Lot 2685
Great Britain. Gold Proof Half Sovereign, 1839. Victoria Young Head. S-3859. Plain edge. Medal-die axis. Very scarce. Mintage unknown but about 300 pieces, all for the Coronation sets of this year. These Proofs are all graced by the more elegant, thinner, so-called First Head, showing Victoria as a mere girl of 20 when this coin was struck. Born in 1819, she acceded to the throne of England upon the death of her uncle, King William IV, in June of 1837. Within three years, in 1840, she married Prince Albert, second son of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, thereby cementing a relationship to German royalty which would ultimately plague the family name, in two world wars in the next century. But in the 1830s and 1840s England was a relative happy place, of great prosperity, full of what was then new technology such as iron bridges and railroads; and the many small, foreign battles which would come in the next five decades would be known to history as "Victoria's little wars." They spread the grasp of the Empire to its widest reach by the end of the century. This delightful coin is a kind of harbinger of the glory that lay ahead of England in 1839. NGC graded Proof 63 Ultra Cameo.
Estimated Value $3,000 - 3,500.
The Cheshire Collection.
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| Realized $3,220 |
