Political issues ?

Does anyone not collect certain coins because of the issuers policies ?

 

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this being in my collection would make my anwer a firm no...

 

Lol, same here... wasn't a fan of Sadaam Huessein's policies and have 3 banknotes his government issued. Also have a coin issued under the government of Adolf Hitler, and if I can resolve myself with that, then I certainly won't be bothered by anyone else's policies. So definitely no for me.

 

I think I get a kick out of having stuff from governments like that. I guess my pride and joy in that regard are the North Korean notes brought back by my cousin from North Korea.

 

I don't collect post British occupation South African, but everything else (including that wonderful coin of Stalin) is allowed (although I draw the line with some facist Germany/Italy/Spain pieces)

 

No, I collect coins for the interest in the coin, not the beliefs/actions of a specific politician or government.

 

Here is one question - how can you be assured that the metals used in your coin collection is 100% blood free? How can you prove that it's not involved with war?

Some countries capture whatever coins, metals etc and melt them down. You knew what the Germans did in World War II. It's so ugly that there is no need to mention it. The Germans melted the gold and then sold it to the Swiss which in turn, the Swiss minted the Swiss gold franc.

Unfortunately as science technology grows, more unforunate stories appear such as that gold swiss franc. Appearently 1945+ Swiss gold coins were compared against previous coins, which shows unusually high level of heavy metal (was mercury one of the metals? Sorry can't remember the details) but it's one of the heavy metals used for dental fillings for teeth, therefore, it can only come from the German looted gold...

 

I have some coins which might have killled someone....they are gun-money shillings of James II, made of melted down cannons, and other scrap metal !!!

 

I think I read somewhere that Gold Eagles are made only from gold mined in the US. Is this true?

 

Well Adolf Hitler died, and his regime was defeated, both more than 60 years ago. So I'm not especially worried that any Nazi Germany coins that I buy will support him or his regime. My conscience is clear on that score.

By the same argument I'm not worried that any money I spend collecting Iraqi notes printed during Hussein's regime will end up supporting him or his government.

Amen to that.

Um, that's sort of topic for this thread, but I believe so, yes. Canada has the equivalent policy for their Maple Leafs (must be minted from gold mined in Canada).

 

As for Roman Coins and the methods they used to mine in pretty much every part of the empire from Asia to Britain?

"Some estimate that the slave population in the 1st century consisted of approximately one-third of the total. A high proportion of the populations in Italy, present-day Tunisia, southern Spain and western Anatolia consisted of slaves. The overall proportion of slaves may have not have reached 20% for the whole Empire of 12-15 million people.

"The majority of mine workers were slaves. The work conditions were terrible, and up to 12% of miners died every year."

but they sure did make nice coins

If one wanted to get real picky...coins minted in the US during slavery and then during segregation are coins minted in a country...well...that used slaves and / or practiced apartheid...the gold and silver for any Spanish coins have the blood of natives...The Dutch were rather brutal during colonial times, etc...the list would go on forever and severely limit your collection. A good way to do it in my opinion is to go ahead and collect them and then let the history be known for all to read...a lesson in the bad old days. The history of money and precious metals it simply brutal...

I have been collecting Notgeld now for a bit and I have to say many of those bills are extremely shocking in their subject matter so when I post them on my site I will fully explain what was going on at the time.

 

You know, it doesn't matter what mines the metals are coming from. The average death toll rate globally is pretty high even up to current day standards, that is if I remember the quote right from last two years ago, it's an average of 2 death per tonne of gold mined and 17 people so criticially injured / disabled that they are not able to work. It's even worse for coal and copper mines. Sometimes, you have to thank the miners who mine these metals, minerals out for you.

 

While I do not draw a strict line anywhere, I tend to avoid coins that - from what I know - are issued by dictatorial regimes "for export" only. A classical example were the commems issued in the GDR: Many of them commemorate people or events that are also interesting for collectors of other German coins. But especially the silver pieces were difficult to get for East German collectors; most of them were sold to dealers outside the country. Nowadays I would of course not support the regime by buying such coins, so I do have quite a few.

