Jaelus' Hungarian Patterns

Owner Comments:

This 100 forint F.A.O. pattern was never produced. The only examples of this type are the 100 pattern pieces produced (50 business strike patterns and 50 proof strike patterns). What's even more interesting about this pattern is the finish, as noted in the grade (PL 68), this coin was struck with Hungary's prooflike collector finish (the Hungarian mint confusingly calls this finish "BU").

The Hungarian mint was experimenting with the prooflike finish for collector sets as early as 1994, but the effect was often subtle in these first years. This new collector strike type replaced all the "UNC" mint set coins, with regular business strike finish coins only being made available through bank bags or limited "first day" cards until 2012 when the mint added business strike mint sets to their product line.

Though this was likely struck in 1994 (dated 1995) the first year of the PL strikes, it has an appearance typical of the PL strikes in the early 2000s. This indicates these patterns received special striking and handling not given to PL issues at the time. This fact seems to be overlooked, as the few catalogs that list this pattern simply indicate it is the business strike, however, the fact that the 1995 F.A.O. patterns were only struck with PL and PF finishes may indicate they were only intended for mint sets, and not circulation.