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Coinweek Streaming News: Three Awesome Gold Coins You Can't Afford to Miss!
Jan 20, 2023
Charles Morgan takes a look at three Mint State 18th century gold coins that won't break the bank and pack in so much history that you'll wonder, why are these coins so cheap? Discussed in this segment: 1793 Switzerland Duplon of Bern - NGC MS63 1775NR JJ Colombia 8 Escudos - NGC MS62 1776 Great Britain Guinea - NGC MS61 For more news and information about rare coins, subscribe to this channel and visit CoinWeek.com.
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0:17
thank you
0:39
hello everybody this is coin week editor
0:41
Charles Morgan good evening it's 10
0:43
o'clock P.M the East Coast
0:45
and make it seven o'clock in the west
0:47
coast and some o'clock in the middle of
0:49
the country depending on your time zone
0:51
we're going to join you tonight we plan
0:53
to be up a little earlier today but we
0:56
have some really interesting coins to
0:58
show you tonight and uh I thought I
1:00
would touch off the uh the video content
1:03
we have planned for you in the next week
1:04
with a quick look at some gold coins I
1:07
think gold coins are really cool and
1:09
it's amazing when you think about how so
1:12
much of gold buying today has shifted
1:14
over into bullion uh people are buying
1:17
American Gold Eagles or buying Canadian
1:19
maple leafs they're buying uh
1:21
krugerrands or any you know whatever
1:23
these uh you know pick your country of
1:25
choice uh bullion coin you're getting
1:28
these fresh made coins they beautiful
1:31
usually they're perfect but there's so
1:34
much really affordable Classic Gold that
1:37
you can buy and I'm not even talking
1:39
about U.S coins
1:41
um U.S coins tend to be expensive of
1:44
course when you look at the American
1:46
Market most Americans are interested in
1:48
collecting their home country it's
1:49
totally natural I think if you went to
1:51
Europe you'd see Germans wanting to
1:53
collect German coins and British people
1:55
are collecting British coins and and so
1:57
on and so forth we like collecting our
1:59
history something we can relate to but
2:01
U.S coins tend to be a little pricey
2:04
considering their availability and that
2:06
speaks to the demand in the United
2:08
States and it also speaks to the level
2:10
of price support these classic coins
2:13
have in the market
2:14
another thing that is a factor is that
2:17
in the American Market you see quite a
2:19
bit of a promotion of classic U.S gold
2:23
um goes without saying that some
2:25
promoters will call people and tell them
2:28
that they should buy pre-33 gold for the
2:30
simple reason that uh the government
2:33
can't seize that coin should they decide
2:35
to do that and that's a little bit of a
2:38
kind of a false argument when you
2:40
consider that the government had never
2:42
seized gold coins before 1933 so there
2:45
was no precedent for that and then they
2:47
created a brand new precedent at that
2:49
period of time with uh Roosevelt's
2:52
executive order and I'm sure if the
2:53
government ever decided they wanted to
2:55
do something like that again they would
2:56
be bound by no precedent certainly not
2:59
one that's uh going to be near 100 years
3:01
old so I think that that's just a kind
3:04
of a phony argument they get to make
3:06
people scared and kind of Veer them
3:08
towards whatever they're trying to sell
3:09
them but if you really want to be an
3:12
Enthusiast and and and have gold at a
3:16
good value that has a lot of history
3:18
and you know and you're not buying it as
3:21
a Boolean play specifically because you
3:23
are going to be paying a numismatic
3:24
premium I think that there's a lot of
3:26
actual 18th and 19th century World gold
3:31
coins that are just priced two maybe
3:34
three times more than spot which have a
3:36
tremendous amount of History a
3:38
tremendous amount of upside uh and uh
3:41
are actually kind of uh a little more
3:44
scarce than you think especially in mint
3:45
State especially in certified holders
3:47
now an egcmp suggests I've been in the
3:51
business of grading World coins for a
3:53
few decades now they have by no means
3:55
captured or cornered the market and uh
3:58
the numismatic marketplace in South
4:00
America or in Europe or Asia although
4:04
they're making inroads so I would
4:07
case and to say that you never want to
4:12
look at the certified population reports
4:14
at a PCS Coin facts or NGC coin Explorer
4:18
and say oh well this coin only has like
4:20
a pop two or three therefore it's rare
4:22
now that just means that there hasn't
4:24
been a sufficient amount of grading of
4:27
the coins uh to flesh out that that
4:30
population report that means that
4:32
there's a lot of opportunities still in
4:34
raw coins now if you're not familiar
4:36
with how to tell the difference between
4:38
a genuine and a and a fake coin I would
4:41
recommend at all times that you purchase
4:43
certified coins the grading services
4:46
don't always get it right but they get
4:48
it right far more frequently than
4:50
somebody who's just guessing especially
4:52
if the primary way you have a buying
4:54
coins is online now today I'm going to
4:57
show you three coins I I picked out
4:59
they're from different uh parts of the
5:02
world but they are from relatively the
5:04
same period of time we're going to be
5:06
looking at three U.S I mean I'm sorry
5:08
three gold coins struck in the 18th
5:11
century starting with 1775 and
5:14
continuing uh to 1793.
