It's a beauty and I don't know much about these gothic Florins, love the design though! Below is a graded 1880 and her face looks a little bit different than yours. Different because it's a different year? idk, may be legit, I have doubts but who knows?! If I'm wrong feel free to educate me!
I think yours perfectly legitimate, and there is some variance although most think they remained unchanged from the original accepted 1848 pattern (there were others). This one is particularly nice and indeed is a Roman numeral dated piece of extreme rarity especially in condition. The only scarcer CURRENCY Gothic florin is the 1854, and the proof 1851 (no currency issue of that year) valued higher even if not necessarily scarcer than a high grade 1863. This replaced the specimen that was almost as nice that I lost when my wife left and took it with her.
Very nice coin. Am I missing something though? According to Numista, there are 13 other dates in the series that have a lower mintage than 1863, and two that are lower than 1854. But perhaps the Numista numbers are incorrect?
No the mintage numbers FOR THE YEAR are correct but that is the number struck, even if some or many bear another date (ie. The 1854 number struck would then include pieces dated 1853). Hope that makes sense.
So you're saying that, for example, some of the florins minted in 1870 (1,080,600) bear the date of 1869 and thus are to be added to the exceedingly low mintage number (297,000) given to the year 1869? If this is the case, is there any way to know how many "overlap dates" were minted in a given year?
In short, no! There were no specific records of which coins were struck when but seems to be the case that none were struck for upcoming or future years. It can not be said for certain either that other earlier dated dies than just the previous year may have been used. Steve Hill at Sovereign would likely substantiate this. 1863 florin is a perfect example in that 1862 is also a scarcer (but not as rare) so there would be raised suspicion that coins other than 1862 & 63 were struck in that year. This is true of virtually all denominations to the best of my understanding and confuses the situation. Rarity is hard to estimate because of this and survival rate is not equal in any case so best on scarcer to rare pieces to follow auction and sales records if at all possible. BTW, 1869 and 1870 generally thought to be scarcer dates of florin....
