The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 23, June 5, 2005, Article 19

MORE ON INTERNATIONAL PATTERNS

[My apologies to Jan Moens, whose response to David Cassel's
inquiry about Jan's earlier submission was misplaced last week.
Here it is. -Editor]

Jan Moens writes: "In a recent E-Sylum, David Cassel asks for
some more information about the patterns for international coinage
of 1867-1868. Here are my answers :

1) my statement that only France, Great Britain and the U.S.
struck patterns for international coinage is based in the first place
on the analysis of catalogues for coins of that period, but also on
the fact that, after the conference of 1867, only a handful of
countries had official commissions installed to look into the matter
in more detail, these countries being France, Great Britain and the
U.S., and also Austria, but no patterns are known for this country;
it seems doubtful to me that other countries had patterns made.

2) the details about the patterns of 25 francs = 10 florins or 5
dollars come from a file that is kept at the archives of the Paris Mint.

3) the 1 franc = 10 pence pattern, although present in the
catalogue of V. Guilloteau, was not a French coin, but was
struck at the Royal Mint in London (where also patterns for
gold coins of 5 and 10 francs have been made). I do not
know the actual number of pieces produced, but it is indeed
a very rare pattern. I have a piece in my collection which
was acquired through private treaty from Spink (London)
at a price unfortunately not to be disclosed. I am not aware
of any other recent sale (note that the gold patterns were sold
in the recent sale by Spink of the Samuel King collection;
see their website www.spink.com)."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization 
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor 
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum