I recently purchased the piece. It is circa 1700 and from the city of Basel. I thought the toning was interesting... and I bought it. I really love the eagle... not to mention the city view. Enjoy!
Now that coin is enough to bring me over to the darkside. Is it a proof? Is it graded? What is the grade of the coin?
Normally I would have very little if ever anything negative to say about a coin you post. But in this case I feel like I need to make an exception. While these coins are sometimes found with very attractive toning like this, it is all but unheard of to find circulated examples with toning like that. It is enough to make me suspicious.
Doug, I agree that you hardly ever see them like this... This coin was priced where even if it is AT'ed that it didn't really matter to me. I really liked the design. It is however a little darker then it appears in the pictures I'm trying out a new lighting setup.
The thing with darksiders is that they don't like slabs.... and the darksider that buys this in a slab will just crack it out anyways. I'd say it's a nice XF. I was never a darksider until I became interested in early American coinage. I started to think "well, if this coin is so neat what were other countries making around this period and earlier?" Then I got bit... but now-a-days I'm kind of a jack of all trades.
Oh I like the design, I've always loved City View thalers ! Should have known you were too sharp to be fooled, or at the least paid so little that it wouldn't matter.
Doug, The coin appears to have at least XF details and the toning is limited to the protected areas of the coin. Since the coin is from the 1700's, I think it would be very possible to attain this deep coloration under the right storage conditions. However, I am a novice at darkside coins and would prefer to have the seal of approval from a TPG before a bought a toned coin such as this.
Paul I don't know what you are seeing, but everything on that coin is toned blue to my eyes. Including all the devices and legends, but it really doesn't matter.
Well, toning or not, that is one beautiful coin. Great design indeed. I really like it. I have always liked the city view coins... I personally only have a small ND1839 1k from Frankfurt that has a city view.
