2017 Britannia Proof/Reverse Proof £2 set, rare and looking for best place to se

Note: NOT offering these for sale here! I am looking for advice on how to find the right audience for these coins, and will most likely hire a company to get them in front of that right audience. I wouldn't expect there to be a large enough audience here anyway. 

--

Today while trying to cash in on much of my silver at a local coin shop, the person ringing me up unexpectedly offered me more than that typical scrap rate for a set of two 2017 Royal Mint £2 silver proof coins. They never offer above the base rate when it's foreign bullion/silver coins, so I decided to hold onto them and do more research. 

One is a rare proof and the other is a very rare ‘reverse proof’ that had no more than 500 minted. I have issue #33.

I got a good deal on this from an online auction (I can show this provenance) not long ago, I think because the auctioneer did an inadequate job at both researching the coins, and because they didn't clearly show it was a 2-coin set (for whatever reason, they never showed both in the same picture so I may have been the only person to actually realize there were two separate coins in the set.) I live in Virginia, USA.

They are in an Apmex presentation case that appears to be original (insomuch as Apmex may have been the one to issue the initial case and not the Royal Mint itself directly).

I'm looking to find the best market and method for selling the set. I neither want to use ebay nor am allowed to (because you need a long history of selling items before being able to sell currency--and my 100% positive rating only covers a couple of sales). 

They are in such perfect proof condition that I had to put on clothes before taking pictures of them. 

Any ideas or feedback welcome! 

Chris

For the value it is ( Im not 100% but definitely in the 100s maybe even 1000s ) Id reccomend an auction, personally I find Spinks the easiest to sell with but I'm sure there's another US equivalent. Lots of people recommend eBay but with the value it is, you don't really want the risk. An auction house will take that risk for you but they will obviously charge you a certain amount of commission. Hope that helps :) 

The internet appreciates you clothing yourself for these pictures.

Beautiful coins 🙃

I hadn't heard of Spinks but will check them out. 

For reasons somewhat unrelated, I had been talking to a representative from Noonans in the UK about some late medieval English coins, so earlier today asked what their terms were and if they accept modern coins into their auctions. I figure any auction here in the US is going to fail to find the right buyer. 

My kids, though, say they will go on a hunger strike and stop talking to me if I sell the set. I don't fully understand why they have become so invested in it but I just keep telling them “guys, when you threaten your boss with a restraining order, you gotta sell the thing and take the check while you can.”

And thank you! 

Aha yes the kids come first :) 

I think the coins would be more popular here in the UK being British coins but even then there's still a good few collectors in the US that buy everything and anything. I know of someone at noonans, nice guy but moneywise I find their prices a bit steep. 

I think you have Heritage as the main one in the US but I've never dealt with them. If I get any American coins I sell them to private collectors / dealers there rather than auctions, mostly to avoid the hassle with extra business taxes, tariffs, etc in the mail. 

Hope all goes to plan, Bests, 

James 

You are validating my initial sentiments--i.e., that the right market is in the UK. I need to follow up with Noonan's, but I'll reach back out here with any potential questions they might not know how to answer. I just assume that commission fees and costs would be at least as much as whatever money might come back to me. I'm already used to a 20% buyer's commission with the auctions I regularly ply.

I also noticed that there is a note on Numista saying that the 2-coin set had a limit of 500 sets made. Since that's the same number as how many reverse proofs were minted, and because the image of this set looks like the one I have with Apmex printed on it (an American company)--I almost wonder if the reverse proofs were only issued for import to the US and maybe Canada. Although somebody in the UK can order from Apmex, they'd effectively be paying taxes, tarrifs, and shipping twice to re-import them. 

Meaning, perhaps the vast majority of these reverse proofs are sitting in American collections. 

In any case, it's about time I get into the import/export business with the UK. First, it will be the coins. Then, Lays chips without the Walkers branding on them. Same crap, maybe a bit more stale, but with a $10/bag premium for the Bald Eagle-saturated waff of nitrogen you get when you open a new bag.

Okay, sorry, too far…

You could be right with apmex, don't see a lot of their stuff over here, tends be mainly NGC and the occasional PCGS slabs. I believe they might have gone on sale from the Royal Mint first then apmex bought maybe 100 and repacked / graded them. I'm fairly sure NGC does something similar with all their “special” stickers. 

… Haha yes we have walkers here, quite pricey too. Not been to the states in a long time but I certainly think you should be exporting whoever makes your roads so good 😂