Owner Comments:
S-3971, Marsh 188
Acquired from: Heritage
Means: Auction 61306, Lot 24017
Date: 23 January 2023
Critique: Reasonable looking example of this early Edward VII sov, only spoiled by a few minor scratches beneath the horse's arse. Quite a few of these coins have been graded, but as of Jan 2023 only one graded higher by NGC. PCGS similarly shows only two graded higher than MS63.
Although tens of millions of gold sovereigns were minted during Edward's reign from 1902 to 1910, it's very rare to find an example graded higher than MS63 for the earlier years of 1902 to 1906, from any mint. Not sure why that's the case, unless there was some calamity in 1906 that took most of the existing sovereigns out of circulation. Or perhaps banks didn't bother to keep many of those earlier dates in storage, like they seem to have done for 1907 to 1910, and thus most of the coins saw circulation.
This coin was offered in a special auction of Top and near-Top Pop sovereigns, which seemed to attract quite a number of bidders. But they were mostly spending their money on the Top Pop examples, while ignoring coins like this one that were second tier. The fact that very few coins are graded higher didn't seem to matter. And the fact that no graded example of this coin has been offered in US auctions for the past two and a half years also did not generate much interest. So I was able to buy this one for a ridiculously low price considering its high grade. I got quite a few bargains at this auction -- for once I was at the right place at the right time!!