1818 Shilling high 8

coinkat

Is anyone out there familar with this variety? I assume it is the second 8 that is higher. Is there much interest in shillings by variety in England?

wybrit

From my Davies book, it looks like the second 8 is indeed the higher one. There is not much interest yet in collecting minor variations like with bronze bun pennies and bun halfpennies, I have found. The Davies book does a particularly good job of flagging most silver coin variations.

Lloyd

I've found recently that I can sell variety shillings at good premiums ONLY if they are high grade. It's as if there's no middle ground. Anyone who feels comfortable only around the £50-100 mark does not have a complete set so his priority will lie in just accumulating the "plain" dates. He would need to spend (to him) excessive amounts just to get the rare dates, eg 1850 54 63 1905 etc so the varieties take a back seat.

Only my opinion but you learn a lot more when selling than when buying.

After going through all this, I found that Spink now reference this coin. It is £30 Fine, 75 VF, 150 EF and 300 UNC. The plain date is 20 40 120 250 respectively so there isn't much difference. I was thinking that before I started because you see a good few high 8's on coin lists around the country.

Finally, the coin would sell ok but you would have to do it probably from a low start to get momentum. It's not one of those that you could bully a premium out of.

L

wybrit

Interestingly enough, about the only shilling in the post-1837 era I've seen that has a minor variety for sale is the 1893 with small letters. Of course, everyone sells that variety since it's "worth more."

Davies notes that 1894 has a similar variation, yet no distinction is made in the other catalogues.

coinkat

This really has very little premium... 30 pounds in EF. Even though 1818 is alittle better date, I think it is interesting to look for varieties.