Puerto Rican coins, tokens, medals

Dentuck

How much interest is there? Any forum members collect them?

dcamp78

Got pictures?

Scavenger

Yes, I think several of the Puerto Rican coins are nice. The 1895 Peso would be up there on my list along with the 1896 forty centavos. Are you selling any or just curious?

lordmarcovan

A few years ago, I spotted a cigar lot box on eBay that looked to have several dozen coins, perhaps 200 or more, and what appeared to be a gold British half-sovereign on the top-strategically placed in the picture for flash, of course, but the picture was not clear enough for ID purposes. In fact, the picture was rather small and wretched. You could make out this coin's gold color and size and see it had George V on it, though.

I bid on the lot but dropped out at around $35-45 or so, which, even with the lower gold price at the time, was a tad low if it had really been a gold half-sovereign on top of the box, but I was only willing to go so far in my gambling. Besides, I was due to go out of town soon on a trip.

Anyway, it got too rich for my blood, but I forwarded a link to the auction to a dealer friend of mine, and told him that I was done, and since it looked like that might be a half-sovereign, he might wanna take a stab at it, depending on how frisky he felt, and how bold.

Well, he did, and he won the lot, for not much more than the level at which I folded- perhaps another ten bucks, say $45-55.

When he opened the cigar box, the "half-sovereign" turned out to be a cheap fake- just a charm bracelet piece. (The seller hadn't made any claims about it one way or another, so no fraud there).

BUT- in the box were a number of Puerto Rican coins- perhaps eight of them, as I recall, representing all of the types except the peso. There were multiples of some of the smaller coins. My dealer friend sent them off to ANACS and all came back in grades ranging from EF40 to AU58, as I recall- there was nothing below EF. He then put them on eBay and realized something like $1,500 for the lot!

And to make me gnash my teeth and kick myself even harder, he found another $300-400 worth of other world coins in the remainder of that box.

So the $40-ish cigar box I chickened out on ended up fetching somebody else nearly $2K, and I had handed it to him on a silver platter!

He threw me a (small) bone, but I was still kicking myself for some time.

Anyway, the point of the story is, the Puerto Rican stuff did very well on eBay, and some if not all of it went to a collector in Puerto Rico.

True, this was several years ago, but I cannot imagine the demand having shrunken, and these were EF-AU slabbed pieces, but you get the idea. Puerto Rican coinage can be hot. It was under my radar until this incident.

I have one single piece right now in my inventory, and a holed one on my Holey Coin Vest. I forget which denominations they are- they're smaller ones.

cladking

Puerto Rico is still hot and the 40 Centavo has come to be seen
as underappreciated. This one alone in XF wholesales in the $300
vicinity.

If Puerto Rico gets a quarter in 2009 we can look for even higher
prices and the Danish West Indies (American Virgin Islands) will
finally be recognized for their scarcity and desirability.

I like your new sig line, but...



...so it goes.

Dentuck

LordMarcovan, thanks for sharing that numismatic "fish-that-got-away" story, as painful as it was. Ouch. We've all been there at some point (though that doesn't make it any less painful!).

I don't own a single Puerto Rican coin. Not a centavo. Just curious to see if anyone here actively collects them, and/or PR tokens and medals.

MrEureka

I'm working on a set of the coins. For a fussy buyer, it's a bear of a series.

Writersblock

I have
5 centavo 1896 in Fine
10 Centavo 1896 in VF
20 centavo 1895 in XF
40 centavo 1896 in VF
1 Peso 1895 in VF+