world coins

just the opposite over here, we tend to get a plethora of US cents and minor denominations lumped in the bargain boxes, i got 50 wheat cents for just £3 including a 1943 steelie..

 

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Where are they selling Japanese 100 yen coins for 6/$1.00?
I'll gladly buy their whole hoard for that price!

 

Maybe, what can you tell me about them? How old, any history, scarcity, any varieties, references, price range? I will tell you that I don't have much interest in modern material but I do find things like the early 18th century brass spade guinea game counters interesting. They are old, some of them are rare, there are over 1000 varieties, they are base metal and were never legal tender, and there is a standard reference on them. And for the most part they are cheap.

Most any US dealers foreign junk box. I know when I worked in a shop anything that didn't catalog over at least $2 we threw in the quarter box.

 

I find the best and worst thing that every happened to US coin collecting was the Red Book. It is wonderful to have so much info right in a tidy book. Because of its popularity, and the US's relative world isolation geographically, US collectors have never really cared for world coins. Go to almost any show here and 95% of the coins for sale are US coins.

I commented to Harlan Berk at the CICF once how many US ancient collectors there were. He looked at me and said AT MOST 10% of the ancient collectors in the world are from the US. We are a very distinctive minority. I could make an excuse that its because they aren't found here, but I think the real answer is US collectors by either nature or training are very UScentric in their collecting habits. Its not secret that US coins are probably the most overvalued coins in the world considering rarity. I love my old US holdings, but prefer to move on to more expansive pastures. For others who do too, have very easy pickings here as others have posted about.

 

I've been collecting, on and off, for almost 19 years. I began with US Coinage because it was the easiest to buy. At least it was when I first started. So the bulk of my collection is US coins but over the years I have expanded to other countries. The internet has made it easier to buy foreign coins but it's still easier, obviously, to buy US coins and no need to worry about foreign exchange rates if you want to buy a Euro coin for example or a British coin There are local providers that sell foreign coins so the exchange rates are not always an issue but not too many dealers do so sometimes I have to go through the foreign mints directly like the Royal Canadian Mint, the Royal Mint (GB), etc.

 

I'm at work but here's a couple!! A 1980 silver onza and a Y2k coin from Liberia and one of that country's handfull that are actually .999 silver. Both are silver with poor lighting!! :thumb:

 

Most of the tokens seem to be contemporary Japanese pieces, with a couple of casino tokens from Sheraton Walker Hill in Seoul, South Korea. I also have two or 3 of the brass spade guinea tokens, at least one appears to be gilt.

OK, one of the brass English tokens is dated 1777 is appears to be farthing-sized with no discernible gilt. The obverse legend is "Georgius III Dei Gratia" while the reverse is a jumble that apparently simulates the legends of contemporary British coins-- "MBFETHREXFDBETLDSRIATETE"-- which I assume stands in part for "King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith" but do not know what the remainder means.

The gilt coin is guinea-sized, dated 1797, and also contains the obverse legend "Georgius III Dei Gratia". The reverse is a spade guinea design which is surrounded by the legend "In Memory of the Good Old Days"

The local dealer in my hometown in the US knows the value of Japanese money and he would never throw a 100-yen coin into a junk box! I would love to visit a shop and see a boxful of 100-yen coins being sold for a quarter each!

 

It's the law of supply and demand. US coins might have higher mintages in some cases, but more collectors want them than the more esoteric (for an American collector) foreign pieces. Also, caches of ancient coins are constantly being dug up in the Mediterranean area, so it's hard to know just what is rare and what isn't among ancient coins. Also, there are no mintage figures and no dates for the ancient pieces, so they're hard for the average non-ancient collector to identify.

 

Yep those are spade guinea tokens. Like I said there are over a thousand varieties.