ME? Nope. I'm not a collector. I just bought a pound of mixed foriegn coins off an E-bay auction. Spent an hour looking at them with my youngest son. Soon after, I have twelve pounds on order. A used 2000 'standard catalog of world coins' arrived the day before the first pound of new coins arrived. The first night both book and coins joined together, I spent three hours looking up coins before I realized my eyes were blurry and my legs were going stiff. I ID'ed all but three coins, and all those are from the same country that used only arabic writing on those coins...... But I'LL GET THEM FIGURED OUT!!! Question: How do you know if you are hooked by this coin stuff, or it's just gonna pass like a fever during flu season? PS: Anybody know a good site to ID arabic writing coins? Please?
If you did all that at one sitting, like me you are hooked on knowledge. Coins is second nature to the knowledge. A2J Jess
Howdy Art - Welcome to the Forum !! Yup - you're hooked As for deciphering the Arabic script - depending on which book you have - if it's the Krause catalog it should provide a translation of the coin's legends. And in the first few pages there is a table that provides the numerical translations.
If you get stuck, give us a description or post a picture and we'll be glad to point you in the right direction.
Depending on your son's age, you could informally give him a wealth of knowledge and understanding of the world around him with those world coins, a world map, a krauss book and perhaps internet research into anything that grabs him. As for being hooked, it is better to be blurry eyed from midnight viewings of coins then from an all nighter with the bottle. Well except for DEC. 31st anyway.
Hooked? Do you find yourself eating, sleeping, and talking coins? If so, welcome to the club. So glad you're here. If not, give it time. Coins have a special way of working into the psyche.