5:18
um two of the coins are going to be very
5:20
important for U.S collectors uh because
5:22
these coins were more or less circulated
5:26
in uh the English-speaking colonies
5:29
during that period of time although they
5:31
you know may not have been the dominant
5:33
coin of the realm they certainly were
5:34
familiar to uh bankers and people uh in
5:38
the major cities the other coin is a
5:41
little bit uh farther away but it does
5:43
uh have some relationship to a major
5:46
global conflict which developed after
5:49
the American Revolution so I'm going to
5:52
turn it over to my colleague Huber he's
5:55
going to be our hand model for tonight
5:56
in helping us show off these great coins
5:59
and we're going to look at the first one
6:01
here
6:02
uh so this is a Swiss DuPont
6:06
and it was struck in the Canton of Byrne
6:12
and so Byrne was a uh a pretty affluent
6:16
part of Switzerland uh During the period
6:19
uh and uh it was primarily uh German
6:22
speakers although there was a a French
6:25
uh minority uh and the French minority
6:28
was felt a little bit uh persecuted by
6:32
the german-speaking elite uh so much so
6:35
that in 1723 which would have been 70
6:38
years before the production of this coin
6:40
that a major Abraham Devol uh tried to
6:44
uh uh launch a sort of a rebellion
6:47
against the ruling class uh and he uh he
6:51
failed in this coup attempt and was
6:54
beheaded and this led to an upswing or
6:58
an uptick in
6:59
anti-german sentiment in the Canton and
7:03
when Napoleon Rose to power after the
7:07
French Revolution uh many of these uh
7:10
french-speaking Swiss appealed Napoleon
7:12
to uh to do what he was doing in
7:15
Northern Italy and basically come in and
7:18
take over the place so this coin was
7:20
struck in 1793. uh it is a one-year type
7:25
uh it is struck in nine uh uh nine nine
7:30
zero zero fineness and the coin weighs
7:32
7.64 grams which means it contains
7:36
roughly uh you know a little less than a
7:38
quarter ounce of gold as you see this
7:41
obverse was that newly adopted coat of
7:44
arms for burn they had used the uh the
7:47
bear symbol for centuries but they added
7:50
this style with the crown surmounting uh
7:53
a pendant with uh with uh two uh
7:56
branches on either side
7:58
the uh the inscription reads uh
8:02
bernensis respublica on the obverse and
8:06
the really cool thing about this coin is
8:08
I believe this was graded ms63 is that
8:11
right and and we see we see when we kind
8:16
of Flash the coin around the light you
8:18
can see that it kind of has like I don't
8:20
know I would call it necessarily PL
8:22
surfaces per se but certainly very
8:24
shimmery attractive surfaces you know
8:27
you can see just a faint about amount of
8:30
hair lines in there from like maybe an
8:32
old old cleaning but this is a really
8:35
pretty coin and you see the intricate
8:37
detail uh that's going on here with the
8:40
engraving now if we flip it over to the
8:43
uh reverse we see a reef
8:48
and you see another Latin inscription
8:50
there
8:52
Dave's Prova debit which uh roughly
8:56
translates to God will provide and you
8:59
see the date 1793 with a period and
9:04
again this is a like I said a really
9:06
nice coin uh and uh when you think about
9:09
the value here the retail price of a
9:13
coin like this is about thirteen hundred
9:17
dollars and which is roughly about three
9:20
times its basal value and if you compare
9:23
a coin like this to maybe a Swiss 10 or
9:27
20 Franc gold coin that was struck to
9:29
the Latin monetary Union standard I
9:32
think this is a really exceptional value
9:35
and uh although uh you know these aren't
9:38
incredibly scarce they come from an
9:40
important period of time it's only five
9:42
years later than Napoleon does take
9:45
those uh those French uh uh Swiss a word
9:49
or I guess incentive and and comment and
9:52
and attack the Canton of burn uh and
9:55
that puts an end of this coinage so uh
9:59
you know in 1793 they're doing pretty
10:01
good in 1798 their cities are on fire
10:04
and that's just the uh the way the
10:06
European continent went
