Super new toned copper Essai - Luxembourg

brg5658

LochNESS had a few coins posted in the World BST for sale recently. I have a love of toned copper, and so I snapped up this Essai as fast as I could.



It arrived today, and blew my socks off. It fits nicely in my toned copper world coin set.



Thanks LochNESS...I love it!



-Brandon



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Zohar

Lovely!

bidask

Cool looking coin!

Stork

Gorgeous!

lordmarcovan

I saw it before you did, and was sorely tempted.



Great pickup. I'm glad you got it.



(Thanks for the offer, too, Nessie. Had I not had too many other distractions and too little money right now, I might have been the one posting this.)



PS- that one's not only aesthetically pleasing, but... 500 mintage. Wow.

Jackthecat1

An outstanding piece.

brg5658

Originally posted by: lordmarcovan

PS- that one's not only aesthetically pleasing, but... 500 mintage. Wow.

A mintage of 500 is actually pretty common, if not on the large side for an Essai piece of this era. Not as rare as it would seem from the numbers.



This design comes in 5 versions of Essai.



E45 - copper, plain edge - mintage 500 (mine)

E46 - copper, milled edge - mintage 100

E47 - silver, plain edge - mintage 500

E48 - silver, milled edge - mintage 100

E49 - silver, small letters - mintage 100



In addition, this design was used on 2 years of regular issue copper-nickel coins struck for circulation. The 1946 and 1947 1 Franc coins, in mintages of 4 million and 2 million, respectively. So, if you want the design, you have lots to choose from. I particularly wanted the copper version, so I had 600 to choose from. In general, Essai coinage is not collected heavily from small nations like Luxembourg, and so one can acquire quite scarce pieces for very, very low prices.

asheland

That's great!

PatAR

Wow!

JCMhouston

Excellent example!

Flatwoods

Very nice!

lordmarcovan

Originally posted by: brg5658

Originally posted by: lordmarcovan

PS- that one's not only aesthetically pleasing, but... 500 mintage. Wow.

A mintage of 500 is actually pretty common, if not on the large side for an Essai piece of this era. Not as rare as it would seem from the numbers.



This design comes in 5 versions of Essai.



E45 - copper, plain edge - mintage 500 (mine)

E46 - copper, milled edge - mintage 100

E47 - silver, plain edge - mintage 500

E48 - silver, milled edge - mintage 100

E49 - silver, small letters - mintage 100



In addition, this design was used on 2 years of regular issue copper-nickel coins struck for circulation. The 1946 and 1947 1 Franc coins, in mintages of 4 million and 2 million, respectively. So, if you want the design, you have lots to choose from. I particularly wanted the copper version, so I had 600 to choose from. In general, Essai coinage is not collected heavily from small nations like Luxembourg, and so one can acquire quite scarce pieces for very, very low prices.

Yeah, I know. You could say the same thing about 19th century US proofs, I suppose, where mintages of 500-600 pieces are not all that uncommon. It's still impressive to me for some reason.





PS- I wish I'd bought it now.

LochNESS

Possibly the best toner I've ever seen of any type, in terms of where the colors are located and the shades. I always loved how the leaves of the branches are toned green, and the mountain and factory landscape is bright orange red as if reflecting a setting sun. The smoke is a blue, about as close to grey smoke as you'll find.



Not only is it lovely, it's also graded top pop.



Thanks for preserving it with such lovely photos for all to enjoy!



edit: I still have many coins to sell, if anyone is interested ... including some of those other Luxembourg essai types ...

marcmoish

Agreed - this one is an absolute monster of a newp on all levels! I love it.

lordmarcovan

It only just now dawned on me, after seeing the pics in the OP, that the fella portrayed is doing some rather more heavy industrial task like shoveling coal(?) rather than the more pastoral/agrarian sort of shoveling or pitchforking.



I suppose I mistook the flames for greenery and the distant smokestacks for tree trunks, who knows.



I've only handled circs of this design type, if at all.



Again- nice grab. I'm still slightly regretting not having pursued it when I had the chance.



(Don't worry, Nessie, though temporarily tapped out after the purchase of a Liteside Trade dollar, I intend to give your other offerings another look before long.)

SaorAlba

Nice "modern" toner, thanks for sharing.