French numismatics on Gold and Silver
France has some pretty nice coins on precious metals - and some of their themes are pretty attractive - aesthetically speaking.
Today I picked 4 coins to photograph, two on Silver and two on Gold.
The themes are:
-The 100th year anniversary of the Statue of Liberty,
-Hercules with Liberty and Equality (this has been an old theme of the 19th Century coins - reused into the 20th century),
-the French Rooster (the Rooster is a classic and ongoing theme - in various numismatic depictions)
-the angel / spirit - "inspiration" for the French Constitution. This design was first used in 1793 on a gold coin but got reused 80-100 years later - with slight modifications.
So here we go....
1. 100 Francs 1986 on Silver
2. 10 Francs 1965 on Silver
3. 20 Francs 1911 on Gold
4. 20 Francs 1875 on Gold
Photographic settings: Compact Sony DSC-WX220 / ISO 100-400 / EV -2.0 / Natural Light
Copyright notice: I release these in the public domain, for use or edit, by anyone, for any reason, with no attribution required.
I like how you release the photos into the public domain that you took, even with no attribution required. Very thoughtful. I wish more people would do that... :) I might get my camera out and do that too at some point. Very cool.
Using images from Pixabay for my blogs, I definitely appreciate the fact that I can take one of their images and just embed it with no hassle. So, I guess, it was the logical next step to give something back to the Internet... :)
I prefer the rooster. Tell me..what is the significance of having the young victoria compaired to the newer sovereigns? In terms of re-sale value?
Yeah the roosters rock - but the angels are also one of my favorite... It's a tough choice for me... So, yeah, both are nice... the older Napoleon 3 suck in terms of design (and that's why they tend near metal value - despite their 160yr old age) but I like to have the successive designs, you know.. :D
The victorian coins with the imperial shield typically go much higher in value but it will depend on which market we are talking about. For example, Greece where I am, due to a liquidity crisis among people, is a market which doesn't have as high premiums on collectibles compared to the raw metal... so a buyer could be paying from +20 to +50 euro per coin - which is generally a good deal... Shops or the central bank which buys gold, doesn't give anything more than gold value though...
If you are a seller and have to deal with a buyer, it goes like: "oh, you know, times are tough, cash is hard to find, yeah I mean it's gold man, just sell it a bit higher than normal sovereigns and we are ok, I'll buy it from you"... But on other markets where cash is not an issue and buyers can actually spend more, you can see premiums of over 50 or 100$ - if in good condition. Basically when there is no liquidity problems in a market, the collectible value is more properly appreciated and the factor of quality comes at the front. So the premium is then determined based on rarity factors (good condition, date, mint)... an almost spotless victoria will have several hundred dollars premium compared to a very worn one which will go near metal value. If the date is harder (less mintage), the premium will increase.
This one in the picture, if I remember correctly, I had paid around 7% premium over the normal sovereign, on the local market... which was pretty acceptable for my standards. Obviously the quality wasn't great (if it was they would ask far more), but I'm happy with such decent tradeoffs.
Since I mentioned the issue of liquidity around here: When liquidity is a problem in a country, less "marketable" coins, like the French ones (Sovereigns are big around here, unlike other bullion or historic gold coins from France, US, etc etc), so coins from, say, US, Canada, France, etc, tend to go near metal - even roosters and angels with 100-150 years of history... sometimes you can get them very near spot price.