LOT Heritage Rare Coin Galleries  /  2007 Jan New York World Coin Auction #425  / 

52965

Victoria silver 5 Cents 1873, KM-10, one of several ear

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / World Coins - World Start Price:1,300.00 USD Estimated At:2,500.00 - 3,000.00 USD
Victoria silver 5 Cents 1873, KM-10, one of several ear
<B>Victoria silver 5 Cents 1873,</B></I> KM-10, one of several early key dates, MS62 NGC, snow-white luster with a hint of silvery gold tone, and sharply struck. Among the finest known of this diminutive rarity.<BR>Anyone unfamiliar with the history of this area of the world might wonder why such a small, seemingly unimportant coin could be worth so much, or be so rare. The Straits Settlements was the name given to a collection of territories of the British East India Company in Southeast Asia which were collectively administered by Great Britain as a crown colony beginning in 1826 during Britain's early imperial wanderings around the globe. Various territories between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea were divided up by European explorers, and certain lands became known as the Straits Settlements by the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, which divided the Malay archipelago into a British zone in the north and a Dutch zone in the south. In April of 1867, the Settlements became a British crown colony, answerable to the Colonial Office in London instead of to the government of India based in Calcutta. A governor was appointed to direct the affairs of the citizenry, consisting mostly of Chinese, Malays and Indians. Commerce thrived as the native products were taken to a broader market, and a British colonial coinage commenced in 1871, mintages for the first few years being small, and most of those coins seem to have perished before the century expired. The Royal Mint contracted for the first coinage but produced only 62,000 5-Cents coins in 1871, none in 1872, and only another 60,000 in 1873 before turning production over to the Heaton Mint at Birmingham for a few years. A tiny handful of MS pieces appear to exist for each denomination from these early years. The little 5-Cents pieces circulated madly among the inhabitants, and are today among the rarest pieces from the beginnings of the Straits Settlements.<BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Coins & Currency (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
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