World Coins: Your Newest Acquisition!

The British make beautifully designed and well minted coins. I have been collecting them for a long while, and there seems to be no end in sight.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Went to a small monthly coin show after work today. I saw this and had to get it. For my 2 year old, of course, who happens to love trains.
I've never seen this coin before, actually I'm not familiar with Cuban coins at all. I'll leave it in the flip, here's a quick pic:

@Sallent @dwhiz

 

The coin is a commemorarive silver issue celebrating the 150th anniversary of the first Hispanic-American railway. Havana-Bejucal beneath the train stands for Havana province, Town of Bejucal. In 1831 Bejucal was the home to the terminal station of the first railroad built in Cuba. Not sure why the coin uses the 1837 date though, unless they are using the date construction on the entire railroad route was fully complete.

 

Thanks bud, I knew you'd have more info!

 

Out of curiosity I had a look at Wikipedia (Spanish), and that page says: "El 19 de noviembre de 1837, en Bejucal, La Habana, Cuba, se inaugura el tramo Habana-Bejucal, cual formaba parte del primer ferrocarril construido por España en el Nuevo Mundo (...)". So 1837 would make sense. Still strange though that they would commemorate the 150th anniversary - and then issue (and date!) the coin one year later.

Christian

 

Christian
I take it you never been to any Caribbean country?
One must know about island time....what is island time? Well the Jamacians have a saying...."soon come" a measure of time that could be a fraction of an hour to the second Tuesday of next week!
Down in the Indies time is measured very different than North American or Europeans can imagine.

 

I had trouble finding any info online at all at first. I've since found it has a mintage of 5000. The seller had a $50 sticker on it, I offered $40 and he accepted. It was a spur of the moment, instant decision. Funny, most of my purchases are done that way. I'm interested in everything that catches my eye, and this piece just stood out to me. My pics are terrible, and the scratches you see are on the plastic. There is some slight haze in a few spots though, would an acetone dip help that?

 

Yes the term often used in South America is "manana" which in Spanish means "tomorrow" and generally actually means "whenever". I am told "manana pasada", which officially means "the day after tomorrow" is a euphemism for never!

Many years ago I was in the Solomon Islands trying to get some work done on the airport at Honiara. I was struggling to get the local labour to commit to anything or turn up when required and after a few days the British High Commissioner out there took me to one side and said: "You have to remember, the term manana conveys a sense of urgency seldom encountered in the Solomon Islands"!
Needless to say, the project overran, but I can think of worse places to spend an extra few months!

 

Have been to the Caribbean but just once so far, for a sun/beach trip. But from southern Spain (Andalucía) I know what mañana means. I just found it interesting that the German version (easiest for me to understand, hehe) says 1837 while the English version says 1831. So I suspect that the "1831" in the English version is an error, but I don't really know anything about that railway ...

Christian

 

Don't often buy much foreign (which for me means non-British) but I couldn't resist this one:

French Indo-China 1 cent 1886

 

Here's a new pickup for my Austrian Occupation of Hungary (1849-1867) type set:

Austria 1866B 1 Florin
KM-2220
12.34g, 0.900 silver, 29mm



This is a scarce one-year type with a mintage of only 358,843, as the legends on the reverse changed the following year to reflect the territories lost by Austria in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. This was struck at the Hungarian mint of Kormocbanya (Austria mint mark B during the occupation period after Hungary's failed War of Independence in 1849).

Franz Joseph I was crowned King of Hungary the year after this was struck, in 1867, to form the Austro-Hungarian empire, and Hungary started minting their own circulating types again in 1868. Almost no Hungarian coinage was minted in 1867 (only 2 circulating types, one of which was a new florin with the revised reverse legends), with the Vienna mint striking some Hungarian issues that year.

 

Funny label error! I love those 1948 era French Union coins.

 

1944 1/2 India Anna George the VI I got 2 of these today and they are as pictured....how could I say No?

 

Another that couldn't be left behind 1907 Heller

 

I also picked up 3 very nice 1952 Burma Pya's 2 are woodies


Just found out these in MS are pretty valuable and hard to find and I've got 3 Mint state 400,000 mintage

 

This big Swedish 2 kronor came yesterday. 31mm 14 gm Ag .400

 

Sino-Tibet
Sho C#93