My Specimen coins and the unlikely story of how I got them

desslok

Some time ago I told here the story of how I missed out on a coin I wanted. I hesitated to pull the trigger when it was available, and later when it came to auction I was outbid.

That thread led to not one, but two unlikely turns of events.

First, a fellow forum member, whom I didn't know beforehand, PMed me to say he's currently in the NYC International show, and there's a dealer there that has not one, but two similar coins in his case. Now think about it: the coins of that particular type that he had there (not the same type of the one I was outbid on) have a total worldwide population of maybe 5-10 pieces. What are the odds that just at the time I'm writing about them, a fellow forumite would be standing right next to two of them? What are the odds that he'll want to help me out? Well, the guy takes out his cellphone, snaps a few pictures, sends them to me, and gives me the dealer's direct contact information. I don't know if he wants his name known, so I won't write it here, but I sure owe him a favor.

Then the second surprise comes along: Atlas Numismatics steps up to reveal that they were the consignor of coin in the auction I was outbid on, and that they too have a few more similar coins in their inventory as well. After some negotiation, we're able to do a deal.

So between those two sources, I instantly go from having nothing, to having a "complete set" of sorts: one of every known type of specimen coins ever found, as far as I know. The story is that they were struck to demonstrate to the officials of the newly-founded State of Israel how the state's first line of coinage would look like, and to approve of the designs and metallic composition. Specimen coins of the 25-Pruta piece were struck in 3 metals: copper, aluminum, and coppernickel, while the actual production run for circulation consisted only of coppernickel. The other metals must have been used for trial/demonstration only and were rejected.

For me, it's an important piece of Israel's numismatic history. And while it's true that the only thing rarer than those coins are the collectors that collect them, I'm still very excited. The purchase amount far exceeds my usual budget, but this type of opportunity just does not present itself very often. As an added bonus, although I not a fan of the numerical grading system, each and every one of these coins is top-pop finest-graded for its respective type, with none higher.

Enough talk, let's see some coins. The photos were taken by me, so they are not the best quality. You can click on the links before each coin for the PCGS TrueView:

pcgs.com/cert/82678931/

pcgs.com/cert/82678936/

pcgs.com/cert/82678938/

pcgs.com/cert/82678934/

Zohar

desslok - big congrats - so glad you got these!

7Jaguars

Nice. Where have all these KN pieces been coming from? Margulis has many, many on his auctions, and I have seen them on sale through others as well. Did KN have a single disbursement? I suspect that the above may have been associated.

marcmoish

Nice batch wow...great grades too!

Who is King Norton and what more did he collect or what?

desslok

@marcmoish said:
Who is King Norton and what more did he collect or what?

There wasn't any king named Norton. "Kings Norton" is an area in Birmingham, England which was the home of two mint facilities which later merged into one corporation. The resulting Birmingham Mint was in business until about 2007, striking coins for many world countries, but eventually closed down. When it did, its very extensive archive of sample, specimen and trial coins of every issue ever struck there was sold off to the public.

RTScott1978

Great story to go along with some great coins. Congratulations!

7Jaguars

Desslok, I have often heard that story but never saw a dedicated sale or auction. Can you cite one that we might reference? I have gotten a few from other countries in the last year or so.

EVillageProwler

Nice job on getting the coins @desslok.

They are very handsome, though I know nothing about them. I am fairly certain I know this forum member who helped you, and he has helped me in the past too.

marcmoish

Interesting I was not aware of this all.
I can tell you enjoy this theme a lot!

Stork

That is such an AWESOMELY cool set of circumstances! Kudos to the forum friend (who???) and Atlas too (edited to add, I imagine it's a fine line for a business to know when to initiate contact with a non-prior customer and know when it will be welcomed).

Zohar

For those who do not know the Prutah series and the attempt to mimic ancient Judean coinage - here they are sheqel.info/2-2.htm

desslok

@7Jaguars said:
Desslok, I have often heard that story but never saw a dedicated sale or auction. Can you cite one that we might reference? I have gotten a few from other countries in the last year or so.

It wasn't a public sale, and I didn't know about it until recently. Apparently, the mint donated the archive to the Birmingham Museum of Fine Arts. The museum had no idea what to do with it (and we're talking thousands of modern coins), so they privately and very quietly sold it off through a local dealer. At present, Karl Stephens in the US is marketing a large portion of that collection. It took me a while to uncover that part of the story.

desslok

@Zohar said:
For those who do not know the Prutah series and the attempt to mimic ancient Judean coinage - here they are sheqel.info/2-2.htm

The author of that online resource had sadly passed away. The page mentions the specimen coins, but the information about them is all wrong because it precedes the discovery of the KN archive.

