Posts by Ian Glen
£516,000 Gold Sovereign breaks auction record for a Royal Mint coin
It’s every collector’s dream to find a significant coin which is worth a fortune. And they don’t come any more significant than the Edward VIII Sovereign which has just smashed an auction record and netted £516,000.
Only a single example of the Gold Proof Edward VIII sovereign has ever been available to collectors
The incredibly rare 1937 dated gold ‘proof’ coin is the only single example available to collectors anywhere in the world. It was struck ahead of the King’s Coronation, however following the scandal which predicated Edward’s abdication from the throne in 1936, the coins became redundant and cemented their place in collecting folklore.
His left-facing portrait; the same as his predecessor George V, also represents a unique deviation from a tradition which started in the 17th century under Charles II who wished to be facing the opposite way to Oliver Cromwell.
“In the world of coins, it’s the coin’s story that makes it important and this coin has the most fantastic story” said winning bidder Mr Jordan Lott of Regal Rare Coins in Chester.
After a tense battle in the Baldwin’s auction room and some fierce bidding, the coin eventually reached a winning bid of £430,000 and with fees included this took the total price to £516,000.
It was money which Mr Lott was happy to pay; “I was the first to bid and I was determined to be the last. I would have paid another £50,000 to make sure I got it.”
The price is the highest ever recorded for a sovereign coin struck by the Royal Mint in the UK and possibly the best example of the numismatic significance of British coins in the collecting world.
2014 Year of the “Mule”: the Royal Mint confirms Lunar Year and Britannia striking errors
The UK 2014 Year of the Horse 1oz Silver ‘Mule’
If you own the 2014 Year of the Horse Lunar Silver Coin or the 2014 Britannia coin, I suggest you go and dig them out before you read any more. That’s because it’s just possible that you are sitting on something rather unusual – a Royal Mint “mule”.
A “mule” is a coin where the one of the sides has been struck with the wrong die. And that’s what happened with some of the Royal Mint’s 2014 Year of the Horse and Britannia coins.
Officially confirmed by the Royal Mint
Year of the ‘Mule’
It seems attention was first drawn to the matter when a US dealer noticed that some of their Britannia coins had a different obverse (heads) side to the rest of the stock, lacking the denticle design around the edge, normally seen with Britannia coins.
The Royal Mint has now acknowledged the error, which has resulted in approximately 17,000 Britannia coins being struck with the non-denticled Year of the Horse obverse and 38,000 Year of the Horse coins having the denticled Britannia version as their obverse.
Selling for 250 times its original value
Perhaps the best recent example of a UK mule in recent years was the undated 20p coin, which was uncovered in 2008. Approximately 250,000 20p coins were struck using an old obverse design, which left them undated. The news was followed by a media frenzy with many millions of people searching their change in the hope finding what was to prove to be a valuable error. Indeed an undated 20p currently changes hands on ebay for around £50 – 250 times its original value.
So what of these latest Royal Mint errors? Unlike the 20p these are not general circulation coins but as bullion coin they will have been sold around the world to coin dealers and investors. That means that they will be much harder for the British general public to track down. Plus, of course, in terms of pure numbers struck, they are considerably scarcer than the undated 20p.
Early listings on ebay have been as high as £500 and above, so if you are lucky enough to own either the 2014 Britannia or Year of the Horse coins, I would definitely dig them out and take a look – it might be your lucky day.
Tony Benn: how the modern commemorative stamp nearly cost the Queen her head
A nation woke on Friday 14 March to hear the sad news that Tony Benn had passed away. Whether we believed in his politics or not, for many of us Tony Benn was the last of an era – a national politician of true conviction.
Tony Benn, 1925 – 2014 (picture: Isujosh)
But for philatelists he was something else. Tony Benn was both the father of the modern commemorative stamp and the man who nearly saw the Queen’s head removed from our stamps.
Tony Benn entered Parliament in 1950 before being forced to resign his seat after inheriting his father’s peerage in 1960. He went on to successfully force a change in the law that allowed him to revoke his peerage and return the House in a 1963 by-election.
Stamps to reflect “Britain’s unique contribution”
The following year’s General Election saw Harold Wilson’s Labour Government scrape to power and with it the appointment of Tony Benn to position of Postmaster General.
One of his very first actions was to widen the scope for commemorative stamps “to celebrate events of national importance, to commemorate appropriate anniversaries and occasions, [and] to reflect Britain’s unique contribution to the arts and world affairs”.
Keen to develop his ideas for a more democratic stamp programme, Benn solicited views from the general public. One contribution came from David Gentleman an already well-established stamp designer. He suggested that the Queen’s portrait should be removed from pictorial stamps to give more space and freedom for the designers.
Off with her head
The Robbie Burns issue still included a portrait of the Queen
Benn, of course, was a keen republican and he jumped on the idea as a non-politicised way to achieve his goal of removing the Queen’s head from stamps.
Indeed the Robert Burns stamps (ultimately issued in 1966 with a full portrait of the Queen) were originally commissioned allowing “non-traditional” designs – the result was that 21 of the 40 submissions carried the legend “UK Postage”, a crown or a royal cypher in place of Her Majesty.
Throughout 1965 arguments raged between Benn and Gentleman on one side and the Stamp Advisory Committee, Palace and post office officials on the other. Finally, the Queen made her views clear: her head should remain on British stamps. Benn was not impressed, stating:
“If the Queen can reject the advice of a minister on a little thing like a postage stamp,
what would happen if she rejected the advice of the Prime Minister on a major matter?”
Ironically, it was David Gentleman who was responsible for the final Queen’s head that still features on our commemorative stamps today, creating the silhouette design from Mary Gillick’s original coin design.
The Westminster Collection was privileged to have Tony Benn sign a limited number of Sub-Post Offices First Day Covers in 1997.
A limited number of covers are still in our archive stock and are available at the original issue price of £19.99 (+p&p).
NOW SOLD OUT.