Got a Pile of Coins - And a nice Lunch
This week to finish off all the coins I picked up when I went out to lunch with a friend. They had made arrangements for him to bring me a coin grab bag I'm not sure about was all the coins that I picked. He gave me a couple options, and I went to see all form and we'll see silver coins that I didn't have any of. This week's highlight is silver Canadian 5 Cent pieces. Let's dig in and take a look at what I got
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Canadian 5 Cent Pieces
| 1888 | 1906 | 1920 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Composition | Silver (.925) | Silver (.925) | Silver (.8000) |
| ASW | .0346oz | .0346oz | .03oz |
| Weight | 1.16g | 1.16g | 1.1664 |
| Diameter | 15.5 mm | 15.5mm | 15.48 |
| Mintage | 1,000,000 | 3,100,000 | 10,649,851 |
1888 Canada 5 Cents
Boy is she old, but she still has her good looks. Anything from the 1800s is a nice coin to add in my opinion. There are not many of them out there in the grand scheme of things, and every year their age just gets more impressive to me.
This design makes me think a lot of our own liberty focused designs of that time and after. It might be the head shape and position, but it has me less of thinking of a monarchy and more of thinking of historical time. Glad to see this was still sterling silver at 925 bringing some real silver weight to every coin no matter how small.
1920 Canda 5 Cents
Probably my least favorite of the three. Well it does have some better condition left to it than the 1888, it's newer, I like the obverse portrait less, but it does have much better detail on the reverse. Luckily it's still 925 Silver so it still has that going for it but I think I prefer the 1888 design between the two.
1906 Canda 5 Cents
Clearly the highest condition of the three coins featured. I have not pulled out my grading books but I'm just going to guess that it pulls somewhere from extra fine to about uncirculated scale more or less. While I still don't like the front of the coins design with the mail king portrait, and this takes a massive hit due to its silver composition of only .8, it's sharpness and crispness of design and condition move this up to my second favorite coin. I think it's really nice to get a coin from the the early 1900s that still has as much detail left. This clearly was forgotten and someone sock drawer for a long time and eventually made it into the hands of collectors.
Might need to buy more silver 5 cent pieces
I always love the fractional nature of governmental issued silver. These are even better when they are at 925 versus the USA at 90% silver. I think it might be good to add a few of these to My overall collection as a fractional silver barter and small collection moving forward. I don't think I care much about overall condition as much as I do at adding relatively low cost silver to my collection. Being only 8 hours from the border doesn't hurt either as they're a bit more readily available over there, and the next time I go to Canada I might have to see if I can find a coin shop to buy some.
