I recently received a few coins form my father who does not collect and is unsure how he came across these coins only that they were in his desk drawer when cleaning it out looking for a set of keys. I find them to be rather interesting in design and even though I am not particularly interested in collecting world coins just yet, I was hoping someone could help to tell me something about them. Any and all info would be appreciated in regards to design, metal content, mintage #'s, origins, face values and collector value/interest if any. I doubt that I would sell even if they have any value as I consider myself to be more collector that seller and/or investor. Also are there any recommended books for world coins in general or are they basically too vague and need to be indexed by country?
#1 - French 1 franc with Marianne, the French symbol for liberty and believed by many to be Weinberg's inspiration for the US Walking Liberty. Extremely common. #2 - Republic of the Phillipines 25 centavos, one of the earliest coins minted after independence from the US. #3 - Silver Japanese ¥100 dated Showa 36 (1961), worth its weight in silver and not much more. This was the last Japanese silver non-commemorative coin, although ¥100 and ¥1000 1964 Olympic commems did generally circulate. The standard reference for world coins is the Standard Catalog of World Coins, often referred to as "Krause", originally edited by Krause and Mishler. This is a five-volume set, one for each century beginning with the 17th, ranging in size from that of a medium city's phone book for the 21st Century to that of a New York City five-boroughs phone book for the 20th Century. It contains "life size" pictures, annual mintages, metallic content, descriptions of legends and designs, (very) brief histories of the issuing countries - both existing and superseded regimes - estimated values in various grades, and much more. Serious collectors also use many country-specific, and even issue-specific references. Most public libraries have, or can get, at least the 20th/21st Century Krause volumes, which are published annually. Editions for earlier years are updated less frequently. My own Krause set is temporarily unavailable, so I can't give you more specific details about any of your coins, except to note that none of them are particularly rare. Welcome to the world of numismatics.
Thanks so much for the info, it was exactly what I was looking for. Now I will have some refernece to tell the young ones when displaying my collection to them.
