NEWP - 1997-R Italy Silver 500 Lire

brg5658

Not an expensive coin at all, but this one has eluded me in high grade for quite some time.

This coin is dated 1997 (on the edge), which was an added bonus. It is both the lowest mintage of the MS series (1958-2001) at 43,600 pieces, and it is also the year I graduated from high school. This is the only example of the 1997 graded at PCGS (MS67), and NGC has graded only two examples (one 64, and one 65). I don't have the coin in hand yet, but I have posted the CoinFacts images of the coin below (edited background color / size).

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1997-R Italy Silver 500 Lire, PCGS MS67 (Mintage 43,600)

SaorAlba

I really had no idea they were still minting those until 2001 for collectors. I need one now.

olmanjon

Now that is one pretty coin.

Zohar

Very nice! No horsie?

STLNATS

This is a very pretty example of one of the truly great designs of the 20th century. Better yet, these things actually circulated altho in later years were only struck for collector sets (sort of an Itatian Kennedy half LOL). It would have been nice if they could have found a way to continue the series into the Euro era, but such is life. Congrats on snagging a nice coin!

Kurt4

I really like that. Beautiful obverse. I love nice clean fields in a coin.

Burks

That's a beautiful coin!

Swampboy

What a lovely coin.
Maybe it's the musician in me but the word 'harmony' comes to mind when I study that image.

STLNATS

<< <i>Maybe it's the musician in me but the word 'harmony' comes to mind when I study that image. >>



Well it is Italian after all. And it does raise the question why our circulating coinage isn't even close in the quality of design.