10:08
so let's move to the second coin on our
10:10
list here and this is a large fold coin
10:14
and uh this is from uh Colombia
10:18
and uh you see right there you see uh
10:21
the uh Spanish King Carlos III Charles
10:25
III
10:27
and uh so this is a 1775 eight escudos
10:31
and this would have been you know uh a
10:35
major amount of money for the period uh
10:37
this would have been like the the
10:39
dominant trade coin uh and uh you see
10:42
the date there is 1775 this coin was
10:45
struck in uh Cartagena which was a major
10:49
port it was a major uh uh uh port for
10:54
the shipping or export of precious
10:57
metals uh as you're all probably well
10:59
familiar there is quite a bit of Cobb
11:02
coinage uh uh preceding uh in the
11:05
preceding centuries
11:07
you also see the importation of a lot of
11:10
African slaves and at this period in
11:13
time about 10 percent of the Colombian
11:15
population
11:16
was composed of uh of African slaves so
11:20
the transatlantic slave trade uh you
11:23
know uh was being carried out here by
11:26
the Spanish and by the English
11:29
the legend reads carolus 3 DG hisp at
11:35
index which is uh you know Charles III
11:38
uh by the grace of God the king of Spain
11:41
and India
11:44
and if you flip over to the reverse of
11:47
this coin
11:50
you see uh you see uh the coat of arms
11:55
Spanish Coat of Arms surmounted by a
11:57
crown
11:57
and you see a rather lengthy Latin
12:01
inscription which I'm sure I'm going to
12:03
get wrong here but I believe it reads in
12:07
in troquoque Felix auspice Deo which
12:12
roughly translates to by the grace of
12:15
God there's happiness on both sides they
12:19
they inscribe this on their coins uh
12:22
without one sense of irony they were
12:26
essentially saying that because of
12:29
Spanish rule uh uh there is happiness in
12:33
the European continent and on the uh and
12:37
the European hemisphere in the Eastern
12:39
Hemisphere and in the western hemisphere
12:41
which uh probably was far from the case
12:44
so this design type was produced from
12:48
1762 to 1771 and this is a pretty a
12:54
really attractive example you can see
12:56
how shimmering it is and there's a
12:59
there's luster in the protected areas uh
13:02
and if we flip back to the other side I
13:05
think the reverse is probably stronger
13:07
on this example and uh and you see the
13:11
the the King right there and there may
13:13
be a little bit of glare or some sort of
13:16
material on the lens of the holder but
13:19
uh you see you see like I said you can
13:21
see the detail and there's Charles and
13:23
his military garb
13:26
uh and I wanted this one great this is a
13:28
62 or yeah the 62. yep so you see it's
13:33
it's like I said a little bit more
13:34
subdued but the the reverse is stronger
13:37
and and then when it comes to grading
13:39
these things of course the reverse is
13:41
probably about 25 when the uh grading
13:44
services are looking at this and and
13:46
again this this may have been dipped at
13:48
some point you do see that there's a
13:50
that really nice darker gold coloration
13:52
around the the the denticles which would
13:56
have been pretty normal for for a coin
13:58
of this this age so uh the denomination
14:03
was debased uh in 1772 it was 917 fine
14:08
in the decade preceding it they dropped
14:10
it down to 901 fine for this and uh the
14:15
interesting thing about this coin is NGC
14:17
is only certified about seven of them in
14:19
all grades and again getting back to
14:21
what I said that doesn't mean that
14:22
there's only like 10 20 or 30 that
14:24
exists it's just most of these are still
14:27
raw uh and uh there's two at this level
14:30
and there's one finer and and when you
14:33
look at the the retail price you're
14:37
seeing that this coin will typically
14:38
sell from between 27.50 and 4 000
14:41
dollars
14:42
and so you have
14:45
essentially a uh a coin that has uh 0.8
14:49
ounces actual gold weight
14:52
it's more than
14:54
225 years old
14:57
and uh you know it's in mint State and
15:00
it's uh you know between 2750 and four
15:03
