1960 Special Silver command edition!
The later 1950s and 1960s saw a real postwar recovery in Europe and getting by, changed to prosperity. What this meant was
silver coins in circulation were possible again really since the 1930s and in some cases the 1910s. However most of these coins were only 40 - 75% silver and face value was more than melt value. Still they were better than the muck metal and brass tokens that you will see through Europe between around 1919 and 1955. 2 world wars and a Depression killed off the precious metal coinage and standards of the 1850s to 1915 period!
Portuguese Mozambique 20 Escudos.
A larger but thin silver coin the size of a halfcrown. The coin was 64% silver like the 10 and 5. However silver prices would mean subsequent issues from 1965 onwards were in muck metals and the escudo collapsed in the 1970s and became the worthless metical.
France 5 Francs Silver
This coin was reissued after being a worthless muck metal coin and then in the 1930s a debased silver one. The design of La Semeuse was based on the beautiful 1897 - 1920 ones that went up to 2 Francs, those coins were 83 - 90% silver, however this was 72% and only slightly larger than the old 2 Franc coins.
The coin lasted through to 1966 as circulation piece but went on as a set coin for longer. A similar sized coin was reissued in cupronickel in 1970 and survived through to Euroisation.
Netherlands 2½ guilders - an old "Rixdollar", these coins were first reissued in 1959 and only reissued through to 1964, when in 1967/68 it was reissued as a much smaller cupro nickel coin. This coin was a bit less silvery at 64% and weighed 15 grams being a large 34mm in size and containing 9.6 grams of silver.
I have about 8 of them and all are stained except this one. I like this handsome big coin. The last silver 2½ guilders were in the 1930s and pre 1915 ones were 89.4% or even 94.6% silver and issued on and off from 183 to 1914. These were crown sized coins, so this is an intermediate issue between those crown sized thalers of the Wilhelmina era and the muck metal 20c sized things of the 1970s!
Unlike Europe, Canada had generous silver supplies and access to it, their coins remained at a generous 80% silver from 1920 until 1967. This dollar contains 18 grams of the stuff. Only in 1967 did they briefly debase to 50% for a few months and the muck metal brigade arrived in 1968.
Sorry for this blabby post - silver is an obsession of mine. Don't like Bronze, Muck metals or Gold - But silver is my thing!!!!
TM - No problem at all, show away - your coin and photo are MUCH better than mine! Plus that design deserves a quality shot.
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Posted 10/21/2022 8:48 pm
