world coins

i know theres a whole section of the forum for this but i figure if you look in there then you are already interseted in world coins, and my aim is to convert not to preach to the choir lol. anyway, recently there was a thread, i dont recall the name of it, but it basically suggested that all world coins where junk unless gold or silver. i belive that to be very very wrong and think that people should be more open minded to collecting world coins. especially new collectors as they can be relativly cheap. so this thread is for people who agree with me to post pics of world coins they have that are beautiful and have a place in your collection for reasons other then there metal values. heres a coulple of mine and i will be posting more soon

 

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100 francs.

 

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I have recently taking an interest in world coins and have found what I consider some beautiful designed coins. I also enjoy researching and identifying their country.

 

i will some times buy a coin just because i dont know what it is and i enjoy finding out so much

 

What has been really surprising to me is the influence that Great Britain monarch had on designs of world coins in the late 1800 and early 1900.

 

thats because a lot of countries were still part of the commenwealth and still ruled by our morarch

 

not forgetting calum that the rarest british coin is a 1933 penny...............definitely not gold or silver. when talking about "world coins" there is so much scope for you to colect from the very earliest from around 700bc right up to the 2011 issues from around the world, i love collecting celtic and saxon coins from britain as much as i love the new proof set from the mint. there is also so much diversity in the different coins from each country, which reflect the customs and history of the issuerers, i find that a lot of collectors on this forum are very single minded when it comes to our hobby, the modern phrase is "look outside the box" and i'm sure that you will enhance your collections with some truly beautiful coins from around the world.

 

i deffinetly think that having world coins can benefit any collector no matter how experienced they are as it is always good to learn something new and expand your numinastical knowledge. i hope others will post their pics of world coins here too because im making it my own little mission to get them more appriacated.

 

Well said and done calumsherwood.
Most people would immediately think of the State in the US but here are just the few coins I have from the Republic of Georgia (ex-USSR region). Nothing outstanding but I love the designs.

 

Well, this is a US-based forum, and even though it has collectors from around the world, most of the collectors who post here are based in the US. The US is a huge country, and the only foreign coins most Americans will encounter in their lifetimes are Canadian (especially if they live close to the Canadian border) and/or Mexican. There is a huge array of American coins dating back to 1793, and earlier if you count colonial. As well, most American dealers specialize in US coins, so that's how the market and collectors are focused.

From an American collector's perspective, the problem with non-precious-metal foreign (non-US) coins is, first and foremost, their vulnerability to demonetization or devaluation. Look at the base metal Mexican coins that were issued in the '70s and '80s, the pre-Euro coins of the Eurozone countries, the New Pence coins (5p, 10p, 50p) of the UK, various older coins from Latin America, Africa (Zimbabwe being the worst), and much of Asia-- pretty much worthless as money any more. For that matter, most of the base-metal foreign (non-US) coins that I collected in the '60s aren't worth any more today than they were 40+ years ago-- and many are even worth less today! And let's face it, one of the attractions of this hobby is the potential for making a return on investment. So American collectors will tend to stick with what they know, perhaps try to specialize in an area where they can use their knowledge to pick out exceptional specimens that may even earn them a profit some day.

 

so for example you were offered a 1933 or 1954 penny you wouldn't be interested because they are not precious metals but humble bronze? or the beautiful coin in my avatar, the enigmatic 1797 catwheel twopence. world coins are an interesting and worthwhile branch of numismatics which should be appreciated far more than it is. as the old saying goes "the worlds your oyster"....

 

I really like world coins, but I feel like most post-World War II European coins are very blah. And now they have the euro so you don't even get separate national coins from most countries in Europe anymore. But older ones like the pre-1967 British pennies or the French 10 Centimes from about 1915 or so are awesome.

 

I was talking about the average American collector, in regard to what are generally the types of non-precious-metal foreign coins that are commonly available. I would venture that there are few American collectors who are aware that a 1933 GB penny is worth much of a premium, in the same vein that the dealer who sold a Dutch collector a 1793 US Chain cent for a few gulders back in 1992 had no idea that he was letting a small fortune slip through his fingers.

As for the Cartwheels, I actually own a complete set, as it were, of that design-- tuppence, penny, and half penny, although the tuppence is quite worn, as is one of the pennies. The other penny is quite nice and, in fact, I have it residing in a Lindner display case, together with its smaller cousin, a 1799 half penny Here are my 1797 penny and 1799 halfpenny:

 

I saw that thread the other day calling foreign coins worthless as well and never got around to responding to it. I even went back looking for it and didn't see it.

All of the hottest coins in the world right now are moderns and most are world coins because collectors are still mostly ignoring US. It's the fact they are base metal that set up this situation in the first place. Because they are base metal and had huge mintages no one bothered to save them. And because they are base metal when they were demonetized most of them were melted. Governments don't bother to recall silver coins because no one will turn them in anyway but people trip over one another to turn in moderns and then they are melted to make refrigerators. There was a ship that went back and forth between Japan and South America for twenty years bringing Toyotas over and taking obsolete coinage back.

