What's the coin hobby like in your country.

You're tellin' me........

 

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I bet they don't even care that their Britannia just might have fully pointed points on the trident.

That is correct. Errors at the level of triviality that Americans enjoy and
'varieties' you need a microscope to see are not sought after since they are simply the natural result of mass production.

In Britain we have about 2000 or more years of coin history to choose from so there is more scope for collecting different coins rather than tiny varieties of the smaller number of basic designs.

Attempting to keep up with the modern production of stuff for the 'collector's ' market is considered a mug's game.

 

When I was in Dublin I couldn't find a Coin store and I even tried! Where I live, in a rural part of England most dealers here prefer mail order or website. I can't find a store anywhere but there are regular coin shows nearby. Also in this area metal detecting is a viable way to collect, the Iceni capital was in this area.

 

Great post. Do you folks have many doubled die coins that are major enough that they are sought after?

 

I don't even know what a doubled die soin is. So probably, no. The only errors of any interest are things that should never have got out of the mint, like mules or something struck on the wrong planchet. Minor mechanical glitches are of no real interest.

 

I can talk about Estonia (You can google it, if You don't know where it is
Collecting coins is pretty popular, but collectors are usually not too well educated at this. Most collectors think that books are waste of money and cleaning coins is the most important thing collector can do (because shiny coin is Unc, ya' know!). But the situation is improving.
Anyway, there are also lot of smarter collectors, who understand what the condition is, and are ready to pay for quality.

The collectors usually focus on Estonian coins (both medieval and modern), Russian coins (Estonia has been part of Russian Empire), Soviet coins (Estonia was occupied by Soviet Union after WW II) and neighboring countries (Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, etc).
The US coins are as popular as any other world coins, so nothing special.

We have some collector fairs (about once per month), but these are never "coins only" events. Usually there are also stamps, postcards and stuff like this. These events are usually good to buy some cheap low-grade coins and to meet other collectors, but that's it. The good stuff can bought form auctions (both live and online).

The slabbing is getting more and more attention every year. The high-end coins are moving to slabs (mainly NGC). There is very practical reason - Estonian coin market is small and to get the good price for expensive coin, You have to put it on online auction. And it is easier to sell slabbed coins in eBay for example.

 

Thank you guys. This is what I was hoping for in this thread. Fun to here what the hobby is like out of the US.

 

Estonia has some beautiful coins.

 

I was actually going to respond to this awhile ago & then thought, 'hey, what do I know, there are a lot more experienced Cdn collectors on this site they will'. Well they didn't, so here's my two cents (currently worth about a cent & half in US$ if the dollar hasn't dropped more again today).

The hobby seems to be popular at least from what attendance I see at coin shows/auctions. I personally attended about a dozen coin shows in the last year, and could have went to several more, though most would be local (small) to med sized compared to the huge US shows I've read about on this forum. I think the largest show I went to had about 75 dealers max.

There are some B&M coin stores, though I've personally only been to two of the stores, most are too far away, so I meet them at the coin shows.

Generally I will get to know the dealer at a show, see how they deal with me while I'm looking at something that likely isn't worth their time and then decide if I want to go back to them.

If they treat me well in that situation I usually have a good idea how they will treat me in higher $ sales. I've actually had 1 dealer throw a coin at me and say '20 bucks', as in 'why are you bothering me'. Now when I see him at shows, I smile and keep walking to his competition.

I've tracked my purchases over the last couple of years and of the 23 'dealers' I have purchased from, at least 5 I would go to again & have, & spent way too much money. Interestingly but not suprising, all of which have a B&M store (just a bit too far for me to go too). I say not surprising because in order to have a store, they need to know how to treat a customer and keep them coming back. Each of these dealers treated me with a great deal of respect regardless of what I was buying, tried to get to know what coins I was interested in and when they could, spent time discussing their coins with me.
eg -"I'm looking for Newfoundland coins."
'Oh, you're the one, I've been waiting 20 years for you to show up.'

I collect mostly Canadian & Provincial coins, though have a substantial world collection as well (my world includes USA). Likely half if not more of my Cdn/Prov collection are raw, bought from dealers who's grading I respect, the rest being graded by ICCS or CCCS (Canadian TPG's) with a few PCGS/NGC thrown in.
Generally I find PCGS/NGC to be much more lenient on circulated grades than ICCS/CCCS (ie -AU or less grades); pretty equivalent on MS+.

While I'm not a fan of Slabs, I can see the need for them, especially for someone like me doing a type set of US coins that I know I'm not up to speed on their grading.

For world coins, anything in MS+ grades, I tend to rely on auctions, just because the dealers I frequent don't deal in world.

Edit: Apologies for adding to an already long post, but just thought of something to add in regards to 'healthy'

I started collecting at the age of 7, been at it for 43 years now with some years more involved than others as life allowed and a surprising amount still to learn, which this forum has helped with immensely.

When I was 11, I was in a local coin shop and overheard the shop owner and a customer talking about the poor state of coin collecting and how very few YNs were getting involved. Sound familiar? That was back in 1976. When I was a YN collector, I knew exactly 0 other YN collectors.

The last larger coin shows I was at this past year, at least 25-30% of the customers were YNs, many with their Dads, just as many going solo.
Much more intelligent collectors than I was at that age, politely asking me what I collected and familiar with the varieties within those sets. I think our hobby has a strong future if we support it.

 

While I understand and agree with the sentiment about knowing how to judge coins for yourself, I think the TPG's have brought a good service to the hobby. I feel they have brought more collectors to the hobby and have made long distance commerce that much more reliable.

 

Thank you. Great post. Looks like Canada is mush like the US.

I though more would join this thread but it's been fun learning from those that have.

 

I think we Germans are good at many things, e.g. we make the best cars etc... but the "coin hobby"... don't get me started. Nobody wants to pay for grading services, most collectors don't care if coins have been cleaned or are damaged. They're looking for BARGAINS!!!

My latest experience with a dealer at a coin show went like this:

Mike: Hey I have this AU55 Barber quarter for sale and the sign says you're buying world coins
Dealer: What do ya want for it?
Mike: maybe half of the list price, what do you think?
Dealer: how much is that?
Mike: $120... that's like €100
Dealer: LOL I give you €25 for it
Mike: it's slabbed by NGC and a gem AU coin...? Grading fees were higher than that.
Dealer: I'll crack it out and sell it as UNC - nobody here can tell the difference between high AU and low MS anyway
Mike: thanks, I'll try my luck on eBay then
Dealer: eBay is full of crooks, especially when it's about coins
Mike: you sure must have an eBay store, right? LOL

 

There are certainly coins around with ghosting from heavy stamping the alternate side. Certainly some pennies and sixpences. I'm not sure the these attract much of a premium - if any. I am sure that double die coins exist but I certainly don't have any.