More world records for the sale of coins at auction recently. A collection of 701 coins called the Paramount collection recently sold for nearly 42 million dollars.

The star of the show was a 1937 King Edward VIII £5 gold pattern which went for $2.28 million dollars setting a new auction record for a British coin eclipsing the recent sale of a King Edward VIII sovereign that went for £1 million.

Crazy, crazy times.

Those of you who are fortunate enough may very well find yourself in possession of the new polymer substrate £50 note. The release date for the note is June 23 this year. It features national treasure Alan Turing on it. Lots and lots of security features on it as you would expect.

You can continue to use the older paper note until six months ahead of the date the notes are due to be withdrawn. No date mentioned yet. These have images of industrialists Matthew Boulton and James Watt on them. I’ve never owned one and have only read about them.

As previously stated the new polymer £50 note featuring World War Two hero Alan Turing is released today. I don’t think I’ll be seeing one. The paper version will only be allowed to be used until the end of September next year. That goes for the old £20 paper note as well. If you have any hoarded, best get them exchanged as soon as you can.

Pembs - have you seen the Westminster Collection offer where you can enter a competition to win one of 10 x Team GB 2021 50p coins? The lucky 10 winners pay just 50p for one but presumably their values will soar.

I’ve entered but with my luck I won’t win.

DeePeeNCAFC wrote:Pembs - have you seen the Westminster Collection offer where you can enter a competition to win one of 10 x Team GB 2021 50p coins? The lucky 10 winners pay just 50p for one but presumably their values will soar.

I’ve entered but with my luck I won’t win.

Change checker we’re going to announce the winners via e-mail yesterday so you may have heard if you had won by now.

I didn’t enter. Unfortunately there is no information on whether their value will soar as the Royal Mint won’t be releasing the mintage rates for the 2021 50p for a year or so yet. Only then will we really know.

If you want to make a profit, buy the 2020 Annual set, either Brilliant uncirculated or Proof. Those sets contain an Olympic Games 2020 coin. Of course that event never occurred. Last time I looked some numpties were ripping those coins out of a set and they were selling for approx £40. There is no 2020 50p in general circulation.

In the news today - a non bi- metallic £1 coin just sold for £205. There are a few of them about. Good luck.

Hi Mike,

I have in my possession a silver three penny piece. I believe they were called a Joey. Dated 1917. Should I sell?

Stan A. Einstein wrote:Hi Mike,

I have in my possession a silver three penny piece. I believe they were called a Joey. Dated 1917. Should I sell?

Hi Brendan,

I’d probably keep it if I were you. It won’t make you very rich. It is worth about £5 if it is very good condition, maybe £25 if it is Brilliant uncirculated.

Point of note. All silver coins after 1920 were 50% silver as opposed to 92.5% silver previously. This makes them quite rare as people melted down the coins for their silver value. (Pre 1920 that is).

I have been in my garage recently having a tidy up.
Found a bag of old coins.
Inside there was a 1992 EC 50p coin.... I thought it was just an old coin worth nowt and put it aside to throw away as I believed it couldn't be used, handed into the bank etc...
Checking on a website (mirror online) and I have found out only 109,000 were minted and it is now more rare than the Kew Garden 50p coin and it could be worth £60.

I also found a bag of £5 worth of old 10p coins, £5 of half penny coins and £5 of sixpence coins (2.5p coins for the younger members) . I have found nothing if they are worth keeping.... Pembsexile,??????

neilcork68 wrote:I have been in my garage recently having a tidy up.
Found a bag of old coins.
Inside there was a 1992 EC 50p coin.... I thought it was just an old coin worth nowt and put it aside to throw away as I believed it couldn't be used, handed into the bank etc...
Checking on a website (mirror online) and I have found out only 109,000 were minted and it is now more rare than the Kew Garden 50p coin and it could be worth £60.

I also found a bag of £5 worth of old 10p coins, £5 of half penny coins and £5 of sixpence coins (2.5p coins for the younger members) . I have found nothing if they are worth keeping.... Pembsexile,??????

Good spot. Well done. Your price estimate is about right. They are sought after. One thing you may notice - they are a larger size than the newer version.

