These big Pennies, based on the British Style of Coinage are BIG BRASH COPPER and RARE in high mint state with RB.  The New Zealand environment doesn't encourage copper to remain in decent shape.  But look at these coins!  In the hand they are so impressive in their color and the engraving and strike.  It is hard to imagine why they didn't abandon the large copper early, as they are hardly convenient.  The bird Tui Bird in the branches is a daring design that impresses.  Tuis are nectar eaters and native to the Islands an not extinct.  https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/native-animals/birds/birds-a-z/tui/They are about the size of a raven, 11-12 inches.   In life their feathering sparkles, and they have this touch of white under the chin.  ANd they are decent songstershttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Prosthemadera_novaeseelandiae_vocalizations.ogvAside from that, this particular specimen is special.  You have to enjoy the great depth of field in the engraving of the dies and balanced composition which is enhanced by the partial toning.  Enjoy!

Of the New Zealand Coins I sent out to ANACS, I had hopes for this one because it not only had great details in the strike, but it also had a lovely die crack.  Somehow I missed the surface troubles with the coin and it came back details AU58 - Wire Brushing.  I looked at it under the loop and failed to catch the problem.It does seem that  Anacs is getting annoyed with me sending in cheap NZ coins.  A few came back upside down in the plastic.  Other than send tham back, there is not much I could do about it.  How hard can it be to put the coin rightside up in the holder?

The purpose of a coin is essentially to create a commodity of value that can be easily traded in commerce.  To make them common, interchangeable, and indistinguishable is an essential part of their purpose.  And even still, coins themselves has always had unique values aside from their official function and even in the Babylonian Talmud this is recognized when discussing the exchange of silver coins for gold coins, where it is always viewed as silver coins buying gold coins in such a transaction for legal purposes, the details of which are not worth getting into here.  More to the point, the individual beauty of coins eventually gave rise to coin collecting, even by the late middle ages.  And even before that there is evidence that Bar Kafka shekels were used in Jewelry and saved by the hundreds,  years after the revolt was ended.I have found, in my collecting, that I am always interested in coins for their overall beauty, and central to that is the strike of the individual coin.  While grading of coins, those magic numbers which PCGS and NCG and ANACS label on their slabs for which the market value of coins lives and dies, largely ignores strike, for proper grading one needs to be really familiar with not just the pattern of wear, as is well described for US coins in the ANA's Grading standards text, but one really needs to know how coin strikes vary from series to series and even from year to year.  Morgan Dollars, Indian Head Nickels , Bust Halves, Clad Ikes, are all coins where knowing the year and the strike qualities is essential to understanding the grading of individual examples and years.  And yet, I have always preferred outstanding strikes over top grades, and I love early die states.I had a recent chance to shop for some Mercury Dimes, and I bid on three of them.  Two of them I bid slightly low.  If I really want a coin, I am likely to bid it way above market value to assure an acquisition.   But other times I will bid flat, and if I win, great and if not great.  Two of these dimes were fine examples and graded MS68, and the third was only graded an MS64 but I LOVED the strike.   I love top flight strikes on Mercs regardless of the year or mint.  I find them to be little gems.  I over bid for the 64 and it was still far less of a dollar amount that the two MS68s.  I lost the 68s but got the MS64 which happened to be in an old PCGS rattler slab and have a gold CAC sticker (not that I care about the CAC sticker).  You can see the coin in the images I took of it.  I am quite pleased in this acquisition and I will likely pass it on to my son next week when I see him, as a present.   I feel I got a real steal on the win.