Christian

 

yeah...I hear its pretty bad conditions, its tough dangerous work...my point before was that they were slaves and I am sure working conditions for slaves were probably just that much worse.

 

If I had to approve of every single thing a government did or is now doing before I bought a coin they produced, I wouldn't own a single coin. I think boycotting a given government's coins is a meaningless protest... it doesn't hurt them significantly anyway, they produce millions and someone else will buy them if you don't. If it bothers your consicence that much, go ahead and don't buy them, just don't fall under the delusion that your act of protest will have any kind of significant impact.

I don't even approve of 100% of what my own government does (never have, under either party) but I save all my protesting for the voting booth. The only thing I bother to protest with my coin collecting habit is the action of producing ugly and/or stupid coins... in that case I won't buy them!

And I think I already made it clear that historic protesting (protesting governments or regimes that no longer exist or practices that are no longer ptacticed) is pretty silly, because it's not like your money will travel back in time to add support to them. I recall reading that some Native Amercians refuse to use $20 bills in protest to Andrew Jackson's treatment of American Indians... what do they honestly think that will accomplish? Do they want Andrew Jackson retroactively impeached? Do they think the Federal Reserve really cares if they use two tens instead of a twenty? They can never reduce the usage of the bill by enough for their statement to have any impact. Of course it seems to me most people who protest don't seem to care about the level of impact their protest has (or just don't realize how little it has), the point is to advertise their views and feel good about it. At least that's how most protesters always seem to me.

 

Actually it did happen just 20 odd years ago. During the Soviet Olympics '80 when the Soviets were invading Afganistan in 1979, the rest of the world boycotted including any Soviet products. One of the saddest history is that the Soviet mints, both St. Petersburg and Moscow Mint minted excessive Olympics coins in silver, gold and platinum, hoping to make a profit but it was an obvious failure as the rest of the world boycotted. Russia never minted coins in such massive scale again.

Today such mint sets are getting quite expensive as many sets were broken down, melted down etc, and many Russians are buying them back at any mad costs.

 

Only too well do I recall the boycott, I missed a chance of a lifetime...

Ben

 

Good point, but that's a boycott by several countries, not just an individual or a handful of individuals. The effectiveness of a boycott is directly proportional to the scale of participation, and it has to be among people who would have bought the products in question in the absense of the boycott (one example of an ineffective boycott that didn't realize that second part is when the Catholic Church considered calling for a boycott of the Da Vinci Code, not realizing the obvious fact that most Catholics would probably not have seen the movie anyway...)

Anyway, boycotts can be effective, but it has to be of a large enough scale to actually deny the target a signficant amount of income the target can't easily replace from another source. Boycotts are not effective if:

The act is purely symbolic, as the target is not really deprived of anything (for example, when the US declared a cessation of trade with North Korea, when they already didn't trade with them anyway; or refusing to use $20 bills that has no real effect on the Federal Reserve)

The income is easily replaced from another source because the commodity is nearly perfectly fungible (for example, boycotting certain gas stations or oil complanies that can easily sell the product elsewhere if it isn't purchased here)

It is not a product or service the boycotters would have likely consumed anyway (for example, saying you're boycotting Mexican tourism to protest immigration policies, if you had no plans to travel to Mexico anyway; and again the Catholic Church advsing Catholics not to go see the Da Vinci Code, which most of them weren't likely to anyway)

It is not large enough scale to have a significant impact against the target (already provided a good example of that. The reason why the boycott agains the Soviet Union's Olympic coins did work was because it was on a very large scale)

 

Coins = History in many ways

 

I collect most coins if i like them but dont realy collect South Africa under the Aparthide Regime, I just cant bring myself to :rolling:

De Orc :kewl: