There is a coin shop in our town who's prices are pretty low and whose quality of coin is real good for the price. In my twilight years now, I try to avoid too much chocolate, cakes,and, well....world coins. However this shop keeps about 50lbs of them in various "paw through" boxes @ 5 for a dollar. If I sit down, a couple hrs pass real quick. Last year I guess I bought about 5lbs of them based on the pretty or unusual images on the coins. This year, based on older dates. But, I still have not bought any rare, expensive coins, or figured out how to put together a set or collection. Tonight I happened on a 1900 10 Pfennig ,large ,from the German Empire (per Blackbook price guide to world coins). As I scanned the price page I saw $1,$12,$15,$20,$24,even $100to$140 based on conditon. Had I really cherry picked the dealer with my $.20 coin? Then my eye caught the price on MY PARTICULAR COIN....$.50! :headbang: Now how can a coin 109 years old and in good shape fetch only $.50? I don't know,but it's just my luck to own it !!
I found buying coins by the pound and then sorting very amusing. Don't do this now but reminds me of all the fun I had.
Never got into world coins, and a lot of people don't becuase if you sort threw them, most likely, it'll be more than one country, and you have to have a lot of knowledge to be able to identify each and every coin I'm good with American coins.. LOL Seems like a lot of fun, I'd love to look through 5 pounds of mercs, barbers, or maybe 5 pounds of Quarter Eagles... lol
I actually haven't found it that hard to ID the world coins I've come across.... but then again I did minor in geography so maybe I am cheating a lil' bit... THe hard part with dealing with world coins is trying to carry the darn phone book for whatever century the coin is from. (Not to mention the price tag on said phone book.... )
Well, I just had to relate that little joke on myself in order to add a little humor to the board. And after all, I did more than double my investment of the $.20 :kewl:
NP... no slight intended... Thats the beauty of the world coins, buy a handful for a dollar, and when its all said and done you may have 2 or 3 bucks in coins... or at least you have a handful of coins to look up and figger out what the heck they are.....
Nothing better than going through a couple of pounds of world coins, and then sorting them out by country (not as hard as some might think) If you are having problems then look here http://worldcoingallery.com/index.php One of the best resourses for doing some reserch. Now as for the value of a 100 year old coin only been 0.20c how about a thousand year old coin going for $5 LOL there is no justice
Or what about coins which are more than 2000 years old? Some are dirt cheap, others fetch enormous prices. As for buying non-US coins from US dealers, well, I suppose that many have the same attitude as many collectors there - there's US coins, and there's "world" coins, and differentiating or researching the latter just takes too much time. If the dealer got a piece in a pound bag, why not offer it cheap? Christian
