Share an off-Market coin that you want to improve your set

Clio · May 7, 2026 8:17AM

Just as the title says what is a coin that is not available on the market, but you are waiting patiently to come back around or just wish was available for a set and why.

I continue to struggle to find an upgrade for my William and Mary in my monarch set. It's been incredibly difficult to find in high grade and I am stuck at the moment. Looking at past auctions there's a few examples that have come and gone but I have to reach back to 2001 to find one I really feel like would solidify the slot in my set.

Sold by HA in 2001 ungraded for $632. I would happily pay $5k for this coin today. Potentially more.

Boosibri · May 7, 2026 12:34PM

Clio · May 7, 2026 12:40PM

@Boosibri said:

But why? Can't say I know anything about the coin in question.

SimonW · May 7, 2026 12:40PM

Clio · May 7, 2026 12:49PM

@SimonW Is that the only known example with the IL?

Boosibri · May 7, 2026 1:53PM

@Clio said:

@Boosibri said:

But why? Can't say I know anything about the coin in question.

Unique 1866. 1867 was the regular issue. There is one reported in a museum in Chile, but it disappeared. Wonder where it is?

SimonW · May 7, 2026 3:09PM

@Clio said:
@SimonW Is that the only known example with the IL?

The only one I’m aware of. I have a feeling it would sell for more today. I think the first time around was such a surprise, the newness of it made people question the legitimacy of it. That and not many people care about Bolivian Republic.

I would assume there’s more, I’ve looked, haven’t seen one.

MEJ7070 · May 7, 2026 5:10PM

1827 R Brazil 960 Reis

Clio · May 8, 2026 5:07AM

@MEJ7070 said:
1827 R Brazil 960 Reis

Why is that? Is that a year with overstrikes?

MEJ7070 · May 8, 2026 5:39AM

960R are generally all over struck on host coins.

1827 R is one of the lower mintages in the series and, while not at all “rare” by the standards of this board (mintage of 18k, which is about 17,995 more than what I often see posted here), still doesn’t surface for sale with regularity like most of the dates in the series tend to. Some of the later Bahia dates are also in that ballpark of “hard to find” but they all come up once every few years.

I’m just working on a registry set and the 1827 R is one of the tougher open slots. Set doesn’t include the real tough ones like the later Bahia dates or the crazy tough 1816 M. Those are coins I can fantasize about.

Clio · May 8, 2026 6:11AM

@MEJ7070 said:
960R are generally all over struck on host coins.

1827 R is one of the lower mintages in the series and, while not at all “rare” by the standards of this board (mintage of 18k, which is about 17,995 more than what I often see posted here), still doesn’t surface for sale with regularity like most of the dates in the series tend to. Some of the later Bahia dates are also in that ballpark of “hard to find” but they all come up once every few years.

I’m just working on a registry set and the 1827 R is one of the tougher open slots. Set doesn’t include the real tough ones like the later Bahia dates or the crazy tough 1816 M. Those are coins I can fantasize about.

Very cool! Do you have a link to the set by chance?

MEJ7070 · May 8, 2026 6:22AM

https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/alltimeset/403671

Clio · May 8, 2026 6:37AM

@MEJ7070 said:
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/alltimeset/403671

Great looking set. Seems you've only been working on it since November??? that's great progress. Very impressive.

MEJ7070 · May 8, 2026 6:40AM

Thanks. I bought a really nice 1817 R from CRO at Baltimore in November, then bought David Andre Levy’s book, then started getting hooked.

scubafuel · May 10, 2026 8:40AM

There are many, but this is a neat one.

1813 Argentina 2s.

Plus00Vltra · May 10, 2026 12:19PM

If I could conjure a coin to fill a hole in my collection, right now it is this: 1769 Guatemala 8 Reales, large flan, ex Stuart.

WCC · May 10, 2026 1:36PM

@SimonW said:

I bought nine coins from that auction. It was the first live auction from which I bought, or else I would have bought more. I had a dealer represent me which was actually unnecessary, especially since he failed to bid on one. (I subsequently bought a similar coin a few years later.)

The Whittier collection (this auction) was the largest and most comprehensive collection of Bolivia Republic I've ever seen, by far.

WCC · May 10, 2026 1:38PM

1771 Peru 4R which sold the same day in March 2002 I bought my 1770 Bolivia 4R. Coins looked essentially identical. I should have bought both.

Another would be a 1756 or 1758 Peru 4R described as AU (ex-Patterson I recall) also on eBay a few months later, but the ask was $1750 which was far more than I spent on a single coin at the time.

Plus00Vltra · May 10, 2026 2:20PM

@SimonW said:

$632?! No way!

Clio · May 11, 2026 9:41AM

@scubafuel What's special about a 1813 Argentina 2s.

scubafuel · May 12, 2026 8:02AM

@Clio said:
@scubafuel What's special about a 1813 Argentina 2s.

Mostly that it's very rare, with only 2-3 known. It's a wonderful design and almost impossible to find. It's also needed for a date set of 2S, which I would like to build. 4 coins total, I have 1 of them

bosox · May 12, 2026 10:35AM

Canada pattern DC-1. Provincial obverse and 1876-H reverse. Perhaps 4 known. $$$$$

Clio · May 12, 2026 10:35AM

@scubafuel said:

@Clio said:
@scubafuel What's special about a 1813 Argentina 2s.

