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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;princeofwaldo, post: 1251437, member: 24091&quot;]Nope, I&#039;m not Albanian.&nbsp; I bought a used 1994 twin century Krause catalog in 1995 and only made it to the Albanian section before I was so enamored I couldn&#039;t get any further in the catalog.&nbsp; Well, not exactly, --I did in fact make it through the rest of the book-- but you get the idea.&nbsp; If I had to be a little more specific about my attraction, it would be the work of Guiesseppe Romagnoli that I find so irresistable.&nbsp; And so in addition to Albania, I also have a decent collection of Italian coins, and even Somalia since at one time (even up 1950 our pal Romagnoli was still designing coins) the coins of Somalia were also struck at the Rome mint.</p><p><br /></p><p>If you paid $3300 for the 1927 Star-Star in MS62 then you probably got a reasonable deal provided its accurately graded.&nbsp; I had 8 of the 9 coins for quite some time before I finally purchased the last one I needed, the 1926 Single Star.&nbsp; I had seen a bunch of others in auctions that were spotted bad or had other problems.&nbsp; Saw one that was graded as MS62 that was pretty beat-up.&nbsp; Finally, I decided it was better to settle for a decent looking AU58 (from Mark Teller, $2450) than to keep looking forever.&nbsp; I had gotten close one time previously 6 or 7 years ago when I purchased an 1926 Single Star from Clark Smith raw for $995, then sent it to PCGS only to have it come back as &quot;questionable authenticity&quot;&nbsp; --I returned the coin to Smith for a refund.&nbsp; He then sent it to NGC, got it slabbed as MS62, and then offered the same coin to me for $2,000.00&nbsp; Needless to say, its one of the reasons I no longer buy many coins from him.</p><p><br /></p><p>I too, own all the minors, including multiples of most of them.&nbsp; the 5 and 10 qindar lek are much more common now than they were 7 or 8 years ago.&nbsp; Yet prices have held-up reasonably well on them in spite of the increase in supply.&nbsp; Ie I were to give any guidance on collecting the minors, it would be this: The 1926 coins are far more plentiful than the later years.&nbsp; There are a fair number of the 1927 issues too, but once you get to 1930 and 1931 they become much more scarce in mint state (circulated, plentiful), yet they carry the same price.&nbsp; Hence, if you see a 1930-V (struck in Vienna) or a 1931-L (struck in London) cupronickel 1 Lek slabbed as MS65 or better for the same price as a 1926 in MS65, for-sure jump on it, as its probably worth multiples of the 1926 price in my opinion though the catalogs don&#039;t really show it.</p><p><br /></p><p>On the 1926 Albania 2 Franga, I paid $200 for it at the Chicago Internation Coin Fair in 1996.&nbsp; It was one of the first coins in the Albanian collection.&nbsp; Like yours, MS64.&nbsp; Another coin with a solid shot at a higher grade.&nbsp; I think it would CAC in a 66 holder, but then I&#039;m the owner so I&#039;m a little biased.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH]134709.vB[/ATTACH][ATTACH]134710.vB[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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