Following up on sharing my Bolivian collection a few days ago, today I am sharing my coins from Belize. Before 1973 Belize was known as British Honduras, so I am only sharing the coins from after then with "Belize" on them. Side note: British Honduras coins are rather scarce and command a perhaps-unexpected premium. When I looked I realized I have a lot of proof and uncirculated coins from Belize, and I enjoy looking at them. Most of these were either from coin shop junk bins or internet purchases back in the days when I scoured eBay for anything I didn't have. I'd have to think some of them have gone up in value since then. First group, in order by date:
By the way, some of the Belize coins were minted by the Royal Mint. And some were minted By the Franklin Mint. I looooove FM coins! This is one of the Franklin Mint coins...A proof, and still in the mint bag!
I think I have some Belize coins, but most of my modern coins were part of bulk coin lots and aren't photographed. Here's a British Honduras 10 Cents, 1894
You reminded me of these two that I also have. I have an album of animal coins and I kept them there.
I really love them & very dear to my heart, and managed with some difficulty to complete the FM set of uncirculated and proof pieces - some were a challenge! IMHO, the designs are beautiful and the coins fairly scarce; I like the matte type uncirculated the very best. Some of the earlier British Honduras coins can be a great challenge and I, for one, have not begun to think about getting the earlier silver in top condition... BTW, if anyone want to ask questions I am delighted to help & not meaning to deflect the OP. One day I want to visit Belize as my son and I LOVE beaches (though maybe not so much the sweltering hinterlands!). PS - my latest acquisition is a Royal Mint issue and is the Ambergris Cay(e) Battle commemorative in gold so put out some $$, but the coin is available in copper Nickel and silver... Here is an earlier and sometimes affordable BH 1952 5c:
I don't have any modern Belize, though I do like the ones with birds on them. That toucan on the $5 piece is particularly endearing, and looks great as a Franklin Mint proof! I once had two British Honduras pieces in the 1901 British Empire type set which I assembled for my daughter, Victoria.
Uggh, tried to get a better picture and could not. 1894 is a super year for British Honduras cents in higher grade:
Holy Grail of Belize ? I think so, the 1984 FM Belize specimen set. Unbelievable eBay purchase from about 6 years ago and the only I’ve ever seen. I don’t believe these were sold to collectors originally: As readers may know, the Franklin mint coining operations really hit a downward spiral after 1980 but the quality was still there and IMHO exceeding that of other world mints at the time. Many “collector sets” in precious metals were struck but the tagalongs were the uncirculated specimen sets of currency metals were also struck to little fanfare, and then even some individual coins were released to central banks of the various countries (and at least some very scarce). Belize was fairly typical in this regard. without beating a dead horse, the specimen sets of Belize dwindled in Mintage and each year dwindled. As they were all I could afford at the time I got one each year, and these were made until 1983. These sets carried over through to 1984 for some countries, but the only country where these were released to even limited note was Jamaica - I don’t have any records of such in Belize however and looked many years for this set when it mysteriously showed up on eBay in about 2016, never before or since
