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Question about Israel 100 Prutot, 'Utrecht die', from 1954.

Hello everyone! I am Tom and I am new on this forum. I live in the Netherlands and collect circulation coins from Israel/Palestine (1927 to 1980). My goal is to collect every coin from every year, including varieties, as far as is possible. The Eight Grains, if it is to be found, and the Uniface are not within my budget. In fact, at the moment my budget is limited. Apart from the KM catalogues, I use the Haffner catalogues ( up to 1979 with supplement (1984?)) and the issues from 'the Shekel' as published online by the AINA.
At the moment I try to interweave these catalogues and publications in order to know what coins are missing. And that raises some questions. I noticed there are some experts on the subject on this forum and I hope to learn a lot from them.

So, let me start with my first question. After many years, last weekend, I copied the Israel section from one of the latest KM catalogues and I was surprised to see that my 100 Prutot from 1954, 'Utrecht die', is not considered an 'Utrecht die' anymore. A quick search on the internet shows that Bill Rosenblum, for example, does not mention this. And on eBay too, all 'Utrecht dies' offered are still listed as KM#19, instead of KM#19.1. What is going on? What new insights are there?

Of course, no topic without pictures, if possible. So, here are my 1954 100 Prutot coins, on the left KM#18, wreath close to the edge, and on the right KM#19, greater space between wreath and the rim. Both are magnetic.

Best regards, Tom.

Comments

  • ZoharZohar Posts: 6,629 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Hi Tom,
    Great having you here. I believe they are still noted as "Utrecht" yet in terms of availability, I believe they are more attainable than the story indicates. More survived post recall.

    Mine is here https://coins.collectors-society.com/WCM/CoinView.aspx?sc=22856

  • desslokdesslok Posts: 310 ✭✭✭
    edited March 24, 2017 10:15AM

    Hi Tom,
    KM18 is Bern die, KM19 is Utrecht die. Indeed Krause no longer calls it "Utrecht", but instead just says "greater space between wreath and rim". I'm not sure why the name change, but it makes no practical difference.

    One point that you are missing is that both types, KM18 and KM19, now have subtypes KM18.1 and KM19.1. The subtype is struck in coppernickel instead of nickel-clad steel. There is no official documentation or explanation of where, why, or how this subtype was ever struck, but they were found by collectors mixed in with the "standard" coins. The differentiation can be done with a magnet: nickel-clad steel is magnetic, while coppernickel is not. As mentioned, there are coppernickel variants from both the Bern and Utrecht types.

    So it's not just Bern and Utrecht anymore, it's also the metallic composition. The possible variants are:

    1949 KM14 - large coin (28.5mm) - coppernickel - non-magnetic - common
    1954 KM18 - small coin (25.6mm) - Bern die - nickel-clad steel - magnetic - common
    1954 KM18.1 - small coin (25.6mm) - Bern die - coppernickel - non-magnetic - rare
    1954 KM19 - small coin (25.6mm) - Utrecht die - nickel-clad steel - magnetic - rare
    1954 KM19.1 - small coin (25.6mm) - Utrecht die - coppernickel - non-magnetic - very rare
    1955 KM14 - large coin (28.5mm) - coppernickel - non-magnetic - common

    You can't imagine how much confusion this causes collectors. They are like "wait, I have a non-magnetic coin, is it the rare variant???" - the answer is "well, it depends" - if it's 1949 or 1955, non-magnetic is the norm.

  • marcmoishmarcmoish Posts: 6,209 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 24, 2017 10:20AM

    Zohar - you should check your example, but its entombed so you outta luck :#

  • atomatom Posts: 430 ✭✭✭✭

    @marcmoish said:
    Zohar - you should check your example, but its entombed so you outta luck :#

    An extremely strong magnet such as neodymium (grade N52) should be able to detect an already stabbed coin.

  • TomVTomV Posts: 17 ✭✭

    Thanks desslok! I am aware of the subtypes, but then KM is even more confusing:

    KM19 "greater space between wreath and rim".
    KM19.1: Dies manufactured in Utrecht, "wreath close to rim" (2016 edition with the orange cover).

    The latter has the same description as KM18.1, except for where the dies were manufactured.

  • desslokdesslok Posts: 310 ✭✭✭

    I checked my Krause and I see your point, but I consider this a typo on the catalog's part. The issue has become so confusing that they made a copy&paste error. Utrecht die is the one with the wreath away from the rim. This won't be the only mistake in Krause catalogs of recent years.

  • TomVTomV Posts: 17 ✭✭

    Thanks desslok! I don't know if it helps but I just send an email to the Royal Dutch Mint if they can and are willing to answer the question if only the dies were made or if actually 20,000 coins were minted in Utrecht.

  • ZoharZohar Posts: 6,629 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Gents = what is the relative scarcity of 1954 KM18.1 - small coin (25.6mm) - Bern die - coppernickel - non-magnetic - rare compared with the Utrecht die? Where would you place the value for the 18.1?

