Here are two specimens of a very rare date of Great Britain Florin - the 1854. I have never seen a truly mint state specimen and also suspect the Mintage figures for that year may not reflect how many florins of the date were struck and might include 1853 dated coins as they are certainly rare above VF. Guess the grade or preference if you’d like and apologise that these are photos off the internet: Coin 1: Coin 2:
I am not good at grading - certainly not on the US scale, so I will simply give preference: I would go for the second one. The slightly yellowish tone looks more natural to me. Maybe the first one has been cleaned a while back?
Yes, I agree with that. The first was sold on by Spink as part of the "Waterbird" collection and interestingly graded NGC 58. I concur that this appears cleaned as it definitely has that appearance. While the second may also have been cleaned long ago will agree it more attractive. It was graded PCGS 50. I believe the second under graded and the first overgraded. As readers are no doubt aware, this issue is notoriously poorly struck and even a little bit of usage will relegate to the VF level or so. The fields and edge as opposed to the devices are possibly more useful in grading in this instance....
