Germania Silver Round Causes Numismatic Confusion

blackspanielgallery, Thank you for the information!

As an update, the mint that produced the Germania has but one coin on its page, and appears to be a new, private mint. It is under bullion with a message more are coming. Its commemorative coin page is active, but has no coin shown, and again the message more coins are coming.

They need to get the price point down in the secondary market in order to succeed. This is rather high priced for a silver round, based on other silver rounds. Some others are high, but are established series that collectors want.

I doubt it too. The royal Mint has as its priority minting for the United Kingdom, so I expect only other parts of what has become the Commonwealth would have Heaton Mint coins. Eventually, branch mints of the royal Mint were established abroad. The Australian mints, for example, are old branch mints. This solved the problem of supplying British worldwide holdings.

If I ever find a coin with the H mark I will contact you, but I am not confident of doing so.

The Heaton Mint, or Heaton's Mint, is a private, no longer operating mint in Birmingham. Most Canadian coins before the Royal Canadian Mint was established came from the Royal Mint. Some, not many, bear the H mint mark, indicating Heaton's Mint as a source. I know there are a few coins from Heaton;s Mint dating from as late as the early 1900s.

I am curious if any British coins bear an H mint mark. The reason I doubt it would ever have come to be is the primary responsibility of the Royal Mint is to produce coins needed in the United Kingdom, then such countries as Canada and Australia would have followed.

In this my interests in coinage and in British history come together. But information is difficult to find.

I had not heard of the Heaton Mint.

Thanks for your input.

I do not think that the U. K. exiting the european Union, if it happens, would dissolve the union, but coupled with multiple failures in, among others, Greece and Italy, there have been concerns over whether the European Union would be able to continue.

I agree that some places have multiple currencies, but the Germania is not being minted as legal tender for any nation, as far as I can determine. This silver round is a product, and the only product on the mint's website, of the Germania Mint, which claims to be a bullion and commemorative coin mint. I should mention that of the five operating mints of Germany, the Germania Mint is not among them. Private mints can produce bullion, but it has no legal tender status. Some private mints are contracted by governments to mint official coins, but this does not seem to be the case here.

Frank, perhaps you are familiar with the Heaton Mint of Birmingham, which once operated as a private mint, but picked up some coinage demands of early Canada when the royal Mint could not meet the demand.

Multiple currencies are found in the British Isles. Years ago, when I lived on the Northern Irish border, the college tuck shop [which I ran] had British, Scottish and Northern Irish bank notes [all of which are legal tender in the UK] and Southern Irish punts, whose value then was pegged to the UK pound [this was before the Irish went into the Euro.]But in the UK banknotes and coins from the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey are not legal tender,because although they are denominated in pounds these islands are crown dependencies and therefore not part of the UK.

PS. You mention our exiting the EU and the implications for currency. The situation is fluid and some of us [ including me] still hope for a change of heart.Our inglorious and minimally competent prime minister is refusing to publish the government's research on the damaging economic costs of exiting, and every time yet another industrialist calls out a warning about the forthcoming economic damage this wretched government airily dismisses it as scaremongering. Many people have changed their minds about leaving,but this dismal woman and her cronies still refuse another referendum.