Gothic Florin appreciation

So mine turned up today and now I can't believe I waited so long to buy one. I never fully gave consideration to the beauty of them until now. I must have the Crown !

They are truly spectacular but most are well worn.
Grades of EF and up and very difficult to find.

Quite possibly the most beautiful coin ever to have been struck! (you jammy sod )

I too think they are among the most beautiful coins ever, but besides being scarce and expensive in high grades, I worry about fakes. Would have to buy through a trusted legit dealer, and that probably ends up being even more expensive than on eBay.

I don't think they are the 'most beautiful coin ever', but they are certainly very lovely!

The florins aren't too bad for price in general. The crowns on the other hand....

Jesse11, I get great pleasure in forcing people who send me fakes on ebay to refund me, or to terminate their accounts :D

Gothic Florins and crowns are stunning, easily my favourite British coin by far and in my top 5 most favourite coins worldwide.

Here are my 3 girls in order I purchased them....







I have a gothic crown proof as a dreamer gap filler so not much point taking a pic of that one..... one day I will have one though....

Dear Santa.................

Nice. I got this (with same obverse design) until I could afford a real UK one ...
https://en.numista.com/forum/topic6834.html#p47462

Also I have these two UK crown replicas, a normal size and an 89mm one ...
https://en.numista.com/forum/topic5411.html#p29234

I couldn't justify dropping 5 grand on a coin right now though so the florin will have to do! I had to wait for a decent example without too much wear to come up for a decent price. So when I saw this I jumped on it ! Ha

Quote: "Mark240590"​I couldn't justify dropping 5 grand on a coin right now though so the florin will have to do! I had to wait for a decent example without too much wear to come up for a decent price. So when I saw this I jumped on it ! Ha

​
I can think of a certain front door that could be returned which would fund about half of a nice crown!

Just visited a dealer friend of mine's website and he has a Gothic crown for sale in EF+ condition at £3,150 or a gvf at £1,750.
They would make lovely presents if someone I knew had that amount of spare cash.

Yeah like a wedding present haha

Ooooh yes, I would love to have a gothic florin in my collection one day! They are absolutely stunning.

you folks have got to stop these posts

Another beautiful coin I gotta have

Yes just beautiful , I like all early Victoria's. There are some from British India gold coin that are in my top 10 to
Like east india company KM 462 there another with her and a lion on it but can not find now

I've got several of the Florins gathering dust in my junk silver box. It's just one of "those" coins, y'know? Absolutely beautiful in good grades but real slugs in lower grades. Liberty nickels, KGV silver and the whole Barber series are other examples.

I guess the gothic florins have some numismatic value even in sub Fine grades but I just can't bear to look at them, much less give them album space. I'm emotionally fragile and easily upset ever since I started taking Estrogen as part of the sex change / gender reassignment therapy.

I going to wait until Mark gets bored with coins and goes back to jerry rigging cars then I can buy his collection for fast easy cash.

Genius.

It put my own collection to shame a long time ago and now I reckon it's probably one of the finest collections on Numista. A man with a good eye for a fine coin I'd say. Make the most of it my friend, the arrival of rugrats and living on one wage will put the cramps on it for sure. Plus they eat coins when left to their own devices. Ruins the patina, so it does.

I was an ecstatic teen when I got my gothic florins as "dateless" from a coin dealers "dateless" silver box in Tulsa.

Quote: "pnightingale"​I've got several of the Florins gathering dust in my junk silver box. It's just one of "those" coins, y'know? Absolutely beautiful in good grades but real slugs in lower grades. Liberty nickels, KGV silver and the whole Barber series are other examples.
​
​I guess the gothic florins have some numismatic value even in sub Fine grades but I just can't bear to look at them, much less give them album space. I'm emotionally fragile and easily upset ever since I started taking Estrogen as part of the sex change / gender reassignment therapy.
​
​I going to wait until Mark gets bored with coins and goes back to jerry rigging cars then I can buy his collection for fast easy cash.
​
​Genius.
​
​It put my own collection to shame a long time ago and now I reckon it's probably one of the finest collections on Numista. A man with a good eye for a fine coin I'd say. Make the most of it my friend, the arrival of rugrats and living on one wage will put the cramps on it for sure. Plus they eat coins when left to their own devices. Ruins the patina, so it does.

​I know mate ! I have been looking at a mini 1275 GT as it happens too but I don't have the money or time to take on a project like that right now. I'll be sure to keep my coins out of reach if/ when I add to the population ha !

Quote: "Mark240590"​

Quote: "pnightingale"​I've got several of the Florins gathering dust in my junk silver box. It's just one of "those" coins, y'know? Absolutely beautiful in good grades but real slugs in lower grades. Liberty nickels, KGV silver and the whole Barber series are other examples.
​​
​​I guess the gothic florins have some numismatic value even in sub Fine grades but I just can't bear to look at them, much less give them album space. I'm emotionally fragile and easily upset ever since I started taking Estrogen as part of the sex change / gender reassignment therapy.
​​
​​I going to wait until Mark gets bored with coins and goes back to jerry rigging cars then I can buy his collection for fast easy cash.
​​
​​Genius.
​​
​​It put my own collection to shame a long time ago and now I reckon it's probably one of the finest collections on Numista. A man with a good eye for a fine coin I'd say. Make the most of it my friend, the arrival of rugrats and living on one wage will put the cramps on it for sure. Plus they eat coins when left to their own devices. Ruins the patina, so it does.

