In 2019, The Royal Mint reintroduced something a lot of us will be familiar with, but had actually been absent from a UK coin for almost 40 years. Cast your mind back to (or dig out) old 50p or 2p coins and you’ll see two words at the top of the coin’s reverse – “NEW […]
Today is one of the most important days in any coin collector’s year – the day the brand new UK Gold Proof Sovereign is released. Quite simply, the Gold Sovereign is without rival as the United Kingdom’s premier Gold Coin. Struck from 22 Carat Gold to the exact same specification since 1817, it epitomises all […]
Don’t worry, you don’t actually need one today, but it wasn’t that long ago here in the UK that you did. Without one, you would be limited to owning just four gold coins issued after 1817. Unless you had a licence, but that wasn’t the easiest thing to obtain… The year it became illegal to […]
The Sovereign is without rival as the United Kingdom’s premier Gold Coin, with rich history dating back well over 500 years. It epitomises all that is British. Traded across the world during the 19th Century and early 20th Century, it became known as “The Chief Coin of the World”, whilst today’s modern Proof Sovereigns show […]
The first truly Canadian coin was struck between 1912 and 1914. It would be an interesting coin for any serious collector, given its first-of-a-kind status, but the story around the gold $10 coins struck over a century ago is one of mystery and discovery. It’s a story that has made the 1912-1914 Canadian Gold $10 […]
Late last year, The Royal Mint held the first ever historic coin auction in its 1,000 plus year history. The star of the show was meant to be an 1839 Una & the Lion £5 gold coin, which has been described as the “most beautiful of all English coins” and had an upper estimate of […]
On the morning of 19 February this year, something remarkable happened. I tried to access The Royal Mint website and was informed that I was in a queue with over 100,000 people in front of me and that I wouldn’t be able to access the website for well over an hour. It was all because […]
This year, one of the world’s most prestigious gold coins celebrates its 40th birthday, but what do you know about the Gold Maple Leaf and why is it so popular with collectors? Here are 6 things you need to know: 1 – It’s Canada’s most iconic coin, being issued annually since 1979 The Maple Leaf […]
This year, the 50p is celebrating its 50th birthday. To mark the occasion The Royal Mint has taken the unusual step of reissuing the most loved 50p designs from the last 50 years, bringing 5 coins together in one exclusive and limited edition set. They start with the original 1969 Britannia design and incorporate the […]
VF-30, XF-45, AU-50, MS-70, PF-70… These are just some of the grades that a coin can be assigned. Quite frankly, it’s a minefield of acronyms and numbers, but I recommend you try to understand the basics of coin grading. Why? The same coin with even a slight difference in grade could be priced thousands of […]