Queen Elizabeth II's Birthday coin.

Here is an opportunity to buy a 5 Quid coin for 5 Quid,which makes this coin NOT a medal-coin like those Canadian $8 pieces,which are medal-coins.Here's a link; www.royalmint.com/birthday .

Aidan.

 

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I like what the mint says that `it's sure to be a real collectors item'.

I remember them saying that back in 1965 when they issued the Churchill crown.

Sure.....people do collect them too, but there's about 11 million of those ugly puppies still looking for a caring home.

That £5 coin follows in the same tradition of modern British numismatics...it's a pretty keerap design. Many die hard royalists will buy these. The majority bought will probably lie in a drawer to be passed on to the kids at some later date. Very few (if any) will ever see active circulation in trade, and as such the mint is passing off a slug of base metal for a fiver knowing full well that it will make a profit of at least £4.75 for each one and that by the time they get to the `kids' the value is still only likely to be £5 ( devalued by inflation over a period of say 25 years or so). In other words, that means that most of the proceeds will be going straight into HM Govt's revenues.

Maybe i'm just having one of my extremely cynical moments, but to me the `coin' is nothing but yet another ugly slug of base metal. Non circulating legal tender stuff at its worst. Now if they'd made a circulation strike in silver THAT would have been a way to mark HM's birthday and at the same time give people a coin that was somewhere closer to having an intrinsic value of £5. Base metal though...no thanks.

 

These Elizabeth coins are a bit abused, but I like the designs better.

 

What is a medal-coin? I've never even heard that before.

 

The generally accepted numismatic term is NCLT - Non Circulating Legal Tender, but Aidan likes to call them medal-coins.

 

Unfortuantly your wrong again. The $8 dollar bear coin can be used as legal tender making it a coin.

Also this is a basemetal coin and not pure silver (bullion) so the comparison is horrible.

Personally I think you need to shut it because I am getting sick of you putting down canadian coins. I really dont care if I get in trouble for saying that either since I'm not the only Canadian on this forum getting offended by your comments about our COINS.

Also you will see with the british site that you have shown for the first link if you go into their silver content (bullion) they call them coins too.

http://www.royalmint.com/RoyalMint/web/site/PackedSets/BR06AG.asp

quote from off their site " Boasting the prestigious title of Britain’s largest and purest silver coin, the Silver Bullion Britannia £2 Coin has always been highly prized.
"
And yet that 2 pound coin sells for over 14 pounds go figure (because its high content .999 silver with a premium and probably double struck proof)

Anyways you need to stop saying that canadian pure silver coins are medal coins because the majority can be used as legal tender thus making it a COIN.

 

and based on that there is a big difference between non circulating legal tender and medal coins / tokens.

 

Thanks, I was confused. I have always thought that a medal is a medal and a coin is a coin. You can't spend a medal.

To me medal coin sounds like calling a motorcycle a bike-car.

To each his own....

 

Yeah hes been going on for months about this but he is wrong.

Here is an example of a medal coin/token. This one looks like legal tender but notice the sudbury name on it. This one popped to my head so I grabbed a pic since its in the medal book at the coin shop I hang out at. This one also has a denominatioon but the difference is it CAN NOT be used as legal tender making it a medal coin / token. At one point it did have use but not anymore thus its not legal tender. That $8 dollar coin will always be legal tender which is a big difference.

 

Actually WhispTech, what you posted is generally referred to as a "token", since it is intended a non-governmental item issued for use instead of money in some special circumstance.

"Medal" is generally used to describe a small, usually round, more or less flat metallic sculpture honoring someone or something, without monetary implication, such as the Presidential Medals issued by the US Mint.

Tokens are tokens, medals are medals, coins are coins, and "medal coin" is simply a contradiction in terms.

 

Yep I agree with that but note that it is commonly done where tokens and medals are mixed usually away from the coins thus is why i say medal coin / token.

But I know what your saying. The medals usually have no denomination on them and are even sometimes one sided.

here is an example of a medal coin though

http://cgi.ebay.com/WW-11-Canadian-...oryZ4075QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

thats a canadian medal coin

even listed as that

this next link is an prime example of what I see as being a medal

http://cgi.ebay.com/HMS-BELFAST-SOL...8372876178QQcategoryZ3454QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

And just as I was saying earlier about medal coin /token I am not the only one that sees it as that but I do agree with above post about token is token and such but see folowing link.

http://cgi.ebay.com/SANTA-FE-RR-RAI...Z6596992787QQcategoryZ130QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

also note that an other word sometimes for medal for teh bigger ones is PLAQUE

Note though that my links show that people see this different ways but aidan is way off on calling canadain coins medals or tokens.