  • desslokdesslok Posts: 310 ✭✭✭

    Zohar, since you can read Hebrew, take a look at the original article written by the guy who discovered this variant:
    img2.timg.co.il/forums/1_155009563.pdf

    The bottom line is that although there are no official mintage figures, the researcher estimates that the number of such coins (KM18.1 coppernickel Bern die) that were originally struck at about 1000, out of which maybe a few tens survived. This is his own extrapolation based on the number of such coins found in dealers hoards. If that's true, this would make them 10 times rarer than KM19 Utrecht die.

    As for KM19.1, which is a combination of both varieties, Utrecht die and copper-nickel planchet, the researcher says he has seen only two such coins.

  • TomVTomV Posts: 17 ✭✭

    That is a nice article desslok! I don's speak/read Hebrew but thanks to Google Translate, I managed to be able to understand the article. In fact it answered a question I asked the Royal Dutch Mint about two and half weeks ago.
    I did send an email to their customer service to ask if 's Rijks Munt (the State Mint, as they were called in 1954) did strike the 20,000 100 Prutot coins with the date 1954 or that they only manufactured the dies. I got a very strange answer: customer service stated that the Royal Dutch Mint did not manufacture any foreign coins and/or dies until the introduction of the Euro in 2002. They even looked in the KM catalogue and saw the (u) next to this coin, but 'that must mean something different than the place where the coins were minted' (their words!). I replied them that at least two catalogues list at least 11 Israeli coins between 1954 and 1971 that were minted in Utrecht and that I found an article in a Dutch newspaper from 1993 that the Royal Dutch Mint is minting coins for Israel. Up to now, no answer...
    From this article I understand that Bern and Utrecht made the dies and the coins were minted in Tel-Aviv. Am I correct? That would be the answer to my question.

    I am afraid that the 'Newsletter of Coins and Bills Collectors in Israel' is not available in English, but are these publications online somewhere? I could always try to find information using Google Translate.

  • desslokdesslok Posts: 310 ✭✭✭

    The response you got from the customer service makes no sense to me. Utrecht has struck many coins for Israel over the years, including some coins in the current "New Shekel" series, and this fact has been well documented in Bank of Israel yearly reports (before they ceased divulging this information a few years ago).

    As for the Pruta coins, as far as I remember the published details, the striking was done in Tel Aviv and only the dies were made in Bern and Utrecht.

    The articles from the newsletter you refer to are not available online, and in fact I'm not sure they are archived anywhere. It is a very amateurish newsletter distributed to about 200 or so club members. I have some back issues but not all, and in any case they are all in Hebrew. If you need help in translating anything from Hebrew, just sent me a PM and I would gladly help, I don't think it would interest most of the forum members here.

  • LochNESSLochNESS Posts: 4,829 ✭✭✭

    Yeah, the mint's response probably came from a young/new hire or low-level customer service employee who [unfortunately] has no idea about what they are saying. Just like the Krause catalogs, errors happen and oversight / proofreading is not always a reality. Probably why they have not written you back again; trying to get the egg off of their face. I have had too many similar encounters in my relatively long lifetime with such a wide variety of businesses, that I am not surprised. I am reminded of a recent incident when I needed a MIDI cable. I went to a local computer store, and the salesman didn't even know what MIDI was ... I called RadioShack (a national chain which has been selling MIDI cables for decades) to see if they had any on the shelf. The woman who answered seemed confused, and told me she did not have any. I thought she was probably wrong, so I drove down there and looked myself. They had two on the shelf. When I brought them to the counter for purchase, she had nothing to say. The moral of the story is ... sometimes you have to trust your research and your own gut instincts over what some untrained or uneducated part-time employee tells you. For all we know, the person who answered your email is just a teenage intern or college intern who didn't even bother to investigate your inquiry before responding. They were probably born after 2010! LOL

    ANA LM • WBCC 429

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  • LochNESSLochNESS Posts: 4,829 ✭✭✭

    PS: Welcome to the boards and thanks for posting. I am thoroughly looking forward to more of your posts and photos. I enjoy Israeli coins and have gathered a few worth viewing, but never finished my set of Prutot. Best of luck to you!

    ANA LM • WBCC 429

    Amat Colligendo Focum

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  • TomVTomV Posts: 17 ✭✭

    Thanks for your welcome LochNESS!

    I don't try to get an answer from the Royal Dutch Mint anymore. After all, they are not the company they used to be. It was a government undertaking until 1994. It then became a private company with the government as the only shareholder. End of last year, a Belgium company bought all the shares. It may be that they don't have any archives anymore because they belonged to the government.

    There used to be a very nice coin museum at the mint, but that was transferred to the central bank of the Netherlands years ago. Maybe I should have asked there.

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