How do you arrange your World coin collection? Here is a different solution.

This question about how we arrange our World coin collections has been discussed a CT many times. Here is a CT thread from a few years ago:
http://www.cointalk.com/t43465/

(If we all collected the same coins & arranged them the same way it would be pretty boring right)? I recently met a fellow collector with a completely different organizational solution. :smile This fellow has a 1994 Krause book and he is collecting one of each (non-gold) KM# in the book. He claims to have a few duplicates but strives not to purchase duplicates. The book apparently covers coins from 1894 to 1994.

Here is where it gets interesting. He buys a coin and pretty much immediately marks it in his Krause book & removes it from its holder. The raw, un-holdered coin is then placed into an appropriate jar. He supposedly has several jars labeled for each geographic area around the world. He currently has 5,000+ coins in his jars. All the coins are just residing (raw & un-holdered) in the jars. If a particular coin is high grade UNC or proof manufacture, then he leaves it in the 2x2 or flip for protection (without regard for possible PVC damage). He has been collecting like this for a long (long) time. In his opinion those darn 2x2s and flips take-up so much room that the majority of his collection gets removed from them immediately. Thousands & thousands of loose coins are in his jars.

I suppose that an ancient coin enthusiast might appreciate this method of organizing a collection. Don't many ancient coins originate from storage in ancient jars?

 

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With my ancients they are in an album in 2x2 flips and ordered by the earliest BC coins to the latest early modern world coins. Emperors and empresses are arranged by reign years.

As for modern world, there really isnt anything special I do with the suckers. They are in 2x2 cardboard flips in a cardboard long box, arranged by the country they are & by date. If the coin is only one I have of a single country it gets tossed in the back of the row with room left to store it with the rest of the single coin of a country.

 

My collection would require much less room if I removed all the coins from their holders & stored the bare coins in a jar. :rollling:

 

My ancients are lucky if they find a box with the same culture as they.

Jars are REALLY not a bad solution if you know they aren't going to be jostled around. Sealed jars have little exposure to paper or air. Its an "unusual" method, but interesting.

Btw, yeah, the best ancients are found in jars. The jars protect the coins, the best ancients around are found that way.

 

Chris, I wouldn't be surprised to find gallon jars of coins all over your house, in the attic, under the sink, the stairwells, buried in the back yard...

 

ha agreed!


FYI your PM box is full and you cannot receive more messages.

 

Used to be. I am getting better. Most of the ancients are in a box of some sort, (well except the uncleaned coins, they are in a huge pile). My issue is keeping the boxes straight.

World coins? They are in bags, boxes, and folders as "world coins". Only exception being most silver and gold coins are in boxes in SDB.

 

I have this vision of your wife taking something out of the freezer to defrost, and it turns out to be a pile of coins. :too-funny:

 

There is no good way to store a large collection. You can place them individually in holders, trays, or pages that allow them to be seen and a few thousand become unwieldy to the point that they are hard to see. You can place them in envelopes and boxes making them compact but not available for easy examination. Jars take this to an extreme but hardly seem appropriate for a coin that cost a couple hundred dollars. I'm at the point now that I examine photos of my coins much more often than the coins themselves. That means I have too many coins. A small collection that fits in a single binder or case of trays can be a real joy but we all have to decide what to do when the number of coins exceeds a few hundred. After trying many options, I am convinced there is no good answer for 3000 coins and no bad one for 30.

 

I think Doug is trying to guilt me into selling my coins.

Just kidding. It is a very good point. Someday if I had an onsite safe maybe I would choose my favorites and store more for display, as it is they go into boxes, then into the SDB. Yet another reason I need to work on my photography skills.