The Half Sovereign Collection 1900 - 1915. A Golden FinaleIn 2003, the British Royal Mint marketed a number of boxed half sovereign 'collections', of 16 coins from 1900 to 1915 struck at the London Mint. The set comes complete with presentation box and certificate.Instant Gold Collections for the Lazy CollectorFor anybody with lots of money, and very little spare time, buying a ready made set like this from the Royal Mint, or any of a number of other coin marketing companies, is an easy way to acquire an instant coin collection with very little effort. For anybody else, it's a quick way to spend too much money on mediocre condition coins at inflated prices. All the Mint usually do for collections such as this, is to dream up the idea in their marketing department, then go out and buy a suitable number of coins from coin dealers, package them in a nice wooden box, design and print an attractive booklet, then stick a large profit margin on the top.Overpriced?Compared with buying these same coins from a dealer, this type of "instant collection" is nearly always overpriced, and often considerably so. Way back in 2004, we used to sell a 22 coin set of sovereigns at £1,495 packaged in two neat plastic cases. At the same time, we noticed the Royal Mint offering a similar collection, but with the coins in plastic capsules, and the collection housed in a fairly impressive wooden box, for just £1,000 more than our price. While we acknowledge that the capsules have a value, as does the box, we would have thought £50 to £100 would be more appropriate than £1,000.If people were aware that they could buy a similar product and save such a large amount (about 40%), we believe that a very few may buy the more expensive offering, but most of them would think that the higher priced offer was poor value. Perhaps it is because the offer comes from a "reputable source", that they fail to give any thought to its value. Some of these collections have numbered certificates with them, and it appears that the Royal Mint find no shortage of people with more money than sense. Half Sovereign Collection PriceWe do not know how much the Mint originally charged for these collections, but can easily guess that it was far more than we would have charged for a similar set. We are happy to buy and sell any of these or similar collections. Our selling prices will include a nominal amount for the packaging and presentation, and will represent very good value compared with the Royal Mint price.Specifications
Prices & Availability
Relevant Dates & Other InformationIn retrospect, we realise we should have cited the creation date of this page. As it is no longer a simple matter for us to determine our original publication date. In an effort to ensure that our comments remain historically accurate and fair, we note the following, and will add any more data as it becomes available:
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Reverse of 1915 Half Sovereign
Complete Collection in Presentation BoxDates Which Exist for Half Sovereigns
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