1935 New Zealand Half-Crown

Just a tad below VF. value thus $NZ50, according to my specialist 2010 New Zealand Coin & Banknote Catalogue publ. by Howard Mitchell, (Aukland).

You will notice a darker patch of metal where the coin has worn, on the King's beard.
The reason for this is due to poorer metal being exposed, due to wear.
NZ silver coins are .500 fine with .400 copper, .050 nickel, .050 zinc. The planchets were acid washed and rinsed before striking. This procedure had the effect of leaching most of the copper, and all of the zinc out of the surface layer of the planchet.

When the coin was struck, the spongy silver was compressed to enrich the surface layer, thus making the newly struck coin appear of better silver than it actually was. Eventually, the enriched layer on the beard has worn through, revealing the poorer metal underneath.

Exactly the same thing happened with .500 fine Australian and British pre decimal silver, for the same reasons.

I think the best thing about this obverse is despite quite a bit of wear it still displays great detail in the crown, face and robes. The obverse used on Australian and other british coins doesn't fair as well with wear IMO.

I love the KGV New Zealand half crowns. I'm heading there in 2 weeks for a couple week trip round the north island and was hoping to complete a basic set roughly along the lines of scarcest date for each denomination. I might just keep this one for that set. I think I did ok for $7.

Thanks Sel!

I will be visiting every coin shop I can find to get some souveneirs.