Denmark 1947 10 Ore

[Peter]

I have this coin in VF+.

When sweeping through Krause a while back I noticed it was quite rare ($125+ and probably a key date.)

It does nothing for me.

Any Danish collectors out there who can tell me why it is so rare...the mintage figures are not the lowest of the series?

[Chris Perkins]

I haven't looked, but knowing Krause they probably got the decimal point in the wrong place!

I have the same thing with a Panama coin, but it has to be an error, no one would pay $125+ for a VF 10 Ore, would they?

[Geoff T]

As an intelligent guess, 1947 was the year in which Frederik IX succeeded Christian X, which might have produced a limited run of C X coins.

G

[mint_mark]

It is probably the same situation as the British mintage figures... the figure shows how many coins were issued that year, not how many were minted bearing that date.

So, 1946 10 øre says 460000 and $8.50 unc whereas 1947 says 1292000 and $220 unc. 1948 was the new design for the new king. If most of the 1947 issued coins were minted the previous year that explains why the 1946 price is low... at some point in 1947 they ran out of 1946s to issue so they started minting 1947s, presumably expecting to use them into 1948.

The king must have died before they made many, or near the end of the year. They knew they would have a new design for 1948 so they stopped making 1947s and maybe even destroyed the unissued stock that had been made.

That explains why 1947s are scarcer then the figure suggests... and the high price shows that they must be very scarce indeed!