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 Replies: 19 / Views: 3,287 |
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
59 Posts |
hello I am in need of urgent help! I have been offered a fair sum for my coin but I have no idea of its worth,and his offer is only valid for another 11 hours! Its an 1808 Napoleon coin,believed to be a 1 franc as its 23mm long and 1mm thick.Its a turin mint(heart shape) and has a U next to it. It states around the coin Dieu Protege La France followed by a star symbol. Its in near identical to this coin in both the coin itself and the condition(tho the words on mine are more visable)and mine is 1808! http://212.180.45.30/monnaies/vso/v...sgb229c.htmlAny ideas?Im saving to go see my girlfriend and really need all the help I can get in terms of money! Thankyou very much for your time. |
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Forum Mom
 United States
5877 Posts |
First of all, welcome to Coin Community.  In order to help you, I really need to see pictures of your coin. There are a number of different mints on these and I would rather look at the grade for myself. From what I have been able to find so far, your coin could be worth anywhere from $10-$550. |
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Moderator
 United States
6563 Posts |
I don't know much about this particular coin but it seems like the potential buyer is pressuring you to sell it quickly without doing any research. It could possibly be worth far more then the buyer is willing to pay. I'm glad you were able to find this Forum.
And yes a picture would be of great help. Welcome to the Forum!
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Valued Member
 United Kingdom
59 Posts |
Hi,thankyou both for your greetings :) Unfortunatly due to my digital camera no clear markings are visable apart from just the coin shape. susanlynn9 if theres is anything I can tell you about the coin that you could help me find the value of the coin? From left to right it states Napoleon Empereur on the front.on the back a heart symbol then 1808 and a small diamond after it then a U.Then from left to right Republique Francaise.The conditional is near idential to the coin I listed its uncanny! The reason is I listed it on ebay and its attracting lots of attention!any ideas? |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2703 Posts |
The output from the Turin mint was very low. I do not have the exact mintage for 1808. The 1812 piece has a mintage of 10,194, and a rarity index of RR. In TB (VF-30) condition it sold in the 2006 cgb auction for 1312 euros. The 1813 piece http://212.180.45.30/monnaies/vso/v...sgb5a75.html has a mintage of 6,059, and rarity index of RRR. In B (G-5) condition, it sold in the same auction for 600 euros. I checked my old auction catalogs and favorite dealers' websites in France. I have not found any of these Turin mint coins for sale or having been sold recently (except for the cgb coins). This is all the pricing data I could find, perhaps others can find more. Condition, rarity and demand all have an influence on price. If your coin really is in similar condition to the cgb coin (TB or VF-30), and rarity is similar (RR) then you could reasonably ask for $1500. If it is in fine condition, then you should ask less, say $900. On the other hand, if your coin really is in very fine condition and the 1808 is more rare than the 1812 (RRR for the 1808), you would be giving it away for $1500. This coin should be consigned to a Paris auction house (like cgb) to get a true market price. If it were my coin, I would take some time to get some opinions from the professionals in Paris, such as cgb.fr, argenor.com, and patrickguillard.com. Edited by t360
04/22/2007 4:08 pm
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Forum Mom
United States
5877 Posts |
Please privately email me through the forum the link to the auction. Do you have a picture in the auction? Since this is the lowest mintage 1808, I would suspect authenticity until I am able to see the coin for myself. I cannot, therefore, give you an opinion on value.
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Moderator
United States
6563 Posts |
IMHO (In My Humble Opinion)
If this is your auction. Pull the listing off now. Stay on with us and we can help you ID the coin some more and figure out how to get you some better pictures. The last thing you want to do is mistakingly sell a £500.00 coin for £2.00.
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
59 Posts |
Ok ive decided to pull the listing off on the grounds of "error in price".........could be a certain understatement(hopefully)
Thankyou guys and gals for all your help on this,even if its only worth $100(which is still ALOT to me)i think its best I find out excatly what it is.
I suspect it is the real deal because I was given it by my gran many moons ago who had a small antiques shop,she regularly got given bags of coins off people around the village and at car boots,she sold a few bits in her time mainly decorative items for hundreds after paying little but she never took an intrest in coins,any coins she'd get she'd just give to me,I had literally hundreds at one point,I just kept this one because it was the oldest!
I would ask her but shes sadly passed a few years ago,she always said to me tho go for your dreams,f I know my gran she'd have wanted me to get the most for this and go and see my gf in the states!Thats the plan anyway.
Edited by frenchcoin
04/22/2007 10:11 pm
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Forum Mom
United States
5877 Posts |
I'm really looking forward to seeing pics of this coin. It may be worth quite a bit more than $100.  |
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
3831 Posts |
frenchcoin, in times like this, although I do understand your urgent need of money, there will be a big difference of showing a picture clearly and not. Like what others said, it may be worth thousands and your offer will be highly hampered due to lack of pictures or awful picture quality. And it just happens!
