Franklin Mint coins

Do you know of any popular and valuable Franklin Mint coins? I'm talking about all those business strikes and proof sets they made for countries in the 70s and stuff. For example, you see in the catalog those big sterling balboa coins with 3-4 oz of silver in them priced at 200 or so but they often much lower and closer to melt than the catalog. The Coin Sets of the World they put together are neat. I have a proof coin graded I got for 25 and only around 700-800 were minted. Maybe only these low mintage coins are truly somewhat valuable. What do you think?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

From my personal experience, the Franklin Mint has made mostly proof and/or commemorative sets for other countries. Regardless, they are overpriced just like all of their other products.

Chris

 

I have volumes of FM coins from the seventies and eighties from my grandmothers collection, and aside for a few that were made of silver flown to the moon, I don't think that they are worth much more than melt. There's just no demand for them as far as I can tell.

 

Franklin Mint stuff looks great on TV and in print ads. IMO, that's the best place to leave it.

 

I own several of the Franklin Proof sets from the 70s. A lot of silver and some of the most beautiful coins you can find. Some are low mintage and while few will sell for the "Krause value", several are very collectible.

 

A lot of the Krause sets and singles are scarce and valuable now. Of course this doesn't apply to the high mintage coins for the main part.

 

Yes, there are some that regularly go well in excess of issue on the 'bay. These would, for example, be the 1984 & 85 issues in proof of Barbados, Belize, Panama and Papua New Guinea. Many are prohibitively rare now and just not available.
Other goodies are the gold issues in uncirculated that were not generally available such as the matte 1975 and 1976 issues of Jamaica, or the uncirculated Belize issues of 1982 and 1983....
PM me if you want lots more info as I love this stuff and have lots of experience. I am a collector and not a dealer.

 

I recently bought the sterling Belize proof set 1974. It had just under 3 ounces ASW. Got it for 45 after tax, which was a tad under melt at the time. I kept the smaller denominations and just sold the 3 largest coins at an antique market for 90% of melt. I just needed some cash. The mintage of these coins was 30k which is not that low for a somewhat unpopular country. If I take these kinds of coins to shows, 99 percent of the dealers will give at or below melt. The prices in Krause just don't reflect the market in my opinion.

 

And I concur with that about your set. However, it is a matter of record that such coins as the UNCIRCULATED Belize 1982 100 D. have traded for well in excess of 1000 USD and the 1984 Belize, Papua and Trinidad sets go for about 600 - though the Papua has gone for above 900.
If you are talking about such coins as those in the set you describe, they are just that - bullion - and this would include the bulk of what is seen such as Bahamas sets of the mid-70s, Barbados 1973, or Jamaica 1972 & 73, yours etc.

So even though I am a collector, please let me know if you have questions about the rarer bits.

 

If anyone cares to view my collection of World Mint and Proof Set, which contains several of the Franklin set, they can be seen at this link

https://www.cointalk.com/media/albums/world-mint-and-proof-coins.237/

 

Are those coins you mentioned rare (the unc Belize 1982 100 d) because they were circulation issues and no mint sets were made that year? Kind of like the 1982-83 circ coins in the US but of course the US ones were minted much higher. Those sets you mentioned must have have low mintages, I'm guessing under 500-1k. Thanks for sharing this info. I have a coin that I think the mintage was 750 or 850, and franklin mint may have minted it. Do you think it was a good buy for 31? See pic. Thanks

 

Very cool. It would be nice if there were mintage numbers next to/ with each set (unless I missed it). I really liked the proof Ethiopian set. I never seen the lion coins in proof. Very cool. I got a box of world coin sets. Some I got good deals on, like these 80s or so Austria sets in hard plastic cases. Got them for 1o and they r much more in catalog

 

Hmmm, don't see your pictures....Well, the FM struck proofs of these and that's where they made their money although the mintage of even these proofs were by this time severely falling off. They evidently had to make "circulation strike" coins to supposedly legitimize the proofs and so a few were sent to the Central Bank of whichever country.
In the case of the 1982 and 1983 Belize 100 Dollars, the mintage of uncirculated coins amounted to, respectively, TEN and TWENTY specimens.
There are also very, very rare patterns such as the Belize Unc. mule 1982 10 dollar coin that seems to have had a mintage of THREE.
About 3 years ago, I found at auction a pattern Panama 1983 FM 25 Centimos with reverse having "Ley 0.500" although it was stuck in Copper Nickel and none were ever made in silver for that denomination. I remember that I got it for about 25.00, and it is not in any catalog. Fun stuff!

 

25! What a steal. Oh, so the circ strikes were just to legitimize the proof sets. So then I guess in these instances struck coinage wasn't in demand or needed. A few times I couldn't find a coin in Krause for whatever reason. I was working on a 20th century non silver type set for Costa Rica today and couldn't find a 1993 5 colons stainless steel in the catalog, but I just checked ngc and it's there. I guess the book has errors sometimes. Here's that pic again

 

Oh yes, that is the Mauritius proof rupee of '71 - mintage 750 in copper nickel and struck by the Royal Mint. The Royal Mint has also had some interesting proof sets that deserve their own posting - I'll try to get to that before too long....

 

I've seen a lot of island countries and other small ones that have sets minted by the royal mint, I think around the same time franklin mint was active. Since the RM produces quality products, I don't know why there isn't more demand. I guess the countries aren't popular. Only the diehards like us probably dig coins from these countries, and of course the other collectors residing over there.

 

Yes indeed. I will try to start a separate OP on this tonite. I think some interesting things to share.

 

Anything from The Franklin Mint is overpriced!

 

I love statements like that - truly insightful and meaningful. What on Earth do you mean, perhaps you may enlighten us? And trot out your area of interest for perusal of others.
Some would say such a statement smacks of ignorance - your opinion is based on what?

Honestly, give us readers something to discuss.

 

I am currently selling my fathers collection and he had quite a bit of the sets from the 70's. I have one set that I can find no information on (Coins of the Caribbiean) 1973 and one coin is a mint of 263. It is a 100 year anniversary coin for Bustamante birth. He is facing forward in the coin not sideways. Trying to price this set, any help would be amazing.