Auction pick-up lot today - British silver including a nice William III crown and a few nice Shillings and Sixpences. (Also some washers!) Whole lot for USD 145 including commission and postage seemed OK to me?
Another 1948 South Africa 5 Shillings with same grade as the one I posted a few days ago (PL66). This one graded by NGC however.
2 Rubles Russia 1/2 oz Silver 2016 Chinese Windmill Butterfly Byasa Alcinous Proof. a new coin for the "Coins with Insects" collection. beautiful details. sellers pic...
Large Iranian silver I picked up a couple of weeks ago. Can't find my sheet, don't recall the year. Condition looks good but it seems to be a bit weakly struck.
Here's a new upgrade for my Hungarian Type (1848-1956) set. Hungary 5 Korona 1900KB NGC MS65 KM-488, Huszár 2201 Years minted: 1900, 1906-1909 AG 0.900 24g 36mm x 2.6mm This is a heavy crown-sized denomination that marked up and wore quickly. This type is generally available in XF-AU grades, but it's extremely difficult to find mint state examples, especially above MS62. This example is of the first year of the type, which is also the highest mintage year (3.8m), accounting for over half of the mintage for this type. MS65 is top pop, and this example is 2/0 for the date and 8/0 for the type. Same coin, two different views:
yup Iran KM#1106 5000 Dinars (5 Kran) my question is which date is 1928 ? dates: SH1306 SH1306H SH1306 L SH1307 SH1308
Here's are a few newps I'm happy to show off. My Albanian coins with King Zog are getting harder to find, so I'm expanding slightly into the Italian Occupation (don't think I'll go any more modern than these). I'd seen a lot at Stacks with 19 Albanian coins. Most would have been duplicates (or in some cases a third or even fourth example). One would have been a very desirable dupe, but I was fortunate enough to have the only other one recently bought from a European auction. HOWEVER, there were four coins I wanted--one a serious upgrade to my Zog core set, plus three super nice Italian Occupation coins to populate a custom set over at NGC. By the time that auction lot came up though I had spent far more elsewhere and could NOT justify a lofty price to get 4 (or 5) coins out of 19. I don't have the inclination to resell on a large scale, so the other 15 (or 14) coins would have been a big chore even though the cost would offset the purchase some. The sum I had hoped to bid was exceeded by the opening of the auction, so I let them go. Fast forward a couple weeks, and lo and behold the coins are now all individually listed on eBay. The asking prices were high (sure the guy needs to make a buck and offset costs), but this way I could make offers on the four coins I REALLY wanted. I paid more than I would have liked but less than if I'd gone for the whole lot--not even considering just how high the winning bidder actually had in reserve. However, the guy has sold me some coins in the past that I'm very fond of so I consider this a win-win and no need to try and wring an extra few dollars out of the deal. Here's the first-- 1939 Lek, NGC MS-64:
The PCGS MS-65 1930 Lek. Years of searching and my best was a nice 1930 in an NGC slab. This one blows that one away.
#3 1939 2 Lek (PCGS MS-64) edited to add: A seriously scuffed up slab, coin is nicer than the photo (aren't they all though...). This is not a group to play the slab game with, but this one might get sent in some day just to get rid of the scuffs. Need to try that plastic polisher first though.
And the last one... PCGS MS-66 this time. So, in one day I've managed to nearly double my Occupation collection, and with some super nice ones to boot. The 'smart' thing would have been to buy the lot at Stacks...but disposing of the news (and lack of ready cash given a huge buy on the bourse) made this a nice way to go.