​​I know mate ! I have been looking at a mini 1275 GT as it happens too but I don't have the money or time to take on a project like that right now. I'll be sure to keep my coins out of reach if/ when I add to the population ha !

​
Maybe you want to spruce up my old 1991 Jag XJ12 too?

I've got one of the godless florins (which I got in a $10 bulk lot) and the normal gothic florins...both are in my "to be upgraded" list

Time to revive this old thread with my collection of Gothic Florins.

 

First we start with the Godless Florin of 1849.

 

 

Issued in 1849 to respond to the need for a decimal coinage. It was the first step as the value of two shillings was exactly 1/10 of a pound. However the coin competed with the halfcrown which was only 6d more or 20% more value and then this coin was worth 2 shillings, so 2 x 1 shilling coins. As the size difference was minimal between halfcrown and this (32 vs 28mm) a distinctive design was needed, a neo classical shield covered the coin, here we got neo gothic frippery. Yet in this age of poor literacy and bad light, it was easy to confuse the two coins still, so in 1850 the last half crowns were issued until 1874 to let this new coin thrive.

 

The design was reminescent of the beautiful gothic crown of 2 years, but this coin had a very limited mintage and 5 shillings was a lot of money in the 1840s. With 413,000 or more examples and 2 shillings, this was more affordable. Queen Victoria did not like it and it was back to the drawing board, mainly as DEI GRATIA was missing which meant “By the Grace of God” and some of us who watched a recent mini series with Olivia Coleman playing the queen remember her having a tantrum throwing the coin across the table to Albert.

 

The example above is close to EF and scarce in that shape, raised floral details (English roses, Scottish thistle and Irish clover, the Welsh were not worthy enough to get their emblem on a coin yet) the lions and harp and of course her majesty in  aseries of crowned and trefoiled segments, meant all this raised detail wore fast.

 

 

This is what most looked like after decades of use, heavy details wore easily. This was my Godless Florin I had before the nice one above. I still keep it as a spare.

No florins were issued in 1850, but half crowns were

 

 

The 1850 half crown, bowing out to the new coin, notice the completely different style, the medieval fantasy gave way to this late Georgian/early Victorian realism and neo classicism.

 

In 1851 a new coin was designed by William Wyon and William Dyce, who had designed the earlier piece too. It was already a shock showing the Queen crowned, no crowned monarch had appeared on a British coin since Charles II hammered coins in the 1660s. This new design doubled down and showed more gothic lettering and now with no competing half crown the size was enlarged and flattened to 30mm. 1851 coins were essays only (Some 1,540 made) and no actual circulation pieces emerged until 1852. 1852 was a generous issue of 1.014 million coins.

 

 

As you can see, the English text was kept along with basic design elements on the tails, crowned royal shield and the national floral emblems in trefoil arches (With the left and right halved). Many of my coins are worn as high grade ones are very expensive and the silly raised detail meant the designs wore fast. This coin is near fine, yet looks more worn. Victoria has not changed, we have the crown and now “d:g” for dei gratia and the other script in gothic lettering “Victoria d:g: brit reg: f:d; mdccclii” = Victoria, dei gratia, britanniar, fidei defensor, 1852 or Victoria by the grace of god, queen of the britons, efender of the faith 1852. Each year was in Roman numerals and thus dies would need to be remade each year. Some were interesting as they had to scientifically cram in ones and tens, imagine a year like 1878 or 1887! Also some time in the late 1860s, they added an extra t to brit, so it becomes britt.

 

 

1853 was another big year as they wanted to bake this coin into the public's mind, it was important as there was nothing from this until the half sovereign worth 10/-, the half crown was gone and the Crowns were not being issued any more. I am lucky to have a better condition (good Fine) for this date. You can see already that the 3 i's make a tight fit. Almost 4 million florins were issued dated 1853, one of the largest mintages and hence why I seem to have a realitively good example.

 

I do not have every date of this type, around about half, I have 3 more 1850s dates and just one 1860s, but you will see I cover the more common 1870s and 1880s coins well. The last date was 1887 and this was issued before the Jubilee head florins of 1887. All of these coins are “COIN” orientation, with the switch to MEDAL orientation in 1887 with the Jubilee coinage.

1854 and 1855 had low mintage numbers of 550k and 831k, I have neither and both are scarce. My next one

 

 

1856 and this is a nice VF/gVF example, much more detail here yet you can see how raised detail on the shields like raised lion faces and harp edges are basically flat. Over 2.2 million were made, making 1856 a common year. Notice the v in the date almost looks like an o due to the ligatures.

 

 

1857 saw another big mintage of 1.671 million, but my example is very worn and also cleaned (VG). Notice now they are really squeezing in those extra i's after the V and it looks like the first i is touching the edge.

 

 

1858 lands in the same Fine or a bit more level. It was a big year with some 2.239 million coins issued. Notice how the i's are really piled in here.

 

I don't have 1859 to 1863 and most of the 1860s coins had low 6 figure mintages. 1859 was a common year with 2.568 million coins, just under 1.5 million in 1860 and none issued in 1861. 1862 and 1863 were scarce years with just 594k in 1862 and 938k in 1863.  Many of these early coins have worn away dates and thus its hard to decipher them, usually the least worn ones are 1880s coins, as many 1850s/60s coins circulated for 25 or more years.