Well they can have three mounted sovereigns for the price of this coin unmounted 

Well she got more Royal by the year 

Can you believe these coins are sought to be mounted in jewelry  ?

The first of the socalled new sovereigns series Lizzy I
MS65 1958

Not very well known young Lizzy second head I think 1981 MS64

I consider this the most beautifull proof I got
The Unicorn

The 2005 business strike is impossible to scan but the proof is quiet nice

Vicky 1872 shieldback
This sovereign was collected by glueing it in a book with real glue
The back therefore is MS but the face which was showing was "worn"

Chard UK vendor has a lot of ready info on sovereigns
I do not like them because their prices are never up to date and they do not answer emails
only telephone calls . They keep bashing ebay because at one time all their offerings where withdrawn at once due to an "error"

http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/index.php

http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/information.html

http://www.taxfreegold.co.uk/2009british5coingoldset.php

The first sovereign I saw at age six in a pendant my mother wore ; my wife had one on a bracelet
They came in 5 pounds and 2 pounds and sovereign and half sovereign size till 2009 when the quarter sovereign was introduced.
The mint does a really lousy job in making and packaging these coins . I bought the 2005 straight from the mint and they came in pillboxes , ( like those pills you push thru an alu foil ) They were "damaged" and impossible to scan .

At one time my friend and I tried to put together a collection of new sovereigns (1957 and later in MS65 or better ) We gave up because nearly all had ugly bagmarks.

In the seventies money exchangers would have old sovs and new sovs and the old had a markup of 30% or more . After the eighties run up in gold the mark up dissapeared forever. ( new was 1957 and later)

It is said that 40 to 70 millions sovs were minted. They used to give the away in non agression pacts . Like when they were at war with Spain they gave Holland coffers full of sovereings to leave them alone during that war.

There is only two sovs I like . The young head Vicki shieldback ( I only saw a true MS once in my life) and the 2005 design .

Proof and "Proof" coins have become an art for getting added value out of the coin
that is for the mint to get more money
The 1987 one year 50 ecu coin by the Belgian mint was so called made by
Single polished dies in 1.500.000 quantity half ounce of gold
These coins are often sold as proofs which they are not in appearance

The mint then proceeded to make true proofs which they said had double polished dies
and marked these coins with the letters qp

They did not mention the pressure of the strike which should be higher and they did not mention whether there were multiple strikes on one coin which there should be

On top of that the planchettes ( the blanks ) can be polished too ; given what the coffinmakers call and ultradeep cameo

Several South American nations did very sloppy polishing jobs to extend the life of the dies . These jobs only resulted in polishing scratches on all coins which can be seen as they only run over the highest parts of the negative dies and not the lowest parts .

MS63 and the most ugly I ever saw
Even the vendor hesitates to call it splendide and makes it superbe+++ which is like AU58
I would go with MS60 in view of all the bagmarks
PCGS seems even loser then NGC

http://cgi.ebay.fr/FRANCE-50-FRANCS-OR-GENIE-1904A-SUPERBE-QUALITE-/330467932078?pt=FR_GW_Monnaies_Pi%C3%A8cesFrancs&hash=item4cf16c77ae

MS61 beats me why NGC gave that grade
It is either AU59 or MS63 and I would only bid AU

http://cgi.ebay.de/SERBIA-GOLD-20-DINARA-TYPE-1-NGC-MS-61-/260656966243?pt=M%C3%BCnzen_Medaillen

Now this is a success story
Germany started a gold coin series of 1/8 of an ounce ( very weird denomination)
With the first coin comes the box for all further year coins  ??
On top of that in all their wisdom they decided to half the volume because ??
Result the mints got 150 euro for the coin plus box and all of ebay is getting
300 euro or better immediately from those that missed the start of the new coin

Here is a guy who says 4 times he only sells the box and gets 265 euro 
But he posted a photo with the coin it the box 

http://cgi.ebay.de/20-Euro-Goldmunzen-Etui-Etui-Holzetui-Deutscher-Wald-/290461828027?pt=M%C3%BCnzen_Medaillen

Does the castle have an Iron Maiden ?

I would like to try it on the banking reform committee that did not reform anything 

If these coins are not "expensive" you might try electroysis
My friend the retired coindealer does that and half came out superb the other half was
ruined by pitting . I think he got to impatient and used too much current
You have however to change the bath every few hours to keep the electrolytes up .

I only plated iron with bronze at the university and that was in a sodium cyanate bath with
a liter poison duh under an extraction hood.