Owner Comments:
You can never have too many of these. You either get this, the first issue, which is just given a date range of 1876-1900, or, you get the actual "RS" (Rattanakosin Era, dated from 1781) dated ones from 1902 (RS 121), 1903 (RS 122), etc. to 1908. Because these 1876-1900 coins were struck over a period of many years, these are the most plentiful of this big silver denomination featuring King Chulalongkorn's portrait. He is one of the most revered kings of Thailand.
There is no larger silver denomination featuring King Chulalongkorn's denomination. The two baht coin of his dad, King Mongkut, was not continued past the 1860's, and it never bore anyone's portrait. The only other denomination you can get such a nice big portrait of King 5 on is the Two Att Copper Coin.
The silver baht at this time was 15.1 grams of 90% silver, compared to the U.S.A. Barber half dollar of 12.5 grams of 90% silver. Today, the difference in melt value is Barber Half = $5.34, Thai Baht = $6.45 at silver price = $14.77. So it wasn't perfect, but the exchange rate between the countries was approximately 1.75 Baht to a Dollar, not quite two to one. Today the Baht is closing in on dropping below 30 Baht to a Dollar. I am an optimistic holder of present-day Baht also.
There are only 569 of these graded by PCGS and NGC together in all grades. Imagine if that were the total number of all U.S.A. half dollars graded by both services from 1876 to 1900. The actual mintage is unknown. The populations drop dramatically for the RS dated issues of 1901-1907. Mintage is known for some of these years, and 1903 stands out as the most common by a long way. NGC has graded totals of less than 100 coins in any condition for each of these years (1901-1907). The same is true at PCGS.
As for this 1876-1900 issue, also known as "Y 34" (referring to the year of King Chulalongkorn's reign), NGC and PCGS have graded 84 including this one in MS62, with two more at NGC in 62+
There are 99 graded better at PCGS (including "plus" graded ones)
There are 197 graded better at NGC (including "star" and "plus" graded ones)
But, the grade is not everything with these. People are paying a lot more for bright white or nicely lightly toned MS61 coins than dull dark MS63 coins. The prices have gone up consistently every year for the last six years also, it seems. We paid more for this MS62 coin in 2019 than we paid for the MS64 lightly toned example we bought in 2016.