Thanks GD, this one came in today at the shop in a large bag of foreign coins. I thought it was pretty neat. Tom
If I can't read the language on the coins, I don't even attempt to try and study them. That leaves out most of Asia, Asia Minor and parts of Africa.
Fear huh Let me see you teach yourself to read French and Dutch just from numismatic books. Then we'll talk
Let's not forget Latin, Spanish and Italian then In all honesty, I only know enough to understand the numismatic terminolgy. But then that's all I wanted to learn.
Latin is the only one I'm even close to adequate in. I can get the gist of most numismatic references in French, though. German is the next goal.
Just about any coin has latin legends, so the coin isn't the hard part. It's the books that are tough. And they only come in certain languages :headbang:
The Asian coins really aren't that difficult. Greek coins are actually much tougher, in my opinion. For Chinese cash, all you have to do is pick out a few characters, and I can already recognize Tong and Bao. And you can check on various tables organized chronologically. For Greek coins, you have to know the symbols and attributes of tons of polis(es?) and recognize them.
As of today: Face value: ~$1.065 Bullion value:$8.94/oz x .0926g ASW = ~82.8¢ Numismatic value: ~$1.50