Honestly, how can I trust you if I don't see any evidence? Non coin collectors may see things carefully from what real collectors do. Non collectors might think for a coin that is 200 years old it's in an excellent condition but doesn't mean much to collectors. To couple with the fact that counterfeits are appearing daily, more people are scared to offer better prices.
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Moderator
Australia
16808 Posts |
Personally, I'm not sure what the fuss is about with the coin on the French auction site linked to above; The Krause (2004) catalogue value for that coin (KM# 692.15) is "only" US$100 in Fine, US$225 in Very Fine - and it looks too worn to class as VF by my reckoning. Unless it's some scarce variety not mentioned in Krause (or Napoleonics have had a 1000% increase in value in the last three years!), I have no idea why it hit such an astronomical value as €1312.00. For your coin, frenchcoin, the same Krause book lists it at US$125 in Fine, US$300 in VF (KM# 682.13, mintage 13,000). From what I could tell from the pics, it looked fairly well worn, but still, it's worth more than the £2 you might have gotten if that auction had proceeded! I did see the auction link briefly before it was pulled from this thread, and have a few suggestions to increase prospective bids, if yo do decide to go ahead and sell it on ebay. You need nice clear pics. The pics you had were fuzzy blobs, which to a potential bidder is worse than useless - they're likely to think you have something to hide. If that's the best you can do with your camera, try a flatbed scanner or borrow someone else's camera. Make sure it's got a good macro-zoom function to focus real close on tiny objects like coins. Your auction title didn't help. Anyone wanting a coin like yours would do an ebay search for things like "Napoleonic France 1 franc 1808 U (Turin) heart" - and they wouldn't have found your coin, because most of those keywords weren't in your title. Sure, you weren't quite sure what you had when you first listed it - now you know better.  Finally, you limited yourself to UK bidders only. That's your choice, I know, and I have no idea what hassles you might encounter in shipping international from Britain, but there are probably lots more people in France and continental Europe prepared to pay top money for it, than you'll find on the island. I hope this proves to be of some use to you. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2703 Posts |
Sap has made some excellent points.
There has been a substantial increase in French coin prices over the last 4-5 years, not 10X overall, but easily 2X overall and larger increases for rare coins in higher grades. However keep in mind that if your coin only appears on the market every 5 years or so, then the pricing data available to Krause to make a guess-estimated value is limited.
The major auctions firms like cgb and cng do get some "crazy" prices for coins, because they have a loyal following of well-heeled bidders. It is not unusual to see coins in their auctions go for 2X (or higher multiples) of the market or book value. The key to getting the best price is to match the coin with the right buyers, which is what these firms do best.
Sap's recommendations are right on. You really should let the bidders in France in on the auction (worldwide would be best) and clearly show what you have with a clear picture.
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
59 Posts |
Hello again! First of all I hope to get clear pictures of the coin up by the end of the week,my sisters going to lend me her camera(which has no batteries!grr)towards the end of the week,I know we have a scanner around here somewhere which used to be very handy for when I sold a few other coins on ebay many years ago.....im now beggining to wonder what they were! I totally understand now that the auction was a poor mistake to make,if i'd have known that it would we worth more that the £2 when I listed it for then I sure would have gone down a different route! But thankfully I got it off in time! Thankyou sap for your listing ideas,I will be sure to keep them in mind! I found out today that my grandma visted my french auntie in the 70's in France and was given boxes of items that had been kept in the out building for many years,possible up to 60.So its quite possible that this was in one of those boxes.......its only speculation but it does figure. To t360 and anyone else with experience in the coin market,if when I put the pictures up and if you guys think its geniune where do I go from there to get the possible outcome? I dont really want to list it again on ebay because I did get the feeling that people were heavily under bidding,or at least trying to get a bargain...which again now I can fully understand given the picture quality and so on. I will have no hesitations tho in listing it anywhere worldwide,I dont want to sound greedy,I just want to get the most for this coin as I'm really strapped for cash at the moment. Cheers all once again for your help  |
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
3831 Posts |
frenchcoin, don't feel bad. We all will want to help you as much as we can, as well as trying to make you realize the real value of it. The worst thing that could happen is that you sold the coin far lot less than what it could have possibly be worth of.
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Pillar of the Community
Belgium
2078 Posts |
Hello Frenchcoin SAP said you limited the sale to UK only French and Possibly German collectors may bid a lot more You can offer the coin directly on ebay France The easiest way to get their bids is to open a Euro account at a bank in Great Britain This way they can pay you in Euro transfer without cost for them or you ( otherwise the cost is 15 to 20 euro to pay in pounds to a pound account ) Of course you will have to convert to pounds but that only costs like 3 % instead of the buyer losing 15 to 20 euro and not bidding |
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Valued Member
United Kingdom
59 Posts |
Hey guys,I keep getting an error message when I try to load up pictures any ideas?there under 90k and are .jpg files?Cheers!
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Replies: 19 / Views: 3,287 |
Posted 04/22/2007 12:35 pm
