According to the SCWC there are approximately 1400 issuing entities since 1600. Some, of course, only have one very rare coin so very few people will have the resources to acquire many of them. Others only minted for a few years in the 17th Century. I don't know how many can be considered reasonable to have in a typical collection. So let's say that there are 500 issuing entities which it is reasonable for the average collector to acquire. Today I received a coin from Bangladesh. It was nothing special. A BU steel coin from 1974 which cost me a dollar. But it was my 160th different issuing entity. Only another (approximately) 340 to go! I'm almost a third of the way there! How about the rest of you?
In case you're not already part of it, there is a chat group (part of the old Yahoo groups) dedicated to collecting 1 coin from every issuing authority. They maintain an extensive list, that can be broken out into numerous sub specialties (notgeld coins for example). There is still some activity in the group.
No, I was not aware of it. I am not consciously trying to do that, but it did seem significant when I counted up. Do you have a link to that group?
If your library has the five huge Krause foreign coin catalogs (17th thru 21st centuries), you could photocopy the index of each volume, cross out duplicates, and have a very good start on a master list. Then you could sell copies on eBay. There's nothing copyrightable* about a list of countries, unless Krause uses obsolete/archaic spellings, or an odd format, both of which I doubt. In addition, each buyer of the list represents a possibly new source for trading. *I am told Rand-McNally used to print one tiny bogus town on each state map, and if that town showed up on another firm's maps, it was likely copied from Rand-McNally. Clever.
I subscribe to Numismaster so I have the catalog online. I actually have a list of every entity from there in a spreadsheet but did not have it handy so 1400 was an estimate from memory. It is somewhere close to that. I also downloaded a list of every coin (by KM#) but have not got around to counting those as they are all in files. It is one of the project I have in mind when I have a couple of spare hours to write code to read the files. I am guessing it will be over a million. But I have no desire to try to sell the list. I am slowly developing my own (better) software to keep track of my coins. Because of time constraints it will take a few years to complete. It will contain the list of issuing entities. I had thought about the possibility of maybe trying to sell it when it is complete. Or even offer it for free to anyone who buys coins from me.
Either plan works. When you have developed a complete and superior product, there will be plenty of collectors happy to pay for it, and you will be doing them a service.
