World gold - 4x 20 franc coins of the Latin Monetary Union

French, Belgian, Swiss and Italian 20 franc coins.  The LMU spec was based on the French 20 franc and is about 20% smaller than a sovereign.  Quite a few countries joined the Latin Monetary Union, which was founded in the 1860s and went through until WWI killed off the gold standard.

French 20 franc Rooster, Swiss 20 franc Vrenelli, Belgian 20 francs, Italian 20 lire.

I think Umberto's moustache was the model for the Saracen knight in the second issue of Knights of the Past.

The Cat's Mother wrote:I think Umberto's moustache was the model for the Saracen knight in the second issue of Knights of the Past.

Wait 'til you see Franz Josef's 'tache.

Oh wow those are cool, i've not ever seen any gold francs before.

@Silverlocks Ahhhh   LOL    I am still trying to wrap my head around sovereigns after all these years of stacking LOL 

To date I am still not a fan but I think they are growing on me.

Admin wrote:@Silverlocks Ahhhh   LOL    I am still trying to wrap my head around sovereigns after all these years of stacking LOL 

To date I am still not a fan but I think they are growing on me.

Economically they're exempt from CGT and VAT, and they're small enough to be fairly liquid while retaining low premiums so your buy/sell spreads are relatively tame.

It's possible to be quite an anorak about collecting sovereigns, but I'm really mostly interested in nice, photogenic examples - rare variants or years with low mintages don't really do that much for me.  However, from a collector's point of view, they're by far the best documented of any gold coin so you can really go to town on researching the variations in the design.

I'd actually be over the moon if I could find good documentation about European, Asian or South American gold coins.  Maybe it exists, but nobody seems to be aware of it.  There are books that just catalogue coins - I've got a copy of an ancient edition of Schlumberger that really smells like an old book, and a copy of Friedburg & Friedburg.  However, these really only just list the coins without discussing history or anything about individual mints or anything like that.

The LMU is quite interesting - many countries minted coins to that specification, and it's quite a deep rabbit hole, even before you get into the rare coins.  If a decent book discussing the history of the LMU and its coinage existed I'd be keen to get a copy.