One of the most common fake crowns out there, yet they still fetch $750 at auction occassionally. Here's one, asking a mere $999 http://www.ebay.com/itm/ALBANIA-5-FRANGA-ARI-COIN-1927-UNC-/300616876187
Nearly all of mine were purchased raw then slabbed. The 50 Franga and 10 Franga are exceptions, they were already slabbed. As was my 1927 Albania 100 no star as an MS63. I have had one come back cleaned, one counterfeit, and one no decision.
[QUOTE = "fred13, post: 1251237, membro: 20688"] Se è vero il tuo diritto. I Provas sono di solito due volte krause. Interessante comunque krause lo ha elencato e il mio libro albanese realizzato dal governatore albanese non lo fa PS possiedi 100 monete di franga? solo curioso [/ QUOTE] Jepi uje, cili liber i bankes nuk e permend?
@fred13 I'm curious too--which book do/did you have and use? I do have a recently purchased book in Italian regarding the provas only. I don't read Italian particularly but don't see specific mintages in general. The 1937 20 FrA does have a photo though. At least I think that is the gist of the combination google translate for Italian and Albanian is asking. .
Hi, I'm referring to this book https://www.ebay.com/itm/Coins-and-...214581?hash=item421111b4b5:g:bMkAAOSwc-tY4oSB At one point or another I had two copies brought over to me over the course of a few years or so by two different sets of relatives. The book itself is quite thick and upon discovering it I was naturally quite excited. However it turned out to be quite a let down. The book in my opinion is inferior to the few pages offered in the krause catalog. No mention of provas, any detail as to how the designs came to be, primary use of the coinage, the engravers themselves or anything else of that sort. Rather it is filled with scarcely populated pages with much of it being useless information like the total reserves of the bank of albania between the kingdom years. The only plus I guess for you is the book is written in Albanian then the second half is a translation of the first into English. The one positive I recall was being able to unload both my copies for about a 100 a piece on ebay several years ago. In short if you need a book just to say you have a book on albanian coinage look no further. If you are actually interested in questions like I am such as why contracts for the coinage switched to Vienna and London in 1930/31 vs 1926/1927 in Rome you won't be too pleased. On that Italian Prova book you mentioned I had emailed the author looking to pick up a copy a year or so ago but he never responded. Is it worth it at all in your opinion?
non parlo italiano. Solo spagnolo, inglese, o albanese. Si kalone Girandi? Kam nje 100 frangsh ne koleksion. Eshte shume monedhe e bukur ne opinionin time Po ti ke nje?
I have that book too...somewhere in my house. I can't seem to find it at the moment. I too would like something more like what you say. The prova book is to be determined. It's only the provas and I haven't parsed through it much yet. It does address the platinum strikes it looks like. Do you read Italian? I could send a couple photos and give you an idea of what the book is like.
I can get a general sense of it from my Spanish but I would be much obliged thanks. Whenever you have a chance feel free to pm. Thanks in advance!
Here is the cover, but I reduced the size of the file to fit here. I'll pm you to see if the full size/resolution pages can get sent to you.
Looks real to me. If weight and size are accurate and the gold content is right on... Did the counterfeiters stop at 1? More should have shown up by now. The R moved away from Zog in the second set of pictures. Jmo.
Back when I was authenticating at ANACS these Albanian pieces were very controversial, and often were returned as "no decision" coins. I see that they are still controversial.
The provas or in general? I'd seen allusions to restrikes (including the platinums) but the only gold one I've seen 'sure' of that had a mark indicating it was a restrike. I'll try and dig up the screenshot I took. edited to add, found it.
Pershendetje FRED13 une kam nje koleksion te plote te monedhave shqiptare (por jo Prova) nga koha e Zogut, deri ne ditet e sotme
@Girandi please excuse google translate, i don't speak Albanian te lutem me falni google translate, nuk flas shqip Do you have the 1926 20 FrA with Zog? E keni 1926 20 FrA me Zog? I have the 1926 with Prince Skanderbeg but have never seen one with Zog. Unë e kam 1926-n me Princ Skënderbeun por kurrë nuk kam parë një me Zogun.
On the chance anyone is interested in the disposition of the prova I originally posted about in 2011. Soon after it came back from NGC as AU58 the coins was sold, to a guy in Chicago who owned a taxi company. I got $3,500 for it best-offer with a $5,000 buy it now price listed. Not bad for a coin I only had $400 in. Did a little internet research on the guy who bought it, seems he had been to hell and back with the immigration service. They wanted to deport him to Albania, but because he had legal problems there including a charge of smuggling cigarettes, he pleaded for asylum claiming he would likely be executed if he were sent back. Case ended-up in the appellate courts before he finally won and was allowed to stay. Meanwhile, for all of you Albanian aficionados, here's an auction you will for certain want to check-out. Nice run of Albanian material including provas. Beats me why the countries are not listed alphabetically, but the first Albanian coin is at the bottom of this page. Page forward to see the rest of them. Enjoy. https://auktionen.sincona.com/Auktion/Onlinekatalog?intAuktionsId=855
Interesting story! And thanks for posting that link. I see a couple of the 50 FrA, a dilemma. I'm still lacking that one, but it's hard to pull the trigger based on photos alone. Any experience with this auction house? I see they can take paypal, and I do have a little set aside in my '50 FrA emergency fund' (ie untouchable except for this coin).
I didn't particularly care for the 50 Franga coins they had either. They are reputable, at least in as far as prices realized go. There are some auction houses in Europe that will post unmet reserves as the price realized, I won't name the scoundrels that do that but it sure makes it more difficult to know if you are paying the right price when Coin Archives has results for auctions that never really happened. I read the terms of the Sincona sale, they want 20% buyers premium along with a 2% internet fee. When you add in currency exchanges costs and wire transer fees it hardly seems worth the trouble.