Buying pre decimal 92.5 Australian coins as bullion

wolfstack

wolfstack

Member
I'm new to stacking so hope I can get a bit of advice on this, I did a search and not all of my questions were answered so made this post.

I just bought 1kg of Australian florins, all dated earlier than 1946 for $600

Am I correct in thinking that all pre 1946 Australian florins are all 92.5% silver?

About a third of the kg are the 1927 parliament house version, the rest have the coat of arms.

I worked out that at $21.60 current silver price, .925 of a kg is $641.50 of silver value.

Did I get that calculation right?

Is the $600 I paid ok for the kg?

and what is the general opinion on the worth of stacking pre decimal .925 coins? Do you think I will be able to sell these for something close to spot in the future? Or would I be better of ignoring them and only going for .999 silver to have the best chance of easily selling for spot in the future?
 
Pre-46 coins are .925 so it looks like you managed to snag them under spot.
Regarding their worth for stacking you need to determine what your goal/purpose is.

I began buying any silver at spot or below I could find but have since sold everything off and am only collecting specific rounds that I find below spot. My goal is to stack ~300oz of fractional silver for use as currency as I feel a return to the gold standard is in the works and our fiat economies will be unable to support us much longer. My collection of gold is to hedge against inflation and protect my wealth as well as encourage me to save.

In this context, stacking pre-46 coins makes alot of sense.

However if you are stacking silver for long term investment and wealth growth, you would do much better to buy 10oz bars as close to spot as possible and hold them until you can get the price you want for them or the GSR drops and you can convert to gold.
 
Roughly how many coins did you get out of the kg? Should be about 88 or 89.
 
The quality doesn't really matter in my eyes just the content. They aren't numismatic after all. Looks like you got a bargain. Did you pay $600 with postage?
 
I like the old silver coins as there's very few fakes, and they make nice fractional silver bars that most people will recognise if you ever need to barter. Also a great buy if you can get them under spot. The old SS calculation tables are here:
https://web.archive.org/web/2016052...rstackers.com:80/calculators/index.php?page=1

And here for calculations using weight only:
https://web.archive.org/web/2016120...lverstackers.com/calculators/index.php?page=2

There's also calculation tables for gold and some foreign coins.
 
Thanks for those tables GoldenEye, ive been using my own on an ugly spreadsheet. These are much more user friendly!
 
Thanks Goldeneye, much appreciated.

66rounds its an english half crown, after google I see it's 50% silver (robbed lol). Only one though. I also found an 1890 something florin with a young queen victoria, google says 92.5 so that ones ok.
 
wolfstack said:
yeh it's pretty rough, prolly not worth much I wouldnt think
Click to expand...

You got a great deal for a kg of Pre decimal, at certain times of the 999 vs 925 cycle - numismatics dictate a premium (eg: as people fear a monetary system collapse) as they are easily identifyable and fractional.

The 1890 somthing Jubilee head would likely fetch 25% over spot in F, also the 1927 Parliament Florins and other King George V Florins will dictate a premium over spot, as will key dates and rarer dates and coins in higher grade.. if you sold individually you could likely double your profits.. but work involved like carding coins up etc.
 
For what it's worth, a wise silverstacker once said that pre-46 silver as currency doesn't make sense because post-46 was 50% and that is the standard that people will pay.

Meaning that your uninformed buyer will have one offer for a florin, being a coin with 50% silver. You could claim that your 1927 florin is 42.5% more silver than the post-46ers for sale.

But your buyer will be ignorant on dates, purity etc, and will just see:

"florin, one of, value one pie, one can of Fanta, one musk stick."

So the advice was stick with post-46. Twice as many trading items for your fiat.
 
Makes sense however we might as well stack five cent decimal pieces in that case. I doubt if we had to resort to using it as currency that people would remain ignorant of silver content.

Someone who knows that decimal currency has no silver content is likely to know the 1946 cut off for .925 and 1966 cut off for 50%
 
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Nice, I do the same sort of thing.

I check every coin on Numista to make sure I haven't gotten a rare one

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/in...&u=&g=&c=&tb=y&tc=y&tn=y&tp=y&tt=y&te=y&cat=y

Then I soak them in cloudy ammonia for half an hour and after rinsing I give them a bit of a rub with Bi-card of Soda. Completely unnecessary and doesn't add any value to the coins but gives them a bit more eye-appeal.
Before and After cleaning

Before and After cleaning

  • Media owner Jislizard
  • Date added
Two damaged coins, soaked in cloudy ammonia and rubbed with sodium bicarbonate. Several cleans...
 
Yes you got a good deal. Over here in the USA there is a big market for our version which is pre-1964 quarters and dimes which are 90% silver. A lot of people stack them because they are very difficult to forge. Some key dates have a numismatic value as well but mostly they are stacked for their silver content. Selling them to dealers later is easy over here due to their recognisability and low forgery rate.
 
If you get a forgery over here it is more likely than not going to be worth more than the silver content of the coin and probably a decent amount.
 
Seeing those shillings has me wanting to buy a bag full. There my favorite pre decimal coin. I just like the look of them, that rams head speaks volumes, after all Australia rode on the sheep's back for quite some time ... a pound a pound for wool in the 50's

I'm off to hunt lots of shillings now.
 
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