New Zealand Half Crown - 100th Anniversary 1940

New Zealand is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. New Zealand's culture is mainly derived from M?ori, the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand, plus early British settlers. At this point, the M?ori minority in the largest in New Zealand, about 15%.

Half crowns dated 1940 contain 0.2273 troy ounces of silver, so part of their value comes from precious metal content. But most of the value comes from coin collector demand. Here is what the coin catalogs say about these neat coins:

worn: $7 US dollars aproximate catalog value
average circulated: $15
well preserved: $22
fully uncirculated: $35

These are catalog values. Be sure you understand what this means. Use our Terminology page.

The coin in our picture is a proof coin. That is, it is a special coin produced solely for collectors. Proofs have extra-sharp details and are sold by the mint directly into collections; they never enter circulation. The 1940 half crown proof is very rare. The catalogs quote $5000 US dollars as the value. But this specimen sold by Stack's Bowers went for $6000 on the auction block, proving once again that catalogs (and web sites) give only guidelines for a coin's value -- not absolute fact.

CoinQuest thanks Stack's Bowers for use of their coin photo.
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