the trident points at a bead on reverse C but between beads on reverse B.

I always got the impression that sovereigns were bank vault coins and half sovereigns were commerce coins. Maybe I read it somewhere, maybe not, but the amount of good condition sovereigns compared to half sovereigns seems to agree with that.

Buy from somewhere with a good reputation for selling sovereigns - there are fakes out there that are quite passable and when you buy from someone on ebay who's never handled a sovereign in their life it can be a real gamble. No idea if it's the right thing to invest in though, but I think in the main that a sovereign's value is highly related to the price of gold.

Sorry - not from the UK so I don't know what the best option is there, but I usually go for a dealer's junk box at a coin show (no postage!). It depends what you're looking for but I do okay looking for low value circulated Commonwealth stuff. If the dealer is lazy you can find some half decent stuff too (VF-EF early 20th century, UNC late 20th century). There will almost certainly be no rare dates of any value but a rare variety isn't out of the question.

Maybe, though my assumption would be no as the Sydney Mint opened in 1855 with the purpose of producing sovereigns and half sovereigns. Presumably any 1854 half sovereigns would have been made late in the year and with a three month trip to Australia at worst they would have arrived a few months before the Sydney Mint started production. Still, New Zealand or South Africa might have had use for them, and I think British gold circulated in India too, so there are a lot possibilities.

Yes it's not great is it. Turned up some interesting contemporary coverage of Una and the Lion (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?assetId=1469654001&objectId=3545742&partId=1) and the new coinage of 1893 (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?assetId=1469654001&objectId=3545742&partId=1) which were interesting though). VickySilver what were the prices for the listings you could find? Were they what you'd expect for something so rare?

Ha! I can understand that! I suppose the point I was trying to make is that when it comes to the more spectacular errors (i.e. not just a die crack, die fill, cud etc) they're not overly common in Australia as there's just less coin production. Our local coin magazine has a regular column of errors though which tend to focus heavily on dies cracks, cuds and the like, and this coverage translates to ebay as you have found out - everyone is trying to wring a few extra dollars out of some pretty insignificant (and common) errors.

Errors aren't my cup of tea - trying to complete a set of coins is difficult enough without getting into errors. Regarding the price of UK errors - it seems to be they aren't popular which keeps the prices low, but I get the impression that they're more common than say, Australian errors because the Royal Mint has (and has had since the beginning probably) a greater overall output of coins.

Sorry to drag this up without a concrete answer but it seems there have been a few major sovereign collections sell in the last few years - I don't suppose any of them had corresponding half sovereign collections? Have you tried asking the Royal Mint or British Museum if they have any examples too? Not sure whether either collection is complete enough for their answer to give any closure but it can't hurt to ask.

There seem to be a few on ebay at the moment: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Great-Britain-1835-Three-Halfpence-Coin-TONED-EF-/151364021965?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item233dffaecd http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ANTIQUE-1835-WILLIAM-IV-SILVER-THREE-HALFPENCE-ONE-AND-A-HALF-PENCE-COIN-/181799476952?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2a5417ded8

I did some reading and it appears that 99% of florins and 95% of shillings dated 1920 to 1936 were officially returned and destroyed, so I guess that explains that.

It seems that they aren't that rare - I've seen two or three for sale on ebay Australia in the last year or so I think. All 1911 rupees are pig rupees, so called because the elephant hanging on George V's robes has a snout-like trunk. The design is more elephant-like for all coins dated 1912 and later.

The 'mule' 1923 that is referred to is Davies 1752 isn't it?

Too true. The mints generally make the even modern rarities in enough numbers to satisfy their markets. I think the real potential is in the unintentional coins/mistakes like the undated 20p but even then they need to be reasonably rare to start with.

Or at least I would add images if I could do more than two at a time or actually edit my post...

Yes, doesn't Commonwealth stuff get any love? Any, some nice pictures courtesy of Museum Victora: http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/itemimages/512/119/512119_large.jpg http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/itemimages/512/117/512117_large.jpg http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/itemimages/511/508/511508_large.jpg http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/itemimages/511/506/511506_large.jpg http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/itemimages/512/143/512143_large.jpg http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/itemimages/512/141/512141_large.jpg

Just curious if there are any other British West African collectors out there, how you're going with it and what you're using as a reference. I've chosen only to worry about threepences, sixpences, shillings and two shillings - I have a few but not many: there doesn't always seem to be a lot for sale and it's uncommon to come across anything from between 1920 and 1936. I've been using Remick's book on Commonwealth coins but it says there are perhaps still undiscovered dates out there. David Vice's book is more comprehensive I'm sure but it seems a little more difficult to get a hold of.

I suppose the war medals had a different enough reverse design to not cause many issues, and the portrait at least seems a little smaller than that used on currency. As a little aside, someone took advantage of this in Australia a few decades ago and had some uninscribed British war medals engraved with the names of some noteworthy Australian soldiers: they sold them at auction but ended up in quite a bit of trouble when they were found out.

The sizes of the designs probably contributed too: As for why it took so long to fix, well it wasn't for lack of trying, but I guess the Royal Mint was pretty busy with other things too - they had to step up production during World War I and they were making a lot more than just British coins too.