What’s the deal with this coin?!

Good morning! Long time!

I was flipping through a friend’s trade binder last week and this 1896 South African 2 1/2 Shillings stood out to me.

Yes, because I’m a sucker for toned silver and the guy is rocking a pretty impressive beard to boot!, but also because of it’s odd toning. If you look around the edges of the coin it’s so clean and almost white looking as if it’s never been touched!

And then when you flip the coin over, you’ll notice some strange staining on the reverse, kind of in the shape of an upside down “V”. (Sorry the pics are a bit blurry – snapped them real fast as my kids are yapping in the background waiting for me to take them to the pool!!)

Still, you should be able to spot it:

I was trying to figure out how it got there? Was it laid against something over the years?? Did someone manually, or purposefully, do something to the coin? Why would the entire obverse be toned but not the rim?!

And then it hit me…

It was probably enclosed in a pendant of some sort! That would explain why the edges are so bright compared to the center, though it doesn’t exactly solve the reverse staining conundrum. I ran the idea by my friend and he stopped me and said,  “wait a minute… I have a faint memory of removing it from a silver clasp! Let me see if I can find it…”

And a week later we had our answer :)

It was inlaid in a brooch!

And of course had to put him back in there since it’s his rightful home, lol…

Mystery solved :)

Which probably only I care about, haha, but figured I’d share anyways in case there’s a coin in your collection you’re stumped on. I’ve had many coins in pendants over the years but always takes me a while to put two and two together. Always makes it a fun adventure though! Hope your collecting is still going well!

Stop by and say hi and what you’re collecting if you have time. I always enjoy hearing what people are up to :)

Your friend in numismatics,