thousand dollars which you know it's
15:05
just this is just a little bit more
15:07
expensive than you know an American gold
15:10
buffalo uh and you have all of that
15:12
history so I really do think coins like
15:14
this are very good values and the market
15:18
for uh Central American and South
15:21
American coins uh is growing and I think
15:25
it's going to even uh grow more when
15:27
American collectors realize how good the
15:30
opportunities are
15:32
now let's look at the final coin that we
15:34
have for you tonight
15:36
and uh again thank you for staying up a
15:39
little late with us
15:42
and uh uh and Glenn or Glenn Yan says
15:46
it's three gold coins I can't afford and
15:48
and that may be the case today but uh
15:51
you may be afford able to afford and you
15:53
you save up for them or uh or you uh
15:57
uh sell some coins that maybe you don't
16:00
need anymore
16:01
all right so the final coin here and
16:04
then shout out to my friend Larry
16:06
stendebach who's a a great numismatist
16:09
uh and he uh he got me uh a really uh
16:14
wonderful uh I think I think he bought
16:17
me a coin with an overdate uh as a gift
16:20
for Christmas a few years ago and I
16:22
really appreciated that
16:25
um so we're going to look here at a
16:27
British coin and now I want to take you
16:30
back in time
16:32
yeah it's a 1776. and you know that the
16:37
American colonists that essentially uh
16:40
uh come to the decision that they were
16:42
going to declare independence and they
16:45
were going to do whatever it took to uh
16:48
remove the Yoke of British rule from
16:51
their from their home this coin is a
16:55
British Guinea which was their standard
16:57
gold coin it was replaced by The
16:59
Sovereign
17:00
in the 19th century but this is a
17:03
British Guinea and it was struck in 1776
17:08
so this is essentially the coin of the
17:10
realm during the American Revolution the
17:13
first year of the Revolution and uh you
17:16
know if you if you're an American
17:17
collector and you're collecting Civil
17:19
War coinage from 1861 to 1865 I mean
17:23
this was a this is an in respect a Civil
17:26
War for the British they were losing a
17:29
major uh a major uh uh uh cohort of
17:33
British subjects uh in the Revolutionary
17:36
War so you see the very unpopular George
17:39
III on the obverse the inscription reads
17:42
George's third a three day gratia it's a
17:46
milled coin so it's got that milled Edge
17:48
on it
17:49
and uh this uh this type is the second
17:54
obverse style for George III and it was
17:57
struck between 1763 and 1779. the coin
18:02
is 25 millimeters in diameter and is
18:05
struck in about nine point or
18:09
0.9146 fine
18:12
um a new Effigy would replace this one
18:13
in 1781 and that one would also have a
18:16
spade reverse which is going to be
18:17
different than the reverse you're going
18:18
to see here when we flip this over
18:22
all right you got to move down a little
18:24
bit there
18:25
um so here you see the coat of arms uh
18:28
on on this shield and these are the coat
18:30
of arms of England Scotland France
18:33
Ireland and Hanover so they were you
18:35
know a lot of intermingled families and
18:37
uh Empower
18:39
centers here
18:41
the legend is uh just a never-ending
18:45
Scroll of initials uh mbf at H Rex FDB
18:52
at
18:54
l-d-s-r-i-a-t at e and I I actually had
18:57
to look this up to figure out what this
19:00
meant uh and so essentially this
19:03
inscription is uh supposed to translate
19:05
to uh King of Great Britain France and
19:08
Ireland defender of the faith Duke of
19:11
Brunswick and Lunenburg Arch Treasurer
19:14
and elector of the Holy Roman Empire
19:17
so imagine having to be called that
19:20
every time you enter a room
19:22
um so when it comes to the outcome of
19:25
the American Revolution you know we we
19:26
look at it as a jobless occasion uh we
19:29
become uh you know free to our own left
19:31
arm devices we set up the Articles of
19:34
Confederation government that doesn't
19:37
work out for a spell we set up the uh
19:40
the federal government system that we
