I picked up this 1931 Latvia 5 Lati, crown-sized coin, for my World Crown coin collection. I am not that familiar with them. This one is coming from a large dealer in the Vancouver area, who self-certifies. It looks accurately graded to me—I would have said low grade MS, in my opinion. Additional information from more expert collectors of these coins greatly appreciated. It was inexpensive, and looked like a nice coin to me.
They are quite readily available in AU/BU, and quite inexpensive to boot. I like them, really can't tell you much about them though. Edit: after checking ebay, they sure sell for more than they used too....
It's a cool design and a fairly popular world crown. These used to be super cheap several years back (I recall AU 58 to low MS slabbed examples going in the $25-$40 range). They have increased as part of the runup in the coin market but are still relatively inexpensive compared to the more known world crowns (Mexican 8R, British Trade Dollars, Chinese crowns, etc). Here is the numista page https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces6595.html And here is some detail from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_lats_coin some of that info (more in the link above) "In February 1929, the Latvian Ministry of Finance decided to issue a ℒ 5 circulation coin depicting the head of a maiden, which would symbolize the Republic of Latvia and freedom.[2] The coin was designed by Rihards Zariņš. The image of the maiden on the coin is colloquially known as Milda (a Latvian female name). The model was Zelma Brauere (1900-1977), a proofreader of the State Securities Printing House. She served as a model for other works of the artist, including the ℒ 10 and ℒ 20 banknotes and the 50s coin."
This one was $55, shipped from Canada. I know it is common, but this one was very nice in terms of surface preservation.
Here is another link (you will need to translate to English on the page) https://web.archive.org/web/2013040...tvijas-banku/pieclatu-mildas-tresa-atdzimsana
Gonna have to use Google translate. I can read and speak a fair amount of Russian and Ukrainian, but not Latvian.
I don't have any idea of the perimeters of your crown collecting, but wondered if you have checked out the Peruvian 5 pesetas of 1880-1882. Just the fact that they were coeval with the Morgan dollar and there is a resemblance, makes them interesting, I think.
Nice one. Here's a couple of other examples. PCGS PR64 sold by Stack's Bowers at the 2021 ANA sale that fetched $10,800 and another that sold at Numisbalt in Lithuania for about $4,000 in MS65+ back in May of this year. Some pretty astronomical results for a coin that is nearly as common as dirt. But it does have a great design as world crowns go, and if owning the best is an absolute must, then maybe that's the correct $ amount to shell-out.
The OP coin is very nice, and the NGC coins are super nice. but pricey. It's hard to determine the grade of the OP coin but it seems to have minimal contact marks, a key factor for these coins which were stored in bags. The 5 lati crowns were minted in 1929, 1931 and 1932. The 1932 date is the scarcest. The model for the obverse was Zelma Brauere (1900 – 1977). Here's more information on her: https://second.wiki/wiki/zelma_brauere Also, here's my 5 lati. Latvia, AR 5 Lati, 1931. KM 9 24.96 grams According to my local coin dealer, these coins were scarce before the breakup of the Soviet Union. Following that pivotal event, large numbers of these coins appeared on the market. Still, finding an appealing example is a challenge.
Yes, that is correct about the Latvian coins flooding the market once the Soviet Union collapsed. The smaller commemorative AR 2 Lati coins were very tough at one time, then an enormous flood hit the market. There was some fear back around 1995 that the same would hold true for Tsarist era Russian coins, that a deluge would flood the market and prices would drop, but the flood never arrived. For those collectors who got into the Russian market in 1995 then got out at the top in 2008, a gain of around 20 TIMES the initial outlay. The Baltic countries material in gem BU seems to have held-up pretty well so far all things considered, though something like a 1931 Latvia 2 Lati in XF/AU is only worth a fraction of what it was pre-breakup.