Romania.

I stopped searching for them in gem condition because it seems harder than Carol I's coinage. I am happy with them in VF-XF.
There are 4 communist coins missing from my collection, but all of them are "phantom coins".
The 1 leu and 2 lei 52 coins are extremely rare. But the story with them is that they were in circulation for a few days and only in some areas, then the government implemented a monetary reform (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_leu#Third_leu_(ROL):_1952–2005) and decided all of them need to be melted.
The ones available today (and I don't mean the replicas; they are easily spotted but I saw people being tricked) are the ones saved from melting (I heard older collectors said the workers simply stole some before the melting process, filled their pockets and used them as poker chips) or the ones simply stored by collectors.

3 bani 1954, listed in catalogues as having a mintage of 33.400.000, is in fact very hard to find. That was just the projected mintage, in reality they are MUCH rarer than 3 bani 1952 and 1953. Price for a poorly conserved 3 bani '54 (VG-F) is about 200 EUR and I simply think it's too much to add it.

Another "phantom" coin is 5 bani 1958. Some consider it a pattern, but I discussed with older collectors who assured me it was a standard circulation coin, but with a very low mintage - nobody knows why. In the 70s and 80s you could find them, but in 8 years of active collecting I saw 2 examples, both quite pricy (500 EUR was the cheapest, a VF).

 

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I got to this late/ I have coins from Transylvania/

 

King Mihai I (1927-30, 1940-47).
25000 lei 1946, silver .700, weight - 12,5 g., size - 32 mm, thickness - 2 mm, mintage - 2372600 pcs. Engraver: Haralamb Ionescu. Single releaze. Demonetized at August 15 1947.

 

Here is its bigger brother - 100.000 lei 1946


37 mm, 25 g, 2.80mm thickness, mintage 2,002,000

 

Slightly lower mintage than the 25,000 Lei but seen much more frequently for some reason.

 

I don't collect other modern countries except Romania so I am not sure if this applies for other countries - but for Romanian coins mintage is not always relevant for today's rarity.
For example 5 lei 1901 - mintage 82.460. This should make the coin hard to find but it's not.

An opposite example - 20 lei 1930 (king Mihai as child).
This coin - official records - was minted in London (40.000.000), Heaton (5.000.000) and King's Norton (also 5.000.000). So one could say that it's easy to find. Actually they are quite rare (especially H and KN), one possible explanation was that most of them were melted after Carol II returned to Romania and reclaimed the throne. In the same year, another set of 20 lei appeared, but with a different design and with Carol II's portrait.



Another interesting situation I noticed - 2 bani 1879 (500.000) and 2 bani 1880 (10.500.000).




From my experience, 2 bani 1880 is harder to find, although the mintage would imply the opposite.

 

Did it hatch?

 

Go and check it out. When you come back, you'll tell me.

 

Here’s a tiny fella that joined my collection two weeks ago , a Moldavian piece of Stefan IV I believe.

 

Looks newer than 14th century, but what do I know. None of his silver have legends, at least of those currently displayed on Coin Archives.

 

This is outside my area of knowledge. Here is a very interesting site about coins from Moldova and Wallachia. A page with Stefan IV coins is there too.
http://monederomanesti.cimec.ro/st4.htm

Here is my Alexandru cel Bun (1400-1432) half groat


Groat from Stefan cel Mare (Stefan III) - 1457-1504

 

It's a 16 century( 1517-1527 Stefan IV) piece and some of the similar pieces that i've seen have the same look. I don't have it in hand to check it because i had it shipped to a friend !

 

Peoples Republic of Romania (1947-1965).
15 bani 1960, nickel clad steel, weight - 2,87 g., size - 19,5 mm, thickness - 1,4 mm, mintage - 126900000 pcs. Engraver: Haralamb Ionesku. Single release. Demonetized at December 31 1996.

 

Kingdom of Romania.
Mihai I (1927-1930, 1940-1947).
100000 lei 1946, silver .700, weight - 25 g., size - 37 mm, mintage - 2002000 pcs. Engravers: Haralamb Ionescu (obverse - portrait of the king) and A. Romanescu (reverse). Single release. Demonetized at August 15 1947.

 

Here is the 25.000 coin.