I am digging through some of my old collection bought back in the 70s when I was a teenager. A few of them are marked with unique identifiers. Back then, I thought it was some kind of grading system, but now I read on this board that they (appear to) identify the coins. Most of them start with Y and might end in a lowercase letter. For instance, a West African coin is marked with Y-3, and some Swiss coins are marked Y25a and Y31a. But some start with C, like a German coin (Bavaria) C-193. Or maybe it is an "e" (they are hand written) becuase two coins from Turkey are marked e-207 and e-208. But then to confuse me even more, a couple have two numbers on them. In my German collection, a coin is marked with both Y-538 and J-99. Another is marked Y-84 and J-356. If anyone could help me understand these and point me to where I can research them, I'd be grateful. :high5:
The "Y" numbers were assigned by R.S. Yeoman (Y#) for his Modern World coins and Current Coins of the world. http://www.amazon.com/Modern-World-...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224972807&sr=8-1 Jim
William Craig's "Coins of the World" covered the world coins from 1750 to about 1850. Yeoman's "Modern World Coins" covered 1850-1950 and his "Current Coins of the World" 1950-1976. Krause started with its first Standard Catalog of World Coins in 1972, combining the 2 numbering systems. During the years they changed them in the KM#numbering system, named after Krause and Mischler. Still, for some countries (Russia, some German States,...) they still use the Yeoman or Craig numbering system.
