Your 1873 Farthings just got a whole lot less valuable
wybrit
Posts: 6,988 ✭✭✭
Goldberg is selling a hoard of 117 of UNC examples in their Pre-Long Beach Auction, in 3 lots. They're all out for grading at NGC. Many are apparently BU FL.
Former owner, Cambridge Gate collection.
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Amat Colligendo Focum
Top 10 • FOR SALE
<< <i>Goldberg is selling a hoard of 117 of UNC examples in their Pre-Long Beach Auction, in 3 lots. They're all out for grading at NGC. Many are apparently BU FL. >>
The same collector probably has a stash of 1869 farthings as well.
I hope they show up after mine (formerly yours) is sold!
I posted one in proof 65BN, hope that still is rare...LOL
Well, just Love coins, period.
Neither. He's joking about the ex-Colin Cooke 1869 which he bought at that auction, which then ended up in my collection after Heritage.
I do have two nice 1873s, oh well!
Well, just Love coins, period.
Amat Colligendo Focum
Top 10 • FOR SALE
edit: Doubtful it's a shipwreck if they are really all BU as the OP states
Amat Colligendo Focum
Top 10 • FOR SALE
Well, just Love coins, period.
<< <i>Given the late date I'd say either shipwreck or someone's attic. Although I suppose the mintage date is irrelevant as they could've been lost / stowed away at any time after having been minted. Who knows, maybe they got lost during WWI
edit: Doubtful it's a shipwreck if they are really all BU as the OP states >>
Here's how it happened........
The local bank branch's head officer bought a small bag of 1873 BU farthings in 1887 intending to distribute them to the hoi polloi during the Queen's Jubilee parade (he liked to see the urchins scrambling to pick up the wee little coppers). He wrapped them tightly in the bag and then stuffed them inside a purple silk bag as a visual key of where he'd placed them. Thence they went into an old bureau where they lay for the last 126 years. The bank officer was felled by dropsy two days prior to the Jubilee. Now comes Silas the antique dealer who bought the bureau in a rummage sale just this past January. On finding the silk purse, he called Ira G., his 3rd cousin-twice removed, and ask if these tiny copper bits were worth anything...........and now you know the rest of the story.
<< <i>Boy I'm glad that I don't have coins that can see their value totally eroded by the surfacing of a horde. Where did these 117 coins show up from anyway? Any info? >>
This is an unnecessary worry. The 1873 farthing is one of the commoner dates. There must be at least a 100 uncs in collections already, so another 100 won't matter. The value won't be totally eroded in any case. They would have to be sold for $1/117 to have any destructive impact on the current price and then released all at once. Say they sell for $50 each, then maybe the price of an unc could come down to $75 if all were released onto the market in one go. The buyer will drip them into the market until absorbed. It just means that there are more uncs to go around, so why buy a grotty one? That they are going to be graded won't help US sales as I doubt there are that many collectors in the US who want one, so that could overhang the market. This is however only one coin type and date and the same would apply to any other common coin hoard found. The impact would be much larger if it was a type and variety that was known to be very rare other than the hoard. e.g. William I PAXS pennies prior to 1833 were the rarest type of the reign. Now they are the commonest courtesy of the Beaworth (Hampshire) hoard which contained approx. 6500 pieces.
Nobody has a one coin collection, so the value of the other hundred or three will be unaffected. If one coin's value goes down, so what? Collections are a group of coins bought at various prices, some cheaply, some about right and some you will have paid over the odds. The important thing is to minimise the overpayments, but the impact of unearthing a large group of one single coin present in any collection will be a fraction of a percent on the overall value. A fall in value that will be dwarfed by the day to day valuation variations that would be offered should you decide to sell, or the venue you decide to use for a sale.