The Elusive 1854 Half Sovereign - Has Anybody Ever seen The Royal Mint

[jacinbox]

I agree with Dave. With gold you will definitely find one in a jewelers vault somewhere in Philippines,Mexico or anywhere else in the world

Gold is value in itself and so many people just hogged gold without looking at dates etc.

Given this scenario one is bound to turn up sometime or the other

[Mr T]

The mint almost certainly doesn't have one as there is only an 1853 listed in Hocking. Searching the BM site is a bit more problematic, so maybe someone else can help here as I can't seem to search for items reproducibly.

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?

[Rob]

I don't know what the mint records say for the years 1853 and 1854, but as a rule 1853 is a common date for just about every denomination whereas 1854 was less so, particularly for silver. A common feature with coinage is when you have a year with very large production figures, coins dated the following year tend to be quite scarce. This begs the question as to whether the mint was producing coins and storing them. Given the mint's remit to supply sufficient coin to keep the economy liquid, are the mintage figures the number struck or the amount of coin put into circulation? I don't know the answer to this. What is certain is that a very large output requires a large number of dies, so the likelihood of there being sufficient stocks of the previous year's dies is a distinct possibility.

You are also coming off the back of a period at the end of the 1840s (1846-9) where die longevity was a serious problem. Did the mint solve its recent problems and make hay while the sun was shining? Was there a similar situation to the 1838 sovereigns where a large number were shipped off to another part of the world and subsequently melted? Although the sovereign was the standard as opposed to the half, this cannot be discounted. Crimean War? Lots of questions to which we do not have a definitive answer.

Were any shipped to Australia?

Edited July 31, 2015 by Rob

[VickySilver]

Ah, yes a bit of a weigh in from me:

I have never seen a record of an 1854 half sov for sale, and have not seen any record of anyone ever having actually seen one.

These are listed is some old catalogues, but I have not always been that fond of Marsh (with all due respect).. 2015 Spink does not.

I have not seen any value listed in recent times and don't recall even from old tomes either.

As far as mintage listings for particular years - there is no reason to suspect the actual numbers, but as Rob has said, but there is no recording of which dated die was used and there is evidence that this is the case.

[Mr T]

Were any shipped to Australia?

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.

[Rob]

Were any shipped to Australia?

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.

India was a bit unstable in the 1850s which along with the Crimean War could have resulted in a need for good international specie (i.e. gold) to pay for goods locally.

[VickySilver]

I'm wondering in general how the usage of half sovereigns was. They seem to have been used in commerce but that the full sov was utilised much more frequently, domestic and overseas.

Not quite related but several of the half sovs in EF or better are really quite scarce and yet not respected as such, coins such as the 1879 London half sov scarce to start with evidently and then even far fewer saved aside - exhaustive collections put together over decades such as the Terner did not even have one (admittedly he wanted only mint state pieces).

[Mr T]

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.

[jelida]

From my personal finds, and those of club members, I would say that metal-detected sovereigns and half sovereigns occur in roughly equal numbers, which should reflect usage in the pocket (or purse).

Jerry

[Mr T]

Just another thought - I assume Michael Marsh had a collection - was it ever auctioned?

[VickySilver]

Not sure about this, but in his references I have never seen that he actually had seen or possessed one.

[Mr T]

No closure once again but I was reading Marsh's The Gold Sovereign and noted that he thought the 1927M sovereign existed, even though both Australian catalogues (McDonalds and Renniks) note that there are no known examples and neither the Bentley Collection, the Hemisphere Collection or the Park House Collection had an example.

[VickySilver]

Yes, Marsh not quite the end-all in expertise on many of these. I think Spink removed the '54 half sov from their listings in the yearly.