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Message:: [QUOTE="declanwmagee, post: 527193, member: 17358"]I like the effect on the coins that historical events have - for instance, the UK debased it's silver coinage twice in the 20th century.  Once in 1920, from .925 to .500 silver, and finally in 1947, from .500 to Cupro-nickel.  Both times to pay for a war. Then there's the little historical snippets that might get lost if it hadn't been for the coins: there was a tradition to put shiny new pennies in kid's Christmas stockings in the 1940s, but during the post-WW2 austerity programme over here the Royal Mint considered that to be a frivolous use of scarce national resources so it artificially darkened them to discourage the practice. Then, because of the "official" nature of the coinage, you sometimes find a discrepancy between the "official" story, and what later comes to light - so perhaps the fact that the British Empire lost access to the Malaysian tin mines, and had to change the alloy in its bronze coinage, may have had something to do with it; something they may not have wanted to admit publically in 1944.[/QUOTE]