Help Required for 1927 Half Crowns

[ozjohn]

Two half crowns I have collected over the years. Both have good obverses with the King's ear intact. The reverse however shows wear/poor strike on the to the top of the shield lions and Scottish lion. An opinion on this wear  as against poor strike would be welcome. Again an opinion on the grade of these coins would be appreciated 

[Peckris 2]

I would say poor strike, as the lettering on the garter is perfect, and that's among the first areas to wear.

Difficult to grade without seeing in hand, but I would say the second one is AUNC.

 

[ozjohn]

1 hour ago, Peckris 2 said:

I would say poor strike, as the lettering on the garter is perfect, and that's among the first areas to wear.

Difficult to grade without seeing in hand, but I would say the second one is AUNC.

 

Thanks for the comments I wasn't sure as wear and poor strike are hard to distinguish sometimes as i was thinking of upgrading.

[Sword]

I agree with Peckris that the loss of details is virtually all due to weak striking. Otherwise, wear would be very obvious in other areas like the garter letterings. And with these 0.50 silver points, areas of wear would show discolouration. If there is still lustre on the top of the shield area, then it's another indication that it is weak striking.

You can still try to upgrade to specimens that are fully struck!

[ozjohn]

8 hours ago, Sword said:

I agree with Peckris that the loss of details is virtually all due to weak striking. Otherwise, wear would be very obvious in other areas like the garter letterings. And with these 0.50 silver points, areas of wear would show discolouration. If there is still lustre on the top of the shield area, then it's another indication that it is weak striking.

You can still try to upgrade to specimens that are fully struck!

Ive been looking for a long time but even some very expensive MS 64 examples still showed  signs of poor strike / wear.

[ozjohn]

Had a look on Ebay uk listing for 1927 half crowns as suspected most of the better grade of the first shield examples were fairly expensive. What was surprising was the amount of proofs of the new design were listed with only 15k minted for the sets as against 6.8 Million minted  for general issue.  Again with the 1927 proof florin the Coin King had  three proofs for sale while GB Classic Coins had two. Is there something about 1927 proof coins that makes them unpopular?

[wlewisiii]

Interesting. I don't know why about the half crowns.

I did just order a proof 1927 florin (only available in proof that year) and an UNC 1927 Wreath Crown from The Coin King so I'm eagerly awaiting them. 

[Sword]

15 hours ago, ozjohn said:

Had a look on Ebay uk listing for 1927 half crowns as suspected most of the better grade of the first shield examples were fairly expensive. What was surprising was the amount of proofs of the new design were listed with only 15k minted for the sets as against 6.8 Million minted  for general issue.  Again with the 1927 proof florin the Coin King had  three proofs for sale while GB Classic Coins had two. Is there something about 1927 proof coins that makes them unpopular?

I don't think 1927 proof coins are unloved, I just think that a mintage of 15k for a proof coin is not low, and comfortably satisfies the demand of people who wants one. In addition the series also has a large number of circulating coins at UNC giving anyone an opportunity to get a type example.

The 1887 proof crown on the other hand has a mintage of only about 1k (and there are far fewer circulating UNC examples).