The wife and I are up in the NY Finger Lakes wine country for a few days and stopped into an antique shop that of course had coins. Hmmm, how did that happen? I’m a huge Cold War buff and always thought about doing a Soviet bloc collection. I’m sure I over payed but it was a fun pick up and hopefully the start to a USSR collection. Bonus view from our room.
The prices are up on these quite a bit the last few years but there are still bargains to be had. The 15k's get pretty pricey but the 1R's and 50k's aren't bad. I believe most of the copper are underpriced. They aren't that much more common than the cu/ ni.
I jumped on the USSR coin collecting bandwagon quite recently myself. I even bought a used Russian Whitman style album from a coin dealer in Atlanta, GA which deals with the clad 1, 3, and 5 ruble circulating commemorative coins. Anyway, coins from the USSR can be found for cheap in foreign coin boxes often for quite a substantial discount from online auction prices. Here is a sampling of a few I've found at a local coin show. The obsession will spread, I'll warn you this is also from that same local coin show I last went to.
That's the real danger of Soviet coins. In Soviet Russia, coins collect you! Depending on what challenges you are after, some range from easy to mission impossible.
Meh, I'm more partial to the silver coinage of the early USSR, before the coinage was debased. Imperial Russian stuff is cool too but wildly expensive for my budget!
I have numerous USSR coins in a Hand-Me-Down album but none is as nice as that you've shown. Wow!!! Very stunning! I just went to check and mine is from 1968. I just realized too that they have edge lettering.
That one on the top row is interesting (second from right). What is the denomination? Is it ONE FLORIN or TWO SHILLINGS? I've never seen a coin with two Values stated. What country is it from?
The coin you describe is from Australia. The Florin was a pre-decimal form of accounting worth Two shillings. Furthermore, the pre-decimal pound was divided into 20 Shillings making it the highest denomination coin in Australia with the exception of the crown minted in 1937, and 1938.
My bad forgetting to mention the Australian minted gold sovereigns. Considering that large quantities of gold were being refined into coins in Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney due to the Australian goldfields. I was only thinking in terms of the post-1910 Australian coinage, which had designs unique to Australia.