Any Thoughts on the Grade of this Sovereign

There are actually many more 1879 L coins out there that one would suspect for a 20k mintage, and most in the VF to AU range. The obverses are almost always terribly struck with weak features. A search of eBay seems to turn these up relatively often and many times it comes up for auction at venues such as LCA (BTW, that coin of theirs looks to be amongst the nicer available in the last cpl. years). Hard to peg the value as these just don't come in nicer unc. grades.

The OP coin is likely mid-VF and sadly has a bit of a rim ding at 10 o'clock reverse.

The real sleeper is the 1879 half sov. in AU or so that seems to show up about 1/4 the frequency of the full sov.

 

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I would have it graded, it will most likely increase its value or at least make it easier to sell when the time comes. What other sovereigns do you have?

 

Solid AU50 if you ask me.

 

I have managed to put together a fairly decent collection of Sovereigns. My better ones include:

1859 Ansells (3 graded sovs)
1839 Proof half sov
1841 Sov
1838
1913 Canada
1887M Shield
1858 Sydney
1831 (2 nice examples)
1832
1923 SA Proof
1937 Graded set
1989 (graded and full sets)
2002, 2005 and 2012 sets
1993
Some harder to find Aus half sovs

Its strange how very low mintage half sovs do not command nearly the same price as their bigger brothers, quite unlike the US gold offerings, where even a smaller denomination is much sought after.

I'm trying to save to complete my Canada set. Of course, I'm missing the two most crucial ones at the moment.

I've posted most of these here before......but when I do get the 1908 and 1916 Canada sovs to complete my set, I'd be sure to celebrate...

 

I managed to get an 1879S half sov. The London Mint one is quite elusive.

 

Nice collection. You have a couple that I am looking to add. Do you have them slabbed or are they raw?

 

Mostly slabbed except for the 1838s....I have a couple of those and was thinking of submitting them to NGC. The 1831s are 61 and 62, and one which is raw.

I also collect guineas and crowns (mainly William III, Queen Anne or SSC) if I can afford the prices asked. Recently acquired a 1935 Proof crown at a price I was happy to pay .

I am also partial to British India Mohurs (1841, would love to get a nice William IIII example) and good gold from the Moghul dynasty and Afghanistan. I've been lucky enough to find some very nice stuff from that era IMHO.

 

1841 Sov - that is impressive!

 

Inverted V variety

 

Nice

 

I grade it VF, and congratulations!

Regarding the scarcity of this issue, out of interest I looked it up in acsearch and found listed sales records for ca. 25 specimens for the Victoria Sovereign 1879, S 3856A:

https://www.acsearch.info/search.ht...s=1&currency=usd&thesaurus=1&order=3&company=

I am not familiar with the series, not with what is considered scarce or rare in this series, so please excuse me. Does this number (25 sales records since early 90's I think is as far as acsearch goes) seem reasonable for this coin?

(I hope I got the S number correct!)

 

The ACsearch is OK starting point, but there seem to have been a number in group lots & firms such as Baldwin's or DNW have had some I could not find in the records there.
I still think it's a prize find, and these should be appreciated.

 

Yes that's the correct number. A description from one of the listings states:

Victoria gold Sovereign 1879, Young Head, St George reverse, S-3856A, Marsh-90 (R4)

I suppose this is all very subjective. Some state Scarce and some Rare. Personally, I let a nice example go as I wanted to win the 1841 sov (Much harder to find) and had to wait almost 18 months till an affordable example came along. So I would certainly rate it as rare and not scarce, given that Ansells are rated rare with a mintage of 167k+ and more than 30 graded by NGC and PCGS combined.