A recent online discussion with “Coin Showroom Australia” on Pintarest bought to light an interesting piece of information that I was not previously aware of. I thought it interesting enough to be worthy of a small blog.
I had read in another publication that the 1982 One Dollar coin with the Javelin Thrower depicted on it was only made available in the proof sets from this year.
It would seem the information that I had taken for fact was somewhat short on detail.
As “Coin Showroom Australia” so succinctly put it, “You can’t always trust what you read on the ‘net (or anywhere these days it seems).” The information that he highlighted to me was from Greg McDonald’s current pocket guide to Australian Coins and Banknotes (G.McDonald Publishing 2014).
It appears that some 58,000 proof sets were issued containing the ‘proof’ $1 Barcelona coin.
It is also believed around 2800 single proofs in a round plastic case were also issued and sold at the Royal Australian Mint shop.
Additional to these were more than 118,000 un-circulated sets with the UNC variety of the $1 Barcelona coin as well as 46,000 single issues of the coin in various packaging formats.
If that was not enough there was also an additional 2500 Coin Fair coins issued in a proof with case, all in Aluminium/bronze alloy and not forgetting the pure silver version which accounted for an additional 12,500 coins. Doing the math brings us to somewhere around 109,300 aluminium/bronze coins and 12,500 silver coins. a total which is more than double the coins released in the proof sets.
The 1992 Barcelona proof set is a very nice collectible and one that still rates very well price wise against other proof sets. It really comes down to one thing at the end of the day, “Caveat emptor” or “Buyer Beware”.
I personally like to think that by heightening people’s awareness to the facts, that coin collecting community in general are better served.
My thanks to “Coin Showroom Australia” for the input and enlightenment.
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