I recently acquired a collection of Queen Elizabeth II 80th Birthday silver coins, amongst them were some Republic of Liberia silver $10 coins. The certificate that came with them states they are .925 silver with a weight of 28.28 grams (which is wrong, but not unusual) the Numista catalogue (N#87068) lists it as .925 silver with a weight of 31.4 grams, this weight is correct. The coin itself states it is “ONE OUNCE FINE SILVER” as many of them do (and i have quite a few of these others), and most of those are listed in Numista as .999 silver. Is the catalogue wrong, or is the wording of the coin misleading?
I think both are right. Liberia in the past widely use its coin authority for trade like Niue or Ghana now. Your coin was minted by Pobjoy mint likely by somebody private order. Sterling silver (0.925) is common for many silver coins. You can see statement ONE OUNCE FINE SILVER on the coin, but there is no word TROY, you are promised to have just ounce of silver but not troy ounce. There are a lot of different ounces in the world and most of them are between 28 and 29 grams. Like your coin )
Right, a bit like the pre 2013 Britannias being 32 odd grams as they were .958, so one troy ounce of .999 silver. I did wonder why all the other ones in the catalogue are 31.1g and not 31.4g, they must be 1 troy ounce .999 coins.
Post of picture of the certificate please. I've seen these elsewhere stating they were .999 silver. Other of their coins of the same time frame have FINE SILVER and .999 on the coin. Hard to believe they mistakenly put FINE on they coin when they meant STERLING and put OUNCE on the coin and meant some unheard of ounce rather than TROY OUNCE. That's not a very wise way to make and sell billion coins.
The certificate (for what it's worth) is wrong on the weight as the coin weighs 31.4g, according to my scales and Numista. The cert states it is .925, Numista states it as .925, the coin has the wording “ONE OUNCE FINE SILVER” on the obverse, as do all the ones Numista list as .999 silver. It doesn't mention troy ounces, but neither do US Eagles. A bit of a strange one, but as mentioned before, it could be that there is 1 ounce (not troy) of fine silver if it is 31.4 of .925.
The image on the coin is supposed to be Queen Elizabeth II (princess Elizabeth then) on her 18th Birthday with her dad, KGVI. It bears a striking resemblance to the photo. Maybe the catalogue is wrong, it doesn't look much like Phil to me.
Mayby your CoA is wrong… it's not the certificate coming from mint and I found this on the Pobjoy Priority Collectors News (2006):
It looks that these coins are Silver .999 = fine silver. For .925 Pobjoy always used term “Sterling Silver” (see Seychelles coins above).
Thanks for posting that. I did realise my certificate was wrong in respect of the weight, I just wasn't sure of the fineness of silver. This picture does describe the chap as her dad, KGVI. Numista has the weight right, but not the description, and maybe not the fineness. I thought it strange the coin would say 1oz fine silver on it and not be .999, as all the others with that on them are indeed .999.
By the way, a lot of newly added coins for Liberia recently. Someone is doing good job.
Well yes, many coins introduced, many modified and many to be introduced, the Liberian coin catalog is crazy, hehehe. Thanks for your comment!!!
Regarding the Topic, I have made the changes in the 4 coins of the series: fineness .999, some modified description and also the Pobjoy Mint entry. I have also taken the opportunity to make the appropriate changes in the 4 coins of the 1 dollar copper-nickel coins, to standardize the entire series. If anyone wants to review the series, in Spain we say "four eyes see more than two" 😊
