1887 Gold £5 Quintuple Sovereign Victoria Jubilee Head NGC Graded AU-58

1887 Gold Five Pound Quintuple Sovereign Victoria Jubilee Head NGC Graded AU-58

These gold coins have been graded by the Numismatic Guaranty Company (NGC) and have attained the grade of AU-58. These are a lovely example of the 1887 quintuple sovereign, otherwise known as the gold five pound coin. 

Each gold five pound contains 1.1771 troy ounces of gold (36.6119 grams).

We have seen these same coins with the same grade listed for over £4,200 on the Royal Mint's website.

Gold Quintuple Sovereigns

The first gold quintuple sovereign (£5 coin) was issued in 1820, and is considered by some to be a pattern coin. In 1826 and 1839, proofs were issued as part of complete proof coin sets, and this also occurred in 1902, 1911, and 1937.

Only in 1887, 1893, and 1902 were ordinary circulation types issued in addition to proof versions.

Coin Dies

We were surprised to hear that in 1887, the typical die life for the five pound coin was around 200 strikes. As the reported mintage was 54,000 pieces, excluding proofs, this would work out at around 270 pairs of dies, although we would have expected the obverse die life to be longer than that of the reverse. This means that the number of die variations could be very high.

It would also have been expected that a large number of coins would be seen with noticeable die cracks, but this is actually uncommon with this coin issue. From this, one could theorise that the Mint changed dies very frequently as they may have considered these coins important as Britain's highest value "flagship" coin. It has been suggested to us that this was not known to be the case. This remains, for the time being, an interesting numismatic mystery which may one day be solved.

The obverse shows a portrait of Queen Victoria by sculptor J E Boehm.

VICTORIA D G BRITT REG F D

The classic St George and the Dragon design by Benedetto Pistrucci appears on the reverse.