Boosibri

I did some research on the King Norton's mint and these specimens after buying and flipping some Irish specimens from the first round of coins being sold.

Nearly all (if not all) of the countries with specimens surfacing from King Norton used a third party to mint their nations coinage. In my opinion these are really similar to printers samples and are not trials or presentation pieces. The mint likely made many of these coins as a way of showing countries of the quality of their work in an attempt to bid for business away from London or Philadelphia or whomever. There may be exceptions but this seems to be the most logical explanation of what they are and why they exist.

The Israeli coins you posted, as I'm sure you know, in mass production were sourced from three mints, Heaton (King Norton), Imperial Chemical, and the Tel Aviv Mint. So it looks like the samples were at least somewhat effective in attracting business.

In the case of other countries, like the Irish pieces I bought and sold, London never lost any business to Heaton and continued to produce the Irish coinage uninterrupted. I'm sure if a comprehensive study was done on the production locations of the circulating coinage of the countries represented by the King Norton specimens, most would be shown to have no formal production relationship with the Heaton/Birmingham mint. I suppose that one could suggest that these are trial pieces and not unauthorized samples but one would expect a disproportionate amount of the countries with specimens from King Norton to have an eventual production relationship with Heaton. From a first glance through the specimen countries and mints associated with production, this does not appear to be the case hence why I think that these are not trials or authorized specimens but actually prototypes to be used as part of a sales bid.

desslok

@Boosibri I don't disagree with what you're saying, but in the specific case of Israel's 1949 coins, please note the following:

• Kings Norton (which was already a part of ICI in 1949) was apparently the successful bidder for the greater part of the production run of Israel's circulation coinage of that series.
• Similar Specimen coins surfaced in Israel in the 1970s and made the rounds in a few auctions. That was long before Birmingham Mint's collapse and subsequent sale of their archive. This indicates that some of the samples were sent off to Israel, and that the recipients never returned them (or not all of them). This in itself does not invalidate your claim that they were sales promotion items, that could still be true.

A few other interesting points:

• Specimens exist in various metallic compositions, including the one ultimately used, but also others. I found that to be true for ex-Kings Norton's specimens of some other countries as well.
• Some Kings Norton's specimens (of various countries), have inscriptions such as SPECIMEN, TRIAL, etc. However, most coins from the archive do not. I always assumed that the coins inscribed with SPECIMEN were those struck prior to final approval or contract with the issuing government, while the normal coins were struck only after authorization or with permission. Based on what you say, this may not be true. If Kings Norton has struck coins identical to circulation coins but without the approval of the respective country's government, aren't they legally counterfeit coins?

The discussion is very interesting, but to me at least, none of this detracts from the value I place on these coins. I consider them an important part of numismatic history, regardless of what their exact role was.

Boosibri

Interesting builds.

I would assign a higher importance and therefore value to coins like yours with a clear historical tie to the mint vs the random samples coming out for countries like Ireland which really have no historical linkage to the mint.

Cool coins none the less!

7Jaguars

Boos, I respectfully disagree. These are trials, and they evidently were presented (or perhaps only intended to be presented) for approval of the respective countries. That would fit the definition of "trial", and possibly even "pattern". Certainly there is precedent even at the Royal Mint as a quick perusal through ESC will establish. In fact, they appear to even more legitimate as such than the Weyl "patterns" of Victorian times (IMO essentially dross as these do not appear to have any tie-in to coin designs that were proposed for actual usage). Even the trial pieces that were not accepted or marked "trial" are actually such and DO have an historical tie to the King's Norton Mint.

As a footnote, can you explain your last statement that the samples for Ireland have no historical linkage to the mint? Are you saying they were not actually struck by the mint (which is also hinted at by your earlier statement that the proposed issues for these countries were "used a third party" - did you mean KN did NOT strike these trials/samples?)?

Desslok, these apparently were struck with at least the knowledge of the countries involved if not at least their consent, so think these would not be counterfeit.

Boosibri

@7Jaguars said:
Boos, I respectfully disagree. These are trials, and they evidently were presented (or perhaps only intended to be presented) for approval of the respective countries. That would fit the definition of "trial", and possibly even "pattern". Certainly there is precedent even at the Royal Mint as a quick perusal through ESC will establish. In fact, they appear to even more legitimate as such than the Weyl "patterns" of Victorian times (IMO essentially dross as these do not appear to have any tie-in to coin designs that were proposed for actual usage). Even the trial pieces that were not accepted or marked "trial" are actually such and DO have an historical tie to the King's Norton Mint.

