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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Conder101, post: 1758970, member: 66&quot;]A couple other things to add to Doug&#039;s comment.&nbsp; Another problem for the foreign collector back then was references. US collectors have had the Redbook since 1946 (1947 coverdate) and before that Wayte Raymonds Standard Catalog of United States Coins, and even before that Max Mehl&#039;s Rare Coin Encyclopedia and Augustus Heatons pamphlet on mintmarks.&nbsp; But before 1972 there was no Standard Catalog of World Coins.&nbsp; The only commonly available books were R S Yeoman&#039;s Coins of the World 1860 - 1960, and Craig&#039;s Coins of the World 1750 to 1860.&nbsp; Both of those were published in the 1960&#039;s and only listed the coins by type in a single grade and with just a type coin price.&nbsp; Occasionally they might list the key date for a given type.&nbsp; If you collected the older world crowns (and who did?) there were the Davenport books.&nbsp; But those coins were seldom encountered and at the time the books were expensive.&nbsp; If you wanted anything more comprehensive you had to collect auction catalogs as well.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Then like Doug said US coins were readily available.&nbsp; Coins back to the start of the 20th century could be found with some roll searching, and older coins could often be had from older relatives.&nbsp; But where did you get foreign coins?&nbsp; About the best you could do were world minors from the 30&#039;s and 40&#039;s brought back soldiers from WWII and if you were lucky maybe some from the WWI era, also coins brought back by soldiers.&nbsp; Todays casual foreign collector still has the same problem.&nbsp; Almost all the business strike US coins made in the last half century can still be obtained by roll searching, but where does the foreign collector get coins?&nbsp; The WWI and WWII soldiers are pretty much gone and in the later conflicts the soldiers mainly used US coins/currency/MPC&#039;s/or scrip.&nbsp; They didn&#039;t bring back that much in local/world coinage.&nbsp; A little comes back from travelers but not that much.&nbsp; And if it is that hard to collect the world coins in general, the idea of collecting a specific country is even more remote.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>So a new collector faces plenty of US coins available, few foreign coins, and the vast majority of the other collectors he meets collect US.&nbsp; the odds are heavily weighted in favor of that new collector collecting US coins.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Having sounded so negatively against foreign coins, lets now say a few words in their favor.&nbsp; In general they are CHEAP, even for older coins.&nbsp; There is an incredible variety of coins available.&nbsp; You can collect hundreds if not thousands of coins and have no two alike.&nbsp; You can learn a lot of world history, politics, geography, languages etc.&nbsp; And for those just starting out poundage and junk boxes go a long way to overcoming the availability problem.&nbsp; Then on the coin forum there is even the possibility of making friends around the world as trading partners[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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