It's like old and stuff, so its worth thousands!

Don't be surprised/disappointed if your daughters don't have an interest. When my children were young, I went through all of the foreign coins that I had accumulated and put them in 2x2’s. Most of them were 1900-1980 and catalogued around 25 cents to a few dollars. Fast forward 15+ years. The plan was to give them to my kids as they got older and ignite their interest. Unfortunately, none of my children ever developed an interest. Now I have 6-7 binders overflowing with decent (if common) world coins.


And it’s not as if the kids are lack focus. One is finishing his MS in Engineering, one has a BS in Biology and is studying to be a Physician’s Asst, and the third is a Soph. engineering student who also plays on the college basketball team.


BTW: I started with both coins and stamps, but stamps never stuck (bad Dad joke ) and by the time I was 9 or 10, the Scott album was stuffed away in a closet, never to reappear.

 

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Much obliged to you for this. Philately has hardly covered itself in glory in the past few decades, between the torrent of new issues from every postal authority and some ill-considered flirtations with faddishness and "investment potential", but it remains a fascinating hobby with a long, distinguished past (and hopefully some kind of future).

I'd say it offers far more historical and aesthetic appeal than a world-coins collection from 1840 onwards would, and for rather less money (at least to begin with).

I think stamp collecting is held back rather considerably by a weak online presence; the difficulty in obtaining historical background information; and the fact that collecting and discussion tends to incline towards the "advanced" double-die-Morgan-Dollar end of the spectrum. Coin collecting has philately quite decisively beaten on all these fronts. Philately has so much on offer for the beginner and the generalist, but it's rather hard to perceive that, perhaps.

 

Yes, clearly people 2,500 years ago could never have thought up the idea to take a small piece of metal, place it between two dies, and hit the whole combo with a big hammer. Such complicated technology was clearly beyond the grasp of primitive humans.

I mean, seriously? I can _almost_ sort of see why some people might believe aliens helped out ancient civilizations who didn't leave written records yet achieved impressive art and architecture, like the Incas. But the Greeks left extensive writings behind (not to mention a lot of artifacts)- don't you think that Plato's Republic should include a section comparing government on Planet Xbblllttt to the ideal society? Or Thucydides should mention that the Spartans used ray guns against the Athenians? Unless those sections have been suppressed....

The truth is out there

 

Sadly, the Incas had sophisticated writings, including poems, stories, records, etc. via a method of archiving information called Quipus. Their writing was by very sophisticated means of knotting ropes. The Spaniards during their conquering of the Incan Empire BURNED most of them, thereby destroying an ENORMOUS amount of Incan History. Crimes against humanity...

If anything, this means of archiving human history is incredibly creative and took sophisticated minds to create and use them. Because it was not the Eurasian method of 2-dimensional ink or carving on a surface, it was not recognized as communication. I find it much more sophisticated, as well as fascinating means of archiving and communicating knowledge as it is 3-DIMENSIONAL thinking.

Quipu


https://www.ancient.eu/Quipu/

 

Maybe a bit off topic but to quote Mark Twain ,( He Said once do not let your schooling interfere with your real education ) How true that is no matter what you apply it to , if it is coin collecting , or just daily living. Dillan