I finally acquired the key date of the series, 1841, and the Young Victoria Collection is now complete!

 
1841 (S.3852), ‘GRɅTIɅ’, extremely rare (R3), XF Details, the key date of the series

This collection of British shield sovereigns from the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign has been in the making for over two years, starting with the acquisition of an 1872 sovereign in August 2009. In order to limit the scope of the collection, only shield sovereigns minted in London from 1838 to 1874 were included. To ensure quality, I imposed an entrance criteria of Extremely Fine or better condition – a tough bar to reach for the rarer years since they can be difficult to find in any condition!

Along the way I made a lot of new friends, learned a lot about coin photography, and of course learned a lot about the coins and Victoria’s reign.

The only activities that remain are to have the last coin encapsulated, a personal preference of mine to ensure protection for the coin during storage, display and handling; and to seek to acquire better examples of some of the current holdings and/or unique variants.

You can see the entire Young Victoria Collection here!