I got a new batch of Full British Sovereigns with more desirable dates and mint marks than my previous batch and I am trying to determine whether it is realistic of me to assign a numismatic value above and beyond melt value. I know that Canadian minted sovereigns are the most desirable and then certain India minted coins. I am thinking that coins minted at the Royal British Mint prior to 1914 will eventually have increased numismatic value ? How would you grade these 2 coins ? Are they worth the fee to have them conserved by NCS ? Should I use acetone on gold coins in this circulated condition ? If I forgot to ask a pertinent question please do not hesitate to chime in. Thanks, Joseph
A 1912 London Mint won't be worth more than the usual premium for sovereigns I'm afraid. They have a mintage figure of over 30,000,000 and are common. Also, while it is true that as a general rule, Ottowa (Canada) Mint sovereigns are generally scarcer and more sought-after than London or other mints, this isn't a cast iron rule. A 1917 London Mint Sovereign, for example will be worth much more than a 1917c. On that point, not even mintage figures tell the whole story. The 1917 London Mint Sovs have a mintage figure of over a million, compared to a Canada Mint mintage of just over 58,000 for the same year, but almost all the 1917 Londons were shipped to the US and melted down, making Canada Mint ones much more common (although still fairly rare). If you are serious about collecting sovereigns though, I would recommend purchasing a copy of Michael A Marsh's 'The Gold Sovereign'. It gives most of the mintage figures as well as a good indication of the values of each one. (Marsh's rarity ratings are a more accurate indication of value than mintage figures). This website is also a handy source of information: http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/index.php As for the grade of the coins, I'll leave that to others more familiar with the US grading system...
Thank youPrestoninanus. I have visited that web site: http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/index.php and when I do the conversion from their British Pound to the US dollar for a coin that I "think" is similar to mine , I come out with a price around $388.00 USD. This is why I am asking for help here , because I have not been able to sell these coins for even $280.00 here locally & they don't sell for much more on eBay ( after all the seller's fees ). So I am confused as to why they sell for so much on that Sovereign's website but not nearly as much here in my city of Seattle. And , yes , mine are FULL Sovereigns , not 1/2 Sovereigns. The only logical thing I can think of is if there is a numismatic grading value at play in the pricing and how I could best tap into that.
If a customer was buying in bulk, a gold sovereign dealer would be selling them for less than $280 each (at the time of writing), and a 1912 London Sovereign in that kind of condition is likely to be the kind of coin that would be sent out as a bullion sovereign. Specific sovs in a particular grade requested by a customer are sold at a higher price because of supply and demand. If a customer wants a 1912 Sovereign, and the dealer has one, he will want a price higher than that which he would accept for any old sovereign, due to both the extra work needed to give a customer a specific sovereign type, and also the fact that it is much easier to buy any sovereign than one in a particular grade/mintmark/year, which gives the dealer a certain amount of leverage in the transaction. Given all this, the only way you could really get a price better than spot for your sovereigns is to A) become a dealer yourself (so that people would seek you out rather than you seeking them out) or B) find or rather, stumble, accross a collector who happens to want a 1912 sovereign without minding that it is a bullion type grade and is therefore prepared to pay the premium. I suppose the best advice I could give you if you see sovereigns primarily as an investment, rather than as something you want to collect, is to buy in bulk (so that you can get them for a lower premium) and do not try and buy them in specific dates/types, especially if they are fairly common. Or else buy ones at the higher end of the spectrum (high-grade and/or rare), although this is somewhat more risky (especially if you are not intimately acquainted with the market trends), as their value depends a lot more on collector demand, as tested by auctions and the experiances of established dealers, rather than their intrinsic value in gold, making them something more of a speculative investment...
