George in Oz
Private
Updated:
7/20/2026
Views: 769
When I first started collecting gold sovereigns of King George V in the summer of 2022, I entered my few coins in this category and was of course near the very bottom of the list score-wise. The idea of ever making much of an impact in this category seemed very unlikely, but I decided to give it a try anyway.
Now about 4 years later, I've made excellent progress, having acquired several very nice specimens. What I've noticed during this time is that almost all of the coins in this set do appear for sale in one forum or another fairly frequently, and so given enough time good progress can be made. King George was a very popular sovereign, and I'm thinking that many people probably stashed away a few of his coins in mint condition as souvenirs during his reign. As time goes by they appear on the market, and most are available for reasonable prices.
One unfortunate fact about this set is that a good many coins produced in the 1920's are exceedingly rare since they were almost all destroyed during the great 1930-31 gold coin melt by the royal mint. So the odds of ever completing this set is virtually zero. In fact, I'm surprised that NGC has not sequestered five coins as "(Non-competitive; for display only)" since they are essentially hopeless for normal humans to acquire. Still, it's fun and challenging to poke around in world auctions every month and just see if anything interesting is offered.
Now that I'm more committed to this project, I've decided to try to put together a set of all the non-key coins in at least MS63 condition, as determined by NGC standards. That's going to add a higher degree of difficulty, since a few of the common dates are virtually non-existent in NGC grades above MS62. This would include 1911-P, 1925-P, and 1926-M specifically. 1911-P is essentially unobtainable in high grade NGC, so I'm thinking the only hope is to get a PCGS example and pray for good luck on the crossover.
I do have rather strict standards regarding eye appeal, and I've rejected at least a dozen of the coins I'm still missing because I was not satisfied with their appearance. That does tend to slow down progress, but I don't see much point in collecting coins you aren't satisfied with. I've also had many instances where I bid strongly on coins I wanted very badly, but got outbid by some nefarious person who wanted them more. Those days are very disappointing. But, one of the quickest ways to get rich is by not spending your money, so I try to look on the bright side of these failures.
This is clearly a very long-term project, which is of course part of the fun of collecting coins as a hobby. I'm in no particular hurry.
[Last edited April 2026]
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George in Oz
By Cozdred
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