For the most part finding circulated examples of most moderns isn't that hard. Of sure there are rarities and some that were destroyed almost in their entirety but you can find something in F or even VF if you look. But try putting together a set of uncs! There are more scarce and rare moderns than common ones. And don't figure proofs must be easy just because they were saved because these coins have had very low prices for decades and very low prices just invites attrition, destruction, and degradation. A 1954 Indian proof set was $15 for many years but now it's suddenly $1250!!!

This situation exists across the board and it will continue for years. It's not that demand is high; demand is awful... ...it's anemic, virtually nonexistent. But there is no supply so the prices are exploding. There's a middle class aring in many countries that have only had poor people and a few very wealthy and it's happening all over. Foreign coins are being bought up in the US and taken home.

Just keep watching if you don't believe it.

 

Why would a collector even care if they demonitized his base metal world coins? He has no intention of trying to spend them.

 

I'm a new collector. I started out buying some "classic" U.S. coins that I've always wanted but was still figuring out what I wanted to collect. A couple of weeks ago I was in my local coin shop looking to pick up a Morgan and while waiting for my coin guy to finish up with another customer, I started pawing through his 3 for a dollar bin. I started picking out world coins with animals on them and ended up buying a bunch of them. I found out it's a whole lot of fun to research each countries coin and figure out what meaning the animal has. I've expanded on that purchase and am now building a world coin collection of animal coins so I guess I'm hooked on world coins too.

 

World coins are a hoot but the big growth is being caused by domestic demand; people in that country are buying their coins back from the US foreign coin market. Middle classes are growing rapidly all over the world and these people have the time and money for hobbies.

The explosive growth in moderns is being caused not so much by a big increase in demand but the growing realization that there is very low supply. A few yuan, rupees, and drachmas are competing for an even smaller amount of supply.

Interestingly though is that the world demographic for a coin collector has always been a male US citizen. Now days this collector tends to be older as well and there are millions of new collectors both in the US and worldwide. Usually a collecor doesn't get interested in in foreign coins until he has collected for ten or twenty years so there's just no end in sight for increasing demand for foreign. By the time demand abroad is starting to taper off the demand for world coins will be starting to increase in the US.

I like all coins an can even understand why collectors might chase something like a set of XF/ AU zincolns but when I consider the potential of a coin like a Fijian 1975 or 1995 20c piece in Unc it's just overwhelming. Such coins simply aren't available and if one turnd up the owner would take on look at its $2 price tag and toss it in poundage. It would end up in the garbage stream after children used it for play money in a few years. You can go to Fiji but you won't find one in Unc.

There are literally hundreds of coins I've sought for 34 years and was never able to locate despite herculean efforts in some cases. How many people in Great Britain and its colonies will desire coins such as Fiji? You can get the old ones if you have the money but many of the new ones are not out there anywhere. On the bright side they'll be cheap if you find them. On the minus side you might have a hole in your collection until the price is far far higher.

 

For the same reason the American Arts gold bullion medals never really caught on-- no government-supported face value. Also, the coins that become worthless have usually been minted in the tens of millions at least and are of low denominations and nearly worthless metal, not to mention that they are almost always modern coins with little historical significance. And after their demonetization, a lot of these coins are bought in bulk by organizations such as the Educational Coin Company, so there is no real shortage of them.

 

We're referring specifically to circulating coins. These are not medals or NCLT but actual coins that are used for decades up to three quarters of a century since moderns started in some countries as early as WWII.

Base metal coins only lose their face value when they are demonetized. Those which are redeemed are destroyed making the survivors that much scarcer.

Is a coin that was issued the year man landed on the moon or when the first home computer was sold really less "historic" than a coin that marks the year after the civil war? The great pyramid was already incredibly ancient when the very first coin was invented. Are you suggesting we should all be collecting something besides coins that have more "history" behind them?

Most of the coins handled by the ECC are BU. They hold vast numbers of specific coins like the 1953 Yugoslavian aluminum coins but tht has no effect on the number of 1955 Chinese aluminum coins available. This coin lists for $10 but you can't find one. A few years ago an aluminum 1950-E 10 p from East Germany listed for less than $10 and you couldn't find one of them either. Now it lists for $1300.

The Educational Coin Company has several hundred coins in vast quantities and almost all of these will prove either common or didtressingly common. But they're about the only source for some coins so don't expect all their coins to be common. These aren't the coins collectors will have trouble finding though. If you get out there and try to put sets together you'll find plenty of scarcities and rarities. And these rarities often sell for only a few dollars and explosive price increases might not make them any easier because they are far scarcer on the whole than the old coins. People saved old silver with low mintages and it just doesn't matter how many aluminum coins were made if no one bothered to save any.

As far as being worthless most of the old silver coins of the world have been demonetized. You can't spend silver pesos and rubles any longer. You can't even put a 1964 quarter into a pop machine because it will be rejected. Face value doesn't have any effect on numismatic value and neither does metallic value.