UK £20 For £20 For Sale

They seem to do this every so often as a lost leader. They don't make a profit but they do get your address as a "buyer" so be prepared for some mail shots.

The only bad side about it is every postman who delivers your letters knows there is a coin collector at that address.

This makes me mad.

The St George design was made into a silver proof coin a few months ago and it was a big deal as it was the first time they had struck a silver coin in that design for over 100 years. Now they're making a £20 silver coin with the same design?

It just seems like this is going to screw up any collector value my proof had.

27mm in diameter. That's slightly smaller than a £2 coin and a lot smaller than the pre-decimal crown or the Royal Birth £5 coin they released earlier this year.

Well then, £20 for a £20 coin sounds like a pretty good deal. I'll just go place my order.

Specs of the coin from Royal Mint web site:

Issue Limit: 250,000
Alloy: .999 Fine Silver
Weight: 15.71g
Diameter: 27.00mm

Seems to an 1/2 ounce coin.

Makes the pricing for silver content similar to the Canadian $20 for $20, if not slightly better.

But every other coin you spend has a melt value below its face value. It's actually pretty clever for NCLT to do the same, and then bring the issue price (normally very high! a Canadian kilo of silver is sold for $2,200 today, has a melt value of $784.88, and a face value of $250) down to the face value. Many countries have done this at some point, distributing silver at its face value but not expecting it to circulate much. Spain had a 2000-peseta series, which seamlessly transitioned into 12-euros, I've heard of a few Eurozone countries making silver 5-euro coins (the Dutch ones, however, were debased...), France had a 50 and then 100 franc coin, Austria had 50 and 100 schillings, and Canada now has $20 for $20 coins that you could theoretically spend. So the UK is just following along in this very, very low-key trend of "circulating silver".

I'd try spending at least one!

I wonder whether or not this will be oversubscribed? I have an order in via someone in the UK for two plus one for them so they and I can avail of the free postage, wonder if that's how many will be received ... and if not whether postage will then suddenly be incurred (sincerely hope not)?

From the blurb this is going to be an annual issue, will be interesting to see what happens with the mintages over the coming years.

Can't remember the last time I got a mailer from them .... must be months and months ago now.

Norm

Being a first issue, my guess is that it would end up being fully subscribed.
For a collector's piece, a quarter of a million does not make them all that rare.
Perhaps later years may be less well subscribed.

Quality control at the RM is usually very high.
I reckon it is better than the RAM or the RCM.

I think I would rather get me a sterling silver half crown.
You can get some rather nice ones for around 20 Pounds or less.
Only problem is, that it would not be in FDC condition.