Great Britain 1716 guinea
This specimen was lot 40491 in Stack's Bowers ANA sale (Costa Mesa, CA, August 2021), where it sold for $4,800. The catalog description[1] noted, "Extremely Rare Variety with Hannover Arms Below Date, GREAT BRITAIN. Guinea, 1716. London Mint. George I. NGC EF Details--Removed from Jewelry. Variety with Hannover arms below date. Despite once having been used in jewelry, significant highpoint detail remains, with surfaces that have a brightened appearance from past usage in jewelry. A VERY RARE variety, which is simply listed as such in the Standard Catalogue of British Coins, this coin was produced in error and displays a 90 degrees clockwise rotation on the reverse shield that results in the arms of Hannover appearing at the date. One of only three pieces that appear in archived auction results, this example falls into the middle of that census, with the best, graded EF-40 by NGC, bringing 15,000 GBP hammer in a 2017 sale, while an example with lesser detail and seemingly similar surfaces brought 5,800 GBP hammer (approximately $7,500 hammer) in 2020 auction." Guineas were struck for George I in 1714-27, divided into five different busts of the king, of which the fourth is shown here. Some were also struck with an elephant and castle below the bust, indicating gold obtained from Africa. The blundered arms on the reverse is a rare error.
Recorded mintage: unknown.
Specification: 8.35 g, 0.917 fine gold.
Catalog reference: S-3631; Fr-327; KM-546.1.
- Lobel, Richard, Mark Davidson, Allan Hailstone and Eleni Calligas, Coincraft's Standard Catalogue of English and UK Coins, 1066 to Date, London: Coincraft, 1995.
- Skingley, Philip, ed., Standard Catalogue of British Coins: Coins of England & the United Kingdom, 46th edition, London: Spink & Son, 2011.
- Friedberg, Arthur L. and Ira S. Friedberg, Gold Coins of the World, From Ancient Times to the Present, 9th ed., Clifton, NJ: Coin and Currency Institute, 2017.
- Michael, Thomas, Standard Catalog of World Coins, 1701-1800, 7th ed., Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2016.
- [1]Orsini, Matt, Kyle Ponterio and Jeremy Bostwick, The August 2021 ANA sale: World and Ancient Coins, Costa Mesa, CA: Stack's Bowers LLC, 2021.
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