Below are pictures (bad quality) of the very first examples of these that I've seen, and likely rare. There is a bit of an interesting story: These had been for sale for some time at an exorbitant price that I was not willing to pay. However, after about 3+ months of negotiating we came to a price higher than I wanted to pay but more reasonable. I confess I did not look at the address of the seller and had sent out payment; I was wondering where my order was and double checked only to see he was located in Kyiv, UKRAINE! It turned out he had acknowledged the sale on 24 February which was the day the Russians attacked. Based on subsequent news I figured that I might be out my money but seller responded to my email and saw bided my time. Well, today this came in the mail: edited Inside and undamaged were my two coins: The coins are slightly grungy being of copper nickel but will restore surfaces and picture them again. What is interesting is that they are fully (U) prooflike uncirculated coins and are superior to the few others of other dates I have seen - they appear much as (U) coins in the Franklin Mint specimen mint sets & I had noted Krause lists 1977 and 1978 specimen sets for this mint so there is some possibility that these were once part of a set. I also have smaller denomination 1978 coins of (U) quality but these are much more crudely struck & are packaged in mixed year sets packaged by the Guyana Central Bank and in the case of dollar coins also occasionally singly. Regardless they must be quite rare as I have not seen any before and was quite an adventure they faced getting out of that poor country.
Congrats on the purchase and glad to hear that it arrived! Hopefully all is well with the seller too. I have a few of their items on my watch list and was also debating one over the last few months. It was more than I wanted to spend but I might go back and purchase it when the current situation finally ends (hopefully soon for the people in harm's way).
I’ve bought quite a few coins from this guy, he is an excellent dealer who always has a good range of world coins,
Yes, I will edit this. The surfaces had some 40+ years of grunge on them and so just removing them with a careful application of MS 70, plenty of water, detergent, more water, vinegar soak, more detergent and plenty more water with a soft cotton towel with high nap to tamp it down. Hmmm, I am unable to return and edit this part.
Oops, I meant ammonia diluted and NOT vinegar... The portrait of Cuffy on the 10 Dollar coin really puts to shame most modern issues and their poorly done portraits... Here are the "post" pictures (these are VERY hard to photograph due to the prooflike surfaces - these also show any hairline, smudge or defect) :
Just beautiful to find such rare coins! I would imagine the mintages are in the very low hundreds, if that.
The mintage is reported at 100 but the story is actually better than that. As you may know the Franklin Mint felt it necessary to strike actual coins theoretically for circulation to justify the "collector" coins in the proof sets. While many know that bit, the interesting thing is that they are large at 45 mm and 42 mm so that they would present a large format for display of the design; that is fine enough but the value of a Guyana dollar in 1978 was just under 10 cent USD and this meant that even the $10 coin had a value at the time of about 95 cents and 47 cents for the $5. That meant that these coins had very little purchasing value for the time and there was no use for them, and MUCH less as time has passed. Well, what happened to them? Nobody knows as they may have been melted down or even tossed out & for the last 10 years at least their purchasing power has been about 5c and 2c USD equivalent (as a side note the metal content is worth about USD 1.92 and USD 1.60 so even they have a metal value that exceeds face.... I have some connections down there that are trying to find out just what happened to, and if any coins survived. So, quite an adventure. Please see earlier posts about Guyana coins of the Franklin Mint; the 1980 $10 I found several years ago was an (U) uncirculated specimen also but of much cruder planchet and the smaller denominations also looked a bit rough as far as metal treatment of the blanks/planchets.