 

I can't agree. That's a medal surely.

If it is to be categorised in any way as a coin it would need to have a legal tender status. Can you tell me what that items legal tender value is? Would the local corner shop exchange it for goods / services? Would people accept it in their change from the local corner shop? If not, it is not legal tender. If it never has been legal tender, then it never has been a `coin'.

If I listed a Churchill Crown on ebay and said that Churchill was really the man in the moon, would that make it true? Should I try it and see?

 

I agrre with Roy excepting I would would have categorised the rather large nickel as a `fantasy' piece (or paperweight / hockey puck). Tokens are made with a view to facilitation of trade locally. They are not necessarily denominated but are generally made to be fit for a specific trade need, and circulate for that purpose. That nickel seems to me to fall in line with issues such as the privately manufactured `coins' of Benito Mussolini made to look as if they were genuine Italian coins....or Edward VIII crowns....or Hutt River province coins. That is, they are they are the products of peoples `fantasies' and not real coins. They have no actual value in commercial trade terms. See `Unusual World Coins' by Colin R. Bruce (KM publications) for known examples.

Even tokens have a commercial value, if only within a very specific set of parameters (eg transport token or telephone token, or one armed bandit token), but where do you get face value for your fantasy pieces? :kewl:

 

If you read the note at the bottom it said " Note though that my links show that people see this different ways "

They where just examples of way people see these items but to show that aidan calling canadian legal tender medals coins is wrong.

 

..so if I put a footnote against a sale of a Churchill crown saying `I know a guy who thinks that he is really the man in the moon' would add credibility to my claim that Churchill is?'

I know what you are saying but my point is that a coin is a coin. A medal is a medal. If you want to talk about coins, (circulating type or the non circulating legal tender type) then we are all best served if we stick to terminology we can all identify with.

There is no such thing as a `medal coin'. if anything the closest that comes to fitting that description are silver jetons of france (also used extensively in Canada). These were pieces used as `presentation' pieces for sitting on various committees or the various state ministries or royal departments. They weren't denominated, but did carry a notional value of 1/3 ecu in terms of their silver (and therefore purchasing) value. Many ended up being used as a kind of `token' circulation, where there was no obligation to accept them, and no obligation to give the notional value, but many did indeed end up being used in some form of commercial activity.

Many copper jetons ended up being used as token currency in Canada as well as other French colonies.

Some jetons are little masterpieces in medallic art form. Others...well bland is a word used in kindness to them. These jetons were definitely not made to be either coins or tokens but rather a medalet presented as `tokens of appreciation'.

A classic example would be the so called Castorland `half dollar'. Castorland was part of New York State. The `half dollar' was a jeton produced for the Board of governors (based in Paris) for the `colony. One jeton was given to each Board member for their service every time the Board met. The jeton indeed ended up seeing circulation as far as I can ascertain. It was also re-struck on a number of occasions, latterly for the collectors market.

So, some `medals' can indeed end up being used as token coinage, but that is a million miles away from Aidan's idea of `medal coins'.

Sorry for the length of this post.:rolling:

Ian

 

Me I am just waiting for the £5 to come out as a silver proof so I can add it to my Crown & £5 collection

De Orc :kewl:

 

Man

I said look at teh note

They where just examples of how people see them as and to note that no one else sees a canadian legal tender coin as a medal / medal coin.

That was my point from teh beggining. Sorry if I didnt explain it well enough.

I agree with you and the others that legal tender is a coin and amedal is amedal and a token is a token.

I have never said that they where not just that i used some bad examples.

Also look at the $8 dollar thread and the thread i made for the wolf coin where its aidan saying there medals. Not me.

And those are not the only times he said my ethopian coin was a medal when its legal tender and all over the place in other threads and I have personally had enough. My whol epoint of this was to prove that they are not and both of you with your statements have justified what I have been trying to say. Reason i take this a bit far is because every time he says that he is insulting people like my self that collect COINS. I know I dont collect medals and token and to say so is to insult me and the rest of us.

As I mentioned bad examples but I was trying to prove it best i could.

Anyways back to my original point which is that $8 canadain bear coin is a COIN not a medal.

 

And on that very accurate point, agreed to by the overwhelming majority of collectors both on and off of CoinTalk, let's end this discussion before it degenerates into name-calling.