Henry VI, and something from France.

Sylvestius

Well first and foremost the straight forward bit, i went to the York Coin Fair (England), and not a slabbed coin anywhere, fairly quiet since most of the buying/selling happened yesterday, saturday is the quiet follow up day with seemingly only a few hundred people there.

I went not really knowing what i wanted to buy, it was pretty much an open book occasion (which doesn't happen very often with me), usually i know what i want before i go, even if i do get distracted along the way.

I saw a nice King Eadgar penny for my set at a very nice price, sadly i knew that what with my recent purchases i only had realistically available half of the money it would have required. Thus i had to walk away from that one. Still i'm not too bothered because Eadgar turns up from time to time.

So i turned my attention to my other set figuring hopefully i could pick something decent up for it. I wandered around the whole place looking at all the Henry VI groats and tried to select one with decent detail and a tone to match the halfpenny i picked up at London, and to find one at a decent price. A bit of searching led me to a few but in the end i decided to go for the cheapest even if some of the others might have looked a little more appealing. What swung it for me was because the dealer had misattributed it and hadn't got around to redoing it when i came along and pointed the coin out to have a closer view. He told me he'd messed up on the attributing and he said he'd go and do it right there and then, to make sure the misattribute hadn't got my hopes up. Since he'd thought it was a rarer one (i think he had, had the rarer one and sold it and then somehow had got the common one and had stuck it in the vacant spot in the tray without removing the description note), so he went and repriced it at what he'd bought it for (being the last day he probably wanted to clear a few things). Which was nice but really not that necessary since i was only after a common one anyhow. But who am i to argue?





Well that was the good bit. Then i moved onto a more unpleasant experience.

I spotted a Louis XV 1/10th ecu, fairly low grade and i thought 'i like that and i'll take it'. Priced up at £40, which i knew would be too high and i'd be overpaying, but it's a French coin and i have a habit of overpaying nearly 4 times over book value for French coins.

So i approached the elderly lady who was watching the stall and said "i'll take it", she replied "oh i'll do you that for £36", so the deal was done for £36 and i was fairly content, knowing i wanted the coin and knowing i'd overpaid. Then i asked if i may have a reciept (which is standard proceedure with me). She said she'd wait till her son came back since he was the one that ran it.

So her son came back, she handed him the coin said i'd bought it for £36 and said i wanted a reciept. He took one look at it, a somewhat dumbfounded look, looked gone out at his mother then kinda scowled at me and threw out a comment "that's far too low", whereby the atmosphere temperature dropped, i felt shall we say uncomfortable as he went over and did the reciept with a scowl, and mutter "muuther..." and then complained very much at her, and handed the coin and reciept to me. Whereby i left very quickly. He was still complaining at his mother as i made a quick get away.


Only having got home did i check Krause which shows the coin to be overpriced (amongst other things, see below pic), so what gives? The dealer has marked it up as VF, if this is VF i'd eat my hat, i'd say it's Fine. Which makes it worth about $10 in Krause or (£7), but i know Krause undervalues, so maybe anything upto £20 is okay, but surely £36 is way over and yet this dealer was all but gonna lynch his own mother for knocking £4 off.





The dealer also seems to be incorrect in attributing it, he sold it as 1731-D, When it looks like it's 1/0 (1731-D is not listed in Krause), and the D is over something too. But i know Krause is far from either complete or definitive.

Danegeld

My, My, My... Those are beautifully toned. My head would have turned as well. Good Eye, Well Done

AndyBruce

Good seeing you again today, Syl. Meant to ask what you'd bought but you seemed to have disappeared!

What time did you leave?

PS I'm pretty sure I know the dealer/mother combo you are referring to!

Sylvestius

<< <i>Good seeing you again today, Syl. Meant to ask what you'd bought but you seemed to have disappeared! >>




You've got to be quicker than that Andy to catch me! I left about 11.30, i'd been and had a good look around everything, i'd been there since 10 so one and a half hours were enough to look around what was left. I mean once you've taken all the modern foreign stuff and all the milled British out of the equation (i sailed straight past all of that) and got down to the hammered. It wasn't going to take me long because the hammered coins seemed a bit thin on the ground today. Lots of Norman stuff around and Plantagenet, but Henry VI was what i was going after today. I think i covered everything twice before i bought anything. I did intend to pick up an 18th century Krause but i bought the French coin in the end, plus i didn't fancy carrying that thing back with me. (I'll get the Krause when i've saved up again).



I also kept my eye out for all things French (pre-1789 at any rate) but there wasn't much going on there. A select handful of hammered French and three milled French coins, two copper Louis XVI liard and a sol i think) and one Louis XV (the one i bought).




<< <i>PS I'm pretty sure I know the dealer/mother combo you are referring to! >>



Are they always that bad?

(I remember vaguely them from the last time i visited but i didn't buy anything off of them that time, i'm not so keen to do any further business with them in future either if he's going to be like that).

Aethelred

Simon, nice Henry VI Groat. I have always liked those.



<< <i>I wandered around the whole place looking at all the Henry VI groats >>



At a US show, even one of the very big ones, that would not take very long to do!

Sylvestius

<< <i>Simon, nice Henry VI Groat. I have always liked those.



