Specimen/Pattern/Trial Values

banknotelover: Welcome to the CCF!

Specimens, trials, proofs, patterns and NCLT Mint products were never meant to circulate, and in the first four cases, are rare or are very rare. Consequently, they do not experience wear, and so a value for grade cannot be established. Some of the vary rare pieces rarely or never, come up for auction, and so it is difficult to establish a market value for them.

Greg McDonald, who has written a very good catalogue on Australian coinage and banknotes, does a lot of serious research based on auction results to give value for grade in his listings. If there are no auction results on very rare items, the pricing of same must, by necessity, become a guesstimate only.

to ccf and also some of those trials or specimens have only one examples or very few in which the grades of those coins are comparable.

As far as proofs go, you will find the grades are generally for the highest grades e.g FDC/Ch UNC.

But many proofs will be found in EF condition, aUNC condition, where the proof has not been stored well. There may be scratches or environmental damage evident. Have a look on ebay & you might find some not so great pre-decimal proofs. I purchased a Florin a while back from Downies which wasn't stored the best. I think I picked it up from Auction for around $150, where the CV was $600. I later sold it online for just short of what I paid for it.

In cases of proofs, I'd be demanding the highest quality images so you can put your spiel on how good you think it is based on how good it should be in FDC.

1966 proof sets are a perfect example of extremes in quality and prices