As a footnote, can you explain your last statement that the samples for Ireland have no historical linkage to the mint? Are you saying they were not actually struck by the mint (which is also hinted at by your earlier statement that the proposed issues for these countries were "used a third party" - did you mean KN did NOT strike these trials/samples?)?

Desslok, these apparently were struck with at least the knowledge of the countries involved if not at least their consent, so think these would not be counterfeit.

Good debate.

On my last point I am saying that Irish moderns were never at any point made in the Birmingham mint as a part of the regular production of circulation coins which I think is also the case for many of the other countries with King Norton specimens appearing. I am sure that as the Israeli specimens shown are in fact specimens or trials which is due to the fact that the commercial relationship progressed to the point of actual production. In other countries the relationship did not progress and I believe that many of these specimens are sales samples produced by the Birmingham mint.

As Desslok notes, other specimens or trials from Israel have been seen in the past whist in the case of the Irish pieces, there is a strong history of VIP proofs and presentation pieces however no reference to the late modern issues which came from King Norton.

Call them sales sample or trials, it is likely in my view that many of these were simply produced as a part of a sales pitch by the mint or as part of a request for proposal when a new production contract was bid.

atom

The author of that online resource had sadly passed away. The page mentions the specimen coins, but the information about them is all wrong because it precedes the discovery of the KN archive.

Are you referring to Pinchas Bar Zeev? When did he pass away? His website is an invaluable resource, and I'm sorry to learn of this.

7Jaguars

I am not sure that patterns or trials have to necessarily be of the accepted type to be considered as such however - many are known and categorized as such (one example would of course be the 1884 GB half crowns that we know from the Colin Adams Collection, but there are many others).

desslok

@atom said:

The author of that online resource had sadly passed away. The page mentions the specimen coins, but the information about them is all wrong because it precedes the discovery of the KN archive.

Are you referring to Pinchas Bar Zeev? When did he pass away? His website is an invaluable resource, and I'm sorry to learn of this.

Yes. Pinchas Bar Zeev has died on November 30th, 2016, at the age of 71. There have been talks in the local numismatic community about keeping his website active, but I don't know what came out of it. Currently it is still online.

atom

Thanks for the info. I'm saddened by his passing, as there aren't many experts in the Israel coin collecting community. I truly hope there will be an effort to continue maintaining his website.

As for your purchases: I think you are very fortunate to acquire these different metals for the same coin. A remarkable set!
And as you point out, a historically important issue for the early years of the State. kol hakavod!

TomV

I am new on this forum, my name is Tom, collect coins from Israel and I live in the Netherlands. Looking for a good forum, I found some great discussions about Israel coins on this forum, so I signed up.
It is sad to find out in this discussion that Pinchas Bar Zeev had passed away some months ago. I have bought Israeli coins from him years ago and about one and a half or two years ago I had contact with him about pictures of the 1963 Lira large and small animals. Again, sad to hear this news. His online catalog has been very useful for me.
I am a low budget collector and my collection ranges from 1927 till 1980 and I have many questions about the differences between the Haffner and the Krause and Mishler catalogs. It is my hope to find some answers to my questions on this forum.

Zohar

Hi TomV, welcome to the forum!

I actually just sold my early year Israeli set keeping only a few specimens (1948 25 Mils, 500 Prutah and Utrecht 100 Prutah Variety and Seafaring specimens) - https://taleruniverse.com/world-crowns/israel/.

Desslok is the guy to discuss these nuances with and he is a very nice guy to boot!

atom

Welcome TomV,

I suggest posting your questions under a new thread, you'll likely get more noticed.

And I may be able to help you with your questions, I am very familiar with this area of collecting.

TomV

Thanks for the welcome! Of course I will start new discussions for my questions. However, I wanted to express my feelings on the sad news about Pinchas Bar Zeev and I thought that it would not be appropriate to do that without a brief introduction because it was my very first comment on this forum.

Best regards, Tom.

SYRACUSIAN

@Stork said:
That is such an AWESOMELY cool set of circumstances! Kudos to the forum friend (who???) and Atlas too (edited to add, I imagine it's a fine line for a business to know when to initiate contact with a non-prior customer and know when it will be welcomed).

>
I bet a hundred bucks that it was Zohar. Not because he posted the Truviews himself, but because... I'm sure it's him.

Zohar

@SYRACUSIAN said:

@Stork said:
That is such an AWESOMELY cool set of circumstances! Kudos to the forum friend (who???) and Atlas too (edited to add, I imagine it's a fine line for a business to know when to initiate contact with a non-prior customer and know when it will be welcomed).

>
I bet a hundred bucks that it was Zohar. Not because he posted the Truviews himself, but because... I'm sure it's him.

Dimitri... thanks ... but it wasn't me. I didn't see these when there.