<< <i>I wandered around the whole place looking at all the Henry VI groats >>



At a US show, even one of the very big ones, that would not take very long to do! >>




All of 1 stall i should think at a US show. Now if it was a Morgan Dollar you were after i'd take you a couple of months...



Andy; Can you think of those dealers names, trading name etc.? (It's for my own records so i know who i bought the coin from, when and where. That was the whole reason of the reciept but seemingly all the reciept tells me is that it came from a notepad at the Midland Coin fair and as such is advertising that fair. Which is a fat lot of good to me! No point in even getting the reciept in the first place...)

Aethelred

I did find this Henry VI Groat at a show here. It is not quite as nice as yours, but I am happy with it:

Sylvestius

That's a nice groat!

These things aren't entirely scarce, actually Henry VI groats (and nobles, and to a lesser extent quarter nobles) are quite common. It's everything else that's tough!

The farthings and half nobles particularly so.

GDJMSP

<< <i>





The dealer also seems to be incorrect in attributing it, he sold it as 1731-D, When it looks like it's 1/0 (1731-D is not listed in Krause), and the D is over something too. But i know Krause is far from either complete or definitive. >>




The coin is listed in Gadoury with a mintage of 229,500. But it is not listed as an over date or over mint mark. I also searched cgb to no avail, but I was able to find an example or two of an D/C overmint mark but not of the same date.

The coins of this type and date from other mints do sell for a substantial premium even in similar condition, but they have much lower mintages than this one.

Sylvestius

Well i'm probably right in thinking there's a whole ton of unrecorded minor varieties out there no?

1jester

Syl, you really know a lot about those coins!!! And you've got a beautiful collection. Thanks for sharing.

python

Congrats, on a nice pair of coins.

GDJMSP

<< <i>Well i'm probably right in thinking there's a whole ton of unrecorded minor varieties out there no? >>




It's certainly possible - I wasn't meaning to imply otherwise. I was just reporting what info I could share with you.

Sylvestius

<< <i>

<< <i>Well i'm probably right in thinking there's a whole ton of unrecorded minor varieties out there no? >>




It's certainly possible - I wasn't meaning to imply otherwise. I was just reporting what info I could share with you. >>




Well from working on 17th/18th century sixpences, there were tons of varieties that turned up, many recorded, quite a few not. It didn't affect the price much. William III often had coins with B/C and 7/6 for instance. Since the obverse legends also came with errors, i.e incorrect spellings, overlettering, it was possible that error obverses would get paired up with over dated, over lettered reverses and create a new variety that wasn't listed. I suppose this is a case of a spare die from one mint being transferred to Lyon, hence why the date is wrong for a Lyon coin. The date may have been corrected before the die went to Lyon. Although it's impossible to say.

AndyBruce

<< <i>Andy; Can you think of those dealers names, trading name etc.? (It's for my own records so i know who i bought the coin from, when and where. That was the whole reason of the reciept but seemingly all the reciept tells me is that it came from a notepad at the Midland Coin fair and as such is advertising that fair. Which is a fat lot of good to me! No point in even getting the reciept in the first place...) >>



Hi Syl - am I right in thinking they were on the opposite side to me, a bit further along near the stairs?

Let me know and I'll PM you the details.

Cheers

Andy

GDJMSP

<< <i> I suppose this is a case of a spare die from one mint being transferred to Lyon, hence why the date is wrong for a Lyon coin. The date may have been corrected before the die went to Lyon. Although it's impossible to say. >>




I'm a bit confused here. Why do you think the date is wrong for a Lyon coin ? Lyon struck these coins in 1730 & 1731. In fact Lyon struck more in both years than any of the other mints.

Sylvestius

<< <i>

<< <i> I suppose this is a case of a spare die from one mint being transferred to Lyon, hence why the date is wrong for a Lyon coin. The date may have been corrected before the die went to Lyon. Although it's impossible to say. >>




I'm a bit confused here. Why do you think the date is wrong for a Lyon coin ? Lyon struck these coins in 1730 & 1731. In fact Lyon struck more in both years than any of the other mints. >>




Because the copy of the Krause i'm referring to has only two dates in the 1730s listed for the D mint and that's 1730 and 1738.

I dunno what edition it is i'm refering to because another member emailed me a scan of that page. It must be a mistake in the Krause that has since been corrected in the edition you have.

GDJMSP

<< <i>


Because the copy of the Krause i'm referring to has only two dates in the 1730s listed for the D mint and that's 1730 and 1738.

I dunno what edition it is i'm refering to because another member emailed me a scan of that page. It must be a mistake in the Krause that has since been corrected in the edition you have. >>




No - I have two different editions of Krause - the coin is not listed in either one of them. But that is pretty much meaningless as it certainly not uncommon for a coin to not be listed in Krause.

As I said in my very first post on this subject -

" The coin is listed in Gadoury with a mintage of 229,500. But it is not listed as an over date or over mint mark. "


edit - I just checked all the years that this coin with this design was struck at the Lyon mint to illustrate what I mean about Krause. It was issued in 1726, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 and 1738.

AndyBruce

Syl - PM sent.

Cheers

Andy