Anna Del Gratia 1714 - What Is It?

Not sure how much it's worth, but sounds like you have a Brittish silver penny of Queen Anne.

Here's a snippet from Wikipedia:

quote:

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Anglo-Scottish Union
William III was succeeded in 1702 by Mary's younger sister, Anne. During Anne's reign the kingdoms of England and Scotland were united in 1707 (see Acts of Union 1707), to form what is usually referred to as the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Despite having had ten pregnancies, none of Anne's children survived, and the Stuart dynasty died with her in 1714. In accordance with the Act of Settlement 1701 the crown passed to the Protestant descendants of Sophia, Electress of Hanover, in the form king George I.

Anne's reign produced silver pennies in 1703, 1705, 1706, 1708, 1709, 1710, and 1713. The obverse of the coins show her left-facing bust with the inscription ANNA DEI GRATIA, while the reverse shows the crowned "I" and (1703) MAG BR FRA ET HIB REG 1703, (1705,6) MAG BR FR ET HIB REG, or (1708-13) MAG BRI FR ET HIB REG.

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That could be a possibility. I do not know anything about this series to help you further, sorry :(

If it looks like this:

...then it could well be a British gold coin, either a guinea or half-guinea (I think the guineas are "about an inch" across). That picture is from Tony Clayton's website of UK coins. Even holed, a genuine guinea is going to be more than worth its weight in gold to a collector.

It could, of course, be a fake. Even if it is, it could still be real gold - a "jewellers fake". I'd suggest taking it to a jeweller for an opinion - they can also do some testing to see if it's real gold.

klkbloke, Welcome to the forum.

Hope you will post often.

OK, I'm back home with my trusty reference books. The guinea is 25mm, the half 21mm and the double 31mm, so it sounds like a guinea...

First thing to double-check: does it look exactly like the one pictured in my post above? Pay particular attention to what's in the angles between the four shields... is it sceptres, like on this coin, or little flowery things (roses and fleur-de-lys)? The reason I'm asking is, that English silver shillings were much the same size (25mm) as gold guineas, with a very similar design - the difference being what I just outlined. As you can imagine, shillings were frequently gold-plated to try to pass as guineas. If yours has sceptres, then we can at least rule out a gilded shilling.

The Krause catalogue (2002 ed.) lists the 1714 guinea at $125 in VG (the lowest stated grade); it's not a particularly scarce date, but still worth more than bullion value at the time. The price of gold has gone up considerably since then, which will proportionally increase the value of your coin.

The best test you can do "at home" is to check the weight as accurately as possible; A guinea should weigh 8.35 grams; even with the hole, it shouldn't weigh too much less than this. Shillings, for example, weigh only 6.02 grams.

Hope all this helps.

klkbloke - speaking as a collector of counterfeits - please do not do anything that might damage a contemporary counterfeit. I would AVOID jewelers like a plague because their tests can damage the surfaces. All an acid test or the "rub" test detects is what carat the surface gold is.

But with a drilled coin, you have a perfect opportunity to determine exactly what you have with ZERO added damage. These tests are listed in order by degree of difficulty.

1. Weigh the coin accurately - gold coins were made to very high tolerances and the loss of metal due to the drill hole can be calculated very accurately.
2. Examine the drill hole using a binocular microscope - look for a seam or color change. Remember that a "white" core could indicate a Platinum forgery which would be worth as much or more than an intact original.
3. Determine the Specific Gravity - here again there is a very little variation in the density of coin gold from Great Britain. Jewelry counterfeits and Circulating counterfeits will have different SGs because they were made for different purposes.
4. Locate someone with an XRF testing apparatus. If there is any chance you have a "non-gold" forgery this test will likely determine when or where it was made.

Finally, if there is any chance it is a fake get in tough with me.

If it is real fine to EF 300 to 2000 pounds british

One variety I guess their is no middle bar on GRATIA fine to EF 600 to 3000