Mostly that it's very rare, with only 2-3 known. It's a wonderful design and almost impossible to find. It's also needed for a date set of 2S, which I would like to build. 4 coins total, I have 1 of them

tough building a set of 4 coins like that haha. I have thought it would be a ton of fun to build a 1795 US type set. Your PFP made me think of it.

Clio · May 12, 2026 1:13PM

@Plus00Vltra said:
If I could conjure a coin to fill a hole in my collection, right now it is this: 1769 Guatemala 8 Reales, large flan, ex Stuart.

What is special about it?

MrEureka · May 12, 2026 3:08PM

This is one of maybe only 3 known for the date. I couldn’t reel it in when the Stuart Collection was broken up, but I’m hoping to catch it on the rebound.

threefifty · May 12, 2026 4:59PM

These National Congress/Tlalpujahua 8Rs pop up every few years it seems, but would love to have a shot at one again... S.P. Rutherford had a lightly cleaned one that feels like a bargain now.

Plus00Vltra · May 12, 2026 5:34PM

@Clio said:

@Plus00Vltra said:
If I could conjure a coin to fill a hole in my collection, right now it is this: 1769 Guatemala 8 Reales, large flan, ex Stuart.

What is special about it?

Sort answer: I have not seen a problem-free large flan 1769 G P 8 Reales up for auction since I have pursued one over the past many years.

Longer answer: The minting equipment at the Guatemala Casa de Moneda was falling apart by the end of the 1760s, evidenced by broken punches and inconsistent strikes from an aging coin press. The drawdown in quality was exacerbated by the retirement of the die engraver in 1767, leaving die production in 1768 to the assayer, Pedro Sanchez de Guzman (P), who routinely inverted letters, hand-engraved others, levitated globes far above waves, and otherwise made a mess of the spacing of devices. Coins were stuck on "large" (wider, flatter, but of weight) flans wider than the dies that struck them through the beginning of 1769, before De Guzman decided to make "smaller" (narrower, thicker, but of weight) flans to ensure a better strike, albeit resulting in coins with devices running off the edges as dies were wider than the flans. These problems continued through the end of the series in 1771 when Spain sent new equipment along with the design change from Pillars to Portraits. I would jump at the chance to add the Stuart large planchet 1769 specimen to fill out my collection of endgame Guatemalan pilar coinage. References here are mostly from Yonaka and Jara.

Thanks for the prompt.

SimonW · May 12, 2026 9:31PM

@Plus00Vltra said:

@Clio said:

@Plus00Vltra said:
If I could conjure a coin to fill a hole in my collection, right now it is this: 1769 Guatemala 8 Reales, large flan, ex Stuart.

What is special about it?

Sort answer: I have not seen a problem-free large flan 1769 G P 8 Reales up for auction since I have pursued one over the past many years.

Longer answer: The minting equipment at the Guatemala Casa de Moneda was falling apart by the end of the 1760s, evidenced by broken punches and inconsistent strikes from an aging coin press. The drawdown in quality was exacerbated by the retirement of the die engraver in 1767, leaving die production in 1768 to the assayer, Pedro Sanchez de Guzman (P), who routinely inverted letters, hand-engraved others, levitated globes far above waves, and otherwise made a mess of the spacing of devices. Coins were stuck on "large" (wider, flatter, but of weight) flans wider than the dies that struck them through the beginning of 1769, before De Guzman decided to make "smaller" (narrower, thicker, but of weight) flans to ensure a better strike, albeit resulting in coins with devices running off the edges as dies were wider than the flans. These problems continued through the end of the series in 1771 when Spain sent new equipment along with the design change from Pillars to Portraits. I would jump at the chance to add the Stuart large planchet 1769 specimen to fill out my collection of endgame Guatemalan pilar coinage. References here are mostly from Yonaka and Jara.

Thanks for the prompt.

This is one of the smaller, thick flans he’s referring to, the edges are falling off the rims, this really only happened in the later years:

realeswatcher · May 12, 2026 10:45PM

@Plus00Vltra Nice and problem-free is one thing, but in general, the wide flan for that year isn't super tough vs. the more compact version:

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?term=1769+guatemala+"8+reales"&category=1-2&lot=&date_from=&date_to=&thesaurus=1&images=1&en=1&de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1&currency=usd&order=1

Note that link breaks... copy/paste the whole thing or just do the ACsearch directly.

Boosibri · May 13, 2026 3:16AM

Clio · May 13, 2026 4:57AM

@Plus00Vltra said:

@Clio said:

@Plus00Vltra said:
If I could conjure a coin to fill a hole in my collection, right now it is this: 1769 Guatemala 8 Reales, large flan, ex Stuart.

What is special about it?

Sort answer: I have not seen a problem-free large flan 1769 G P 8 Reales up for auction since I have pursued one over the past many years.

Thanks for the prompt.

Fascinating read! Love hearing mint history like this.

shirohniichan2 · May 13, 2026 10:16AM

1876 Romanian 1 leu

I’ve seen them come up on eBay every once in a while, but usually the sellers are sketchy and the images so poor as to be worthless.

Plus00Vltra · May 13, 2026 8:30PM

@realeswatcher said:
@Plus00Vltra Nice and problem-free is one thing,

There's the rub!

Share an off-Market coin that you want to improve your set

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