19:42
have under the Constitution uh George
19:44
Washington becomes elected and then
19:46
everything's good times until the Civil
19:49
War right
19:50
but uh for the British the outcome of
19:53
the American Revolutionary War was a
19:54
disaster it was an economic disaster
19:57
they incurred quite a bit of debt trying
19:59
to fight uh the American colonies one of
20:02
the reasons they had the Stamp Act and
20:03
all these other measures is because the
20:06
treasury was losing money so the Wars
20:08
ended they've they've lost The Prestige
20:10
of these colonies they've lost the
20:12
economic benefit of the colonies and
20:15
their taxation the British subjects were
20:18
definitely worse off and within a few
20:21
years of the American Revolution uh
20:23
coming to a conclusion the British were
20:26
struck stuck using paper money for a
20:29
while they stopped producing guineas
20:31
because they were running out of gold in
20:33
the treasury although they did strike
20:36
the smaller denomination gold coins
20:39
exacerbating the british's uh the
20:41
British problem economically was the
20:44
conflict in France yet the French
20:46
Revolution and then the subsequent very
20:48
bloody French Revolutionary Wars so like
20:52
I said by the end of the 18th century
20:54
the British economy was completely in
20:56
shambles uh and uh and we see uh you
21:01
know eventually a great coinage reform
21:02
uh in 1816 near the end of the war of
21:06
1812 and that's when the guinea which
21:09
was named after uh the uh the origin of
21:13
the gold which is in West Africa
21:15
uh it was renamed to The Sovereign which
21:18
they use to this day in their bullying
21:20
coinage
21:21
so along with the Colombian coin that we
21:25
showed you this coin does have uh some
21:28
Association not only with the war but
21:29
also with the British slave trade uh and
21:33
uh it is uh you know filled with history
21:35
and uh it is it is not it is not a rare
21:39
coin and uh we're looking at a coin here
21:42
that's about thirteen hundred dollars
21:45
maybe fifteen hundred dollars and so uh
21:49
again you're looking at a a one of the
21:52
most important dates in American history
21:55
a coin that was struck by you know the
21:58
uh the the British crown that would have
22:01
circulated here in the major cities uh
22:05
even slightly and uh and you know the
22:09
after effect of the aftermath of the war
22:11
was a completely new world uh you can't
22:15
get a mint State 19th century or a I'm
22:19
sorry you can't get a mid state 18th
22:20
century American coin uh not not a
22:24
copper one a silver one or a gold one
22:26
for anything approaching this price and
22:29
I just think at you know thirteen
22:30
hundred to fifteen hundred dollars uh I
22:32
would take one of these every day of the
22:34
week over an American Gold Eagle even
22:37
though that might have a little bit more
22:38
goal so those are the three gold coins
22:41
that you can afford to miss and I think
22:45
that when it comes down to collecting
22:48
there's no wrong way to do it there's no
22:51
uh there's no road map to like the
22:54
perfect collection these are all like
22:55
your personal choices the things that
22:58
interest you and uh you know these coins
23:02
uh appeal to me for their value and for
23:05
their history but if these aren't the
23:07
coins for you I'm sure there's like
23:09
pages and pages and pages of fantastic
23:12
coins and the standard catalogs of all
23:14
the world coins Struck from the Middle
23:17
Ages on or if you like ancient coins
23:19
there's some great coins there that are
23:20
good values too so that's it for this
23:23
segment uh we're going to do some roll
23:27
breaks and we're gonna do some uh some
23:31
coin profiles of some cool American
23:33
coins that we're going to publish this
23:35
week I have a lot of content that will
23:38
be going up on the YouTube channel this
23:40
week and we definitely look forward to
23:41
sharing more with you so have a good
23:43
evening everybody thank you for stopping
23:45
stopping by and I hope you enjoyed the
23:48
coins