August 2012 Archives
We've been working on the mobile world silver coin scrap calculators over the last couple of days and have released a new version today. This new release includes the following changes:
- Any coin on any calculator can be hidden. If, for example, you only want to use the Mobile Australian Silver Coin Scrap Calculator to work out the scrap value of 1966 50c you could hide all the other coins on the calculator. Coins will stay hidden until you show them again by clicking the Show Coins button on the calculator.
- You can now view images for some coins by clicking the View Coin icon next to individual coins in the calculators.
- Various format adjustments have been made to help the calculators display better in portrait mode in iPhone's and iPod's.
- Three new currencies have been added to the calculators, the Mexican Peso (MXN), the Japanese Yen (Yen) and the Chinese Yuan (RMB). So, if you happen to live in Mexico and you want to know the scrap silver value of Mexican coins in your local currency then all your needs are covered with the Mobile Mexican Silver Coin Scrap Calculator
We've been working on improving each world silver coin scrap calculator by making the interface user friendly for those with mobile devices. You can now quickly and easily determine the current silver melt value of coins from various countries on your device whilst you're out and about. Use your iPhone, iPod, iPad, Android phone, Android Tablet or Blackberry easily with this mobile optimised interface. Of course you can also use any normal internet browser too.
The scrap calculators use the current price from Kitco and are updated every 15 minutes* giving you the most up to date price calculations. You can also change the calculators to your local currency!
You can find a link to the calculators on the right hand side of any page on the Australian Coin Collecting Blog, click the Mobile Silver Coin Scrap Calculators link.
The mobile optimised calculators are in the BETA test stage so if you have any problems, suggestions or feedback then we'd love to hear from you email admin@australian-threepence.com
*There's no updates while the New York PM market is closed, ie overnight US time and weekends or US public holidays.
The blog team are all for reuniting lost items with their owners. Let's call it the Australian Coin Collecting Blog's lost and found department.
A NSW Central Coast woman has found a gold bar on the beach and handed it into authorities, so if you lost one, around 4 months ago then contact Crimestoppers. The $18,000 gold bar has an identifying serial number and has been authenticated by the Royal Australian Mint in Canberra.
Updating this story (September 12 2012), an owner didn't come forward to claim the gold bars and the lucky 24 year old finder has been rewarded with ownership of the beached treasure.
New Zealand 1965 Sixpence - Broken Wing Variety Left, Normal Coin on Right
New Zealand coins are an enjoyable and generally inexpensive series to collect and to a lot of Australians of great interest because of the close and happy relations between our country and New Zealand. However, we'd have to say that the level of information available on New Zealand coins either via books, catalogues or even online is very poor at best. One New Zealand variety of interest is the 1965 Sixpence with the "broken wing". Most references simply refer to this variety by name without any description of what characteristics the coin has. We were lucky enough recently to find a lovely high grade example of this variety and you can see a picture of it above on the left, with a normal sixpence of the same year on the right for comparison.
New Zealand 1965 Sixpence Detail - Broken Wing Variety Left, Normal Coin on Right
Above is a detailed shot of the wing of the Huia bird on both coins showing the area of interest. It's clear that a great amount of the detail is missing from the broken wing variety. What we're not sure about is the reason for this missing detail. The author of the major New Zealand coin catalogue suggests the missing detail is due to an oil filled die but we found ourselves doubting this for three reasons. Firstly, the surface of the missing area doesn't have the same texture of other oil filled die errors that we've seen. Secondly, all of the other (admittedly poor) images we've found of this variety show a very similar (perhaps identical ) amount of missing detail. In our experience die fill errors tend to show some sort of progression as more and more of the oil adheres to coins and the amount of fill lessens over time. The final reason is the area that lacks detail appears to be at least the same level and in some cases higher than the level of missing detail, which is exactly the opposite of what a filled die would cause. Die fill causes a general raising of the surface of the die and hence a lowering of the surface of the coin struck from those dies.
It's hard to say exactly what is the actual cause of the 1965 broken wing sixpence but we're leaning away from the idea of some sort of filled die. A couple of suggestions are either a damaged or a badly re-touched die. The jury is out for now, we'll keep an eye out for more of this variety and see if there's any variations in either the size or appearance of the region of missing detail.
In any event, it's worth keeping an eye out for this variety and with a catalogue value of $50 or more it's valued at 10x the normal Kiwi 1965 sixpence. Even at $50 the coin might be a little undervalued with an uncirculated coin of the type selling in late 2011 at a Noble's auction in Sydney for $140 plus commission. Not to be sneezed at!
1944 Threepence Bag from the San Francisco branch of the US Mint
While the world has been glued to the Olympic Games a bargain has slipped under the radar but been bought for a song by a lucky friend of the Blog. Purchased on eBay for what we believe to be only one tenth of it's true worth this Mint bag that once contained 16,000 threepences is one of only two known pre-decimal coin bags of foreign origins.
The cloth money bag is from the San Francisco branch of the U.S Mint where they struck Australian threepences in 1944 before being shipped to Australia. It is a rare numismatic collectable because it is stamped with it's origin and contents. Bags containing pre-decimal coins minted in Australia simply read "Commonwealth of Australia".
With 32,000,000 threepences minted in San Francisco in 1944 and the bag containing 16,000 threepenny bits it's likely that 2,000 bags originally existed. We've not ever seen another of these bags so they are indeed rare and scarce with not many surviving today. A shilling bag of the same era from a U.S Mint is believed to be in a collectors hands, only the second bag known. Truly a cool piece of numsmatic ephemera for a keen threepence collector.
1944 Threepence Bag from the San Francisco branch of the US Mint
2012 50th Anniversary of the Australian Ballet 50c
2012 celebrates 50 years since the Australian Ballet was founded and first performed at Her Majesty's Theatre in Sydney. Five decades later the company is based in Melbourne also performing in theatres internationally and across Australia including the Sydney Opera House. Presenting over 200 performances each year including new works and the classics the team of dancers, choreographers, designers, teachers, composers and costumiers produce stunning and captivating entertainment.
This 50c design epitomises the Australian Ballet depicting dancers in front of a cursive inscription "fifty years of the australian Ballet". This reverse design is by the Royal Australian Mint's Aaron Baggio. We've seen his work with the Shores Under Siege coin set and we're sure to see more of his graphic talents soon. This coin depicts his initials between the dancers' feet, a stylised AB. The obverse features the Ian Rank-Broadley effigy of Queen Elizabeth II.
This cupro nickel dodecagonal 50c is released in a collector card in uncirculated finish for $9. It is also presented in silver proof. This design is not intended to circulate but is issued for the collector market.
Aaron Baggio's designing initials on the 50th Anniversary of the Australian Ballet 50c
