youliveyoulean

the tpgs are a rigged market. you will never get consistency and so you just cannot compare lcgs and ngc or pcgs. sometimes one will be more accurate or in line with what you would expect than another. the cynic in me would observe the bigger players in the market almost certainly get more favourable outcomes with slabbing. i've sent coins in for cross-overs between all of them (without disclosing it to the tpgs in question) and you get all sorts of weird and wonderful outcomes. grading really should be quite straightforward when you have a population of say 20 of the same coin and you need to rank them in order based on your own criteria!

Sorry for the slow response. Yes, the reverse proof only has a mintage of 500 coins. Why the Royal Mint has decided to offer these to US collectors first via APMEX I'm not sure. As azda mentions, they get dibs on a lot of coins due to their access to the huge US market. I guess RM are trying to push more demand and market awareness for the Britannia range over there as that's where the money is...

Hi all, could any one help me with what the coin in the attached photos is? Weighs approx 6.67g and diameter is approx 23mm. I believe it is Isle of Man. Thanks.

VS, I've also just received an unsatisfactory response from a Freedom of Information request to the Royal Mint concerning mintages. They have confirmed their website lists total sales less returns and not actual mintage figures. For some reason, they have not disclosed the actual mintage figures to me. I will keep trying!

Interesting topic, one I often ponder. If you go by how attractive a coin is to look at, then the market is doing exactly as expected and switching to modern proofs with superior minting techniques. Rarity of a coin tends to make it more attractive to most (a bit like art) and unfortunately most people have no idea how scarce most coins are. Finally, bigger coins such as crowns tend to be more popular as you can view them easily with the naked eye and have some appreciation of the condition.

Thanks for replying Ian. I'm pretty sure you can get verdigris on silver coins (perhaps there's just a technicality with the name which could be a different type of chemical reaction to that of copper?) - the grading companies certainly reject silver coins for verdigris or some kind of corrosion of green appearance.

Hi all, I've often wondered with a few of my slabbed silver coins which have the tiniest pin prick of verdigris, will this likely spread at any point and to what extent? Love to hear other thoughts on this...

Thanks Nick. Do you know of any silver proof decimal coinage with similar mintages?

Hi there. No, as you suggest, the mintage figures are indeed the mintage figures! I said the 'released' mintage figures and I am referring to those found on their website which may or may not be the 'exact' figures

Thanks Paddy however I do not wish to buy the book. I am currently in dialogue with the Royal Mint concerning their released mintage figures - which I dispute. I'm just posting here to see if anyone is aware of any silver coins with a lower 'maximum coin mintage'.

Hi, I noticed recently the 2016 Britannia reverse proof silver £2 has a maximum coin mintage of just 500 and it got me thinking - is this the rarest silver proof coin released by the royal mint? Thanks