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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;asciibaron, post: 366591, member: 8566&quot;]I started in the hobby back when I was 9 or 10 not by collecting Lincoln cents, but by collecting the coins of Iceland.&nbsp; My father had been involved in coins for nearly 20 years by that time and was heavily involved in dealing world coins.&nbsp; Sadly, I lost interest after a few months, mostly because I couldn&#039;t readily get the coins - I had to get them at coin shows and those weren&#039;t happening every weekend.&nbsp; I think it would have been more productive had he started me first on Lincolns - I could find those anywhere and my enthusiasm could have been kept alive.</p><p><br /></p><p>Jump ahead 25 years to the present and I&#039;m back collecting Icelandic coins.&nbsp; I was able to get my collection from my father so I wasn&#039;t starting over from square one, but now that I am older, I can afford to have coins in better grades.&nbsp; Pushing a lawn mower a few Saturdays a month could buy me 1 or 2 nice coins or a bag full of decent coins - three guesses what I did.</p><p><br /></p><p>In reviewing my collection, I only need a handful of coins to have all the types represented, mostly the post 1981 stuff since that&#039;s after I stopped collecting.&nbsp; I have some holes in the dates for the various types I do have and I plan on adding those as I find them.&nbsp; Since there aren&#039;t that many coin types,&nbsp; I can understand why my father thought it was a good place to start - the coins are cheap and one can complete a type set in XF without spending much more than a summer&#039;s worth of mowing.</p><p><br /></p><p>Since Iceland didn&#039;t start producing it&#039;s own coinage until the 1920&#039;s, I started to look at what was used in the years before and that has led me to a very interesting find.&nbsp; The Central Bank of Iceland (Sedlabanki Island) has a history of the currency used in Iceland. I had been researching using the internet mostly finding the information in wiki&#039;s or on out of date websites - and some of the history was conflicting so I wasn&#039;t sure what was more factual.&nbsp; The document I found cleared up some of the conflicting bits and is very detailed. </p><p><br /></p><p>Finding this document has really helped me understand the coins I am collecting, why they exist and why it took so long for Iceland to issue it&#039;s own currency.&nbsp; This is what makes coin collecting fun for me today and these nuances were lost on me at age 10.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Having a greater understanding has now led me to collecting the coins used by Icelanders prior to the creation of their own currency.&nbsp; I am not sure why I am drawn to Iceland, maybe it has something to do with it being such a small country and having a difficult history.&nbsp; The people of Iceland have overcome some huge obstacles yet they continue on.&nbsp; This tiny island nation has fostered my interest in the coins of Norway and Denmark, and dare I say, even an interest in paper money.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>It&#039;s funny what a little research will lead to.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here is the document that helped put it all into focus for me;</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://www.sedlabanki.is/uploads/files/TheCurrencyofIceland.pdf" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.sedlabanki.is/uploads/files/TheCurrencyofIceland.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.sedlabanki.is/uploads/files/TheCurrencyofIceland.pdf</a></p><p><br /></p><p>-Steve[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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