It is one of the strange anomalies of coin collecting. Only 109,000 of these coins were issued as opposed to 210,000 of the Kew Gardens yet they are not worth as much. My opinion is that the Kew price will drop as they are currently going for approx £160. Way too much imo.

I would keep hold of the coin if I were you. It will probably rise in value. One recommendation - put it in a plastic coin capsule to prevent any further scratch marks and damage.

Not much value in old 10 p’s, but if any of your selection of old tanners has one pre 1920 it will be worth something for the silver content alone. See my previous post above. Nice one.

Receiving news this month that far from prices falling in the coin world due to Covid and the postponement of all the nations coin fairs, the exact opposite is happening. Prices are holding and are even going up.

The Royal Mint has just announced the mintage figures for 2020 as well. This is an unusual step as they normally hold on for a while. No prizes for guessing which is the Nations favourite coin - the 50p - there are now 50 different versions issued since 1969. The rarest one in circulation is of course the Kew Gardens but they are all listed. Of the 2012 the rarest in circulation is the Olympic wrestling. More info available on their site if you are interested. Keep checking your change.

News this week that a chap went into a Tesco store in Exeter to pay his £40 petrol bill with a silver £100 Trafalgar coin and was refused. He said that it was legal tender and they had to take it. They refused. As he had no other way of paying the boys in blue were called. He refused to sign the ‘no means to pay’ form the Tesco staff gave him and was duly arrested.

The reason it is a news story is that when it went to court it was decided he was wrongly arrested and was awarded damages of £5,000! He won because as he rightfully mentioned, he did not refuse to pay.

It’s all about the definition of legal tender. Legal tender relates to paying a fine in court and had he been fined he could have paid his fine with the £100 silver coin. However, be warned if you attempt to do this. If you are fined in a court and give your payment via the £100 coin the court is not obliged to give you any change at all. You could well be out of pocket. Nice story though.

Coin News December 2021 issue.

Great story that Pembs. Although why he would acquire such a valuable coin and then try to use it to buy petrol baffles me. I’d be keeping the coin or passing it down to my kids or grandkids. Do you know if the coin is currently worth more than £100 to collectors?

DeePeeNCAFC wrote: December 1st, 2021, 6:03 pm Great story that Pembs. Although why he would acquire such a valuable coin and then try to use it to buy petrol baffles me. I’d be keeping the coin or passing it down to my kids or grandkids. Do you know if the coin is currently worth more than £100 to collectors?

That’s a good question DeePee. The answer is that he bought the £100 silver Trafalgar coin for £80 from someone who was willing to sell. His petrol cost him £40 apparently so he was looking to make a quick £40 profit according to the article. He knew what he was doing. The upshot is you can pay any bill with bananas, eggs, or anything else as long as the retailer will take it. It’s crazy.

As to the value of the coin, it’s a difficult one. You buy a car for £20,000 and it depreciates as soon as you take it out of the showroom. It’s the same with some coins. It is only worth what someone will pay. It’s a medium to long term journey if you are looking to make money out of it. I have bought some £10 and £20 coins direct from the Royal Mint but have not looked to sell them. If I did, I would want at least face value so I think the seller was a bit desperate.

I think that some individual coins will probably not be worth more than their face value. The thing to do is to collect sets. I have x3 £20 coins from successive years so hopefully they will increase in value. I have x6 £2 silver Brittania from incremental years. They cost about £28 now each so if I did look to sell I would want significantly more than £168 for them. It is the sets that increase their value. Hope that makes sense!

pembsexile wrote: April 26th, 2021, 5:43 pm More world records for the sale of coins at auction recently. A collection of 701 coins called the Paramount collection recently sold for nearly 42 million dollars.

The star of the show was a 1937 King Edward VIII £5 gold pattern which went for $2.28 million dollars setting a new auction record for a British coin eclipsing the recent sale of a King Edward VIII sovereign that went for £1 million.

Crazy, crazy times.

Just in case people are not aware of the health of the Numismatist market, this very same coin sold for $2.45 million dollars recently. All in a couple of months. From spring to autumn. The value of the coin went up in this 6 months but the seller will have lost money when they paid the buyers premium at auction.

This is obviously for rare and special coins. However, it should filter down to the type of coin that mere mortals like me can afford. As we use less and less cash and fewer coins are minted, it seems that the market for coins is very healthy.