I have almost all 10 and 50 Francs coins with this design. This one is my first 5 Francs. I'm not particularly fond of GB coins in general, but these two were pretty cheap (10 and 5 dollars, respectively)
Yes, I did. A trusted seller that basically only sells coins that fit my collection purposes (world silver coins) is an asset. I'm pretty lazy about some things, but soon I have to join a few more sites, such as Heritage, and also the grading sites.
I've bought quite a few coins from them. I just got back one I sent to PCGS. Aspen stated AU-UNC, and it came back AU58. At first I though the coin was cleand, but turned out to be a good one. I'll buy more from them. The coin I sent in was an 1861 Prussian commemorative Thaler.
Unless we're talking about relatively new coins, they don't usually have many MS coins. I'm OK with that, I basically ignore everything lower than XF+ They will usually say when coins are cleaned (and they have many). Once I bought a coin they didn't say was cleaned, they offered me 25% back. I accepted because the coin retoned and still looks good. The coin was a Prussian 1901-A 200 Years Kingdom, 2 Mark. Can you post a picture of your thaler?
Those are some great designs, I love the detail on the 5 Francs. It's almost like those photos of bike races where the winner gets the trophy from two lovely ladies.