Got 56 coins for $5 US. Lots of Modern Japan with decent face value. Japan 100 yen 1968, 1973 50 yen 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1973, 1989, 1990 10 yen reeded 1952 x2, 1953 x2, 1954 x2 10 yen smooth 1969 (nice copper luster) 5 yen (older types) 1948, 1951 x2 10 sen 1942 5 sen 1942 Switzerland 20 rappen 1947, 1959, 1969x2 (I think these are still worth $0.20 face) UK penny: 1896, 1914, 1917, 1918, 1920, 1921, 1936 x2 Australia penny: 1940, 1942 New Zealand 1/2 penny 1949 (pleasing condition) Canada small cent 1925, 1927, 1940 The 1925 is the lowest mintage of the George V Canada cents and is worth a few dollars. My daughter (who I brought along for practice on her driver's permit) spotted it for me. Austrian Netherlands (Belgium) 1789 Jospeh II 1 Liard (edges damaged, alas) Belgium: 1 Franc 1929 (nice condition), Dutch text France: 1 franc 1960, 1965, 5 centimes 1904 Germany 1890 1 pfennig, 1924 5 reichspfennig Spain 100 pesetas 1984, 10 centimos 1959 Italy 100 lira 1966 Norway 10 Øre 1973 Greece 50 lepta 1957 Iceland 25 aurar 1967 Ceylon 25 cents 1951 Ecuador 1944 20 centavos Uruguay 1936 10 centésimos (single-year type) I looked through a few thousand coins to pick out these. Fortunately the shop owner knows me and tolerates all this! If you would like to see an individual pic of any, please let me know.
That is the truth! I keep a bottle of hand sanitizer in the car for after... Here's a close up of the 1925 Canada small cent. Even low grade and details coins from that year seem to go for $25+ Canadian. Not sure how to grade it with the corrosion spot and rim damage, but always a good deal at 10 cents.
It's pretty badly ring dinged, so I would bet its market value is relatively low, but still way more than 10 cent. Good find.
My LCS has "junk" boxes with lots of stuff in it. There are pages of 3X5 holders with coins priced from $1.98 up. Recently I bought three of these with 3 Japanese 100 yen silver coins (1958, 1959, 1959) and one German 1874 D 1 mark. Almost $7 melt for $6
I love taking some time to look through the junk world coins. Never know, might get something good. I occasionally have. Others I bought just to photograph.
What were you photographing them for? This brings up a good point about "junk boxes" or some other purchases of coins: Sometimes collectors buy a coin, not to add to a collection or an inventory, or to resell at a higher price to someone else, but for imaging purposes. I've purchased several coins from eBay or junk boxes solely for photography. I sometimes need images of various coins for articles and webpages that I've written, and I did so for my book, too. For example, South Korea issued a series of Asian Games coins in 1986, five coins in total. The Asian Games are an "Olympic-level" event that helps sort of prepare athletes in the Asian region for an upcoming Olympics (as well as it just being a multinational venue for competitive events itself). The first Asian Games was held in India in 1951. Well, I read that the first coin issued for this event was one that the host country of Thailand issued for the Asian Games in 1966. Therefore, when I wrote the chapter on the 1986 Seoul Asian Games for my book on Korean coins, I wanted an image of that Thai coin, which I also paired with an informative caption to give the reader a little bit more background on the Asian Games itself.
Just (at the time) trying to improve my photoing skills and to try to capture the color or design in a way that made looking at the photo really made the coin more interesting than in reality (in a way, can't really describe that). But I have had since had a number of issues with my eyes and I have an essential tremor that can get in the way of getting a good pic, so I have not been doing any photos for a few years.
Sorry to hear about your health problem, Kasia. I would think that a digital camera paired with a large-format video screen (so that you are viewing and focusing using that larger-screen image) might be able to help with that problem when photographing coins. Or not?
Here is that 1966 1 Baht coin 5th Asian games held in Bangkok. I also have the 6th Asian games 1 Baht coin issued in 1970.
