Any coin collectors on the forum?

[AlbertD]

I started collecting coins when I was a wee lad in about 1973 or 74. I started collecting US Buffalo Nickels, Lincoln cents and whatever my little allowance would buy. Back then you could still find Buffalo nickels and Indian cents in bank rolls. Once my parents saw I was sticking with it they gave me a box of old coins. There were Morgan dollars, Walking Liberty and Franklin half dollars and other stuff. I have stuck with it all these years and still love it.

 

My main interest now in Medieval European and Age of Exploration coins. I seem to concentrate on British,  French and Germanic coins with some others thrown in.

 

Here is a British silver penny of Athelred II 978-1013. The marks on the back are called peck marks. These coins were used as tribute to the Vikings and they pecked them with the tip of a knife to  make sure they were silver all the way through.

Edited October 23, 2020 by AlbertD

[Lee White]

I know nothing about coin collecting, but I had a friend when I was a kid whose dad collected coins. I remember him showing me a dime with 2 D's on it instead of 1, from the Denver mint. No idea of value.

[AlbertD]

10 minutes ago, Lee White said:

I know nothing about coin collecting, but I had a friend when I was a kid whose dad collected coins. I remember him showing me a dime with 2 D's on it instead of 1, from the Denver mint. No idea of value.

I don't collect error coins but I know that is a documented error and has value. Probably less than $100 but a non error version would be less than $10.

[LSP_Ray]

Nice! I have a small collection. Have a few Boudica-era coins, and some early Russian stuff: silver wire Kopecks and some Catherine the Great era stuff and a mix of other stuff. Also have like 60 Soviet post-WWII coins commemorating tanks of wwii, each coin having a different tank on it.

[Rick Griewski]

The tank coins sound interesting. 

[LSP_K2]

Not a collector, as such, but I do have a few interesting coins here, mostly NGC graded/slabbed stuff, such as this dime, for example, given to me as a gift a few years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AlbertD]

18 minutes ago, Jennings Heilig said:

I used to be much more active in it than I am now.  I occasionally still dabble - I purchased two Roman coins when I was in Portugal last year.  Things like that, that (if they could only talk) would have amazing stories to tell fascinate me much more than pristine proofs that have never been touched by a human hand.  I have a modest collection of British small farthings that are all circulated or AU condition - I think about all the hands they passed through and the things they may have been used to buy.  That silver penny is absolutely cool!

I have some silver British shillings that would have been in circulation during WWII. I read that the British government had a shilling drive to build Spitfire and I thought that was really cool. That's what I love too isn't he history. The what did it buy and who handled it. I have a Queen Elizabeth I shilling that has documented provenance to the John Quincy Adams collection. Julie Caesar was also a coin collector.

[BiggTim]

I dabble. I'd like to do more though. Especially metal detecting. 

[nmayhew]

i used to work in the industry as a dealer (family business)

 

very interesting and sometimes very shady

 

Greek and Italian governments have been campaigning for years to ban the trade in ancient coins, and laws changed some years ago in the US too

it's a shame because it just drives the trade underground, and doesn't affect anything already out there anyway (unless things have changed - I am a little out of touch)

 

London is still one of the principal centres although most of the new material (ancient) comes into Europe through Munich, where for instance travel from Afghanistan is much easier

 

 

[ScottsGT]

When Mom passed she left Dad's collection to my son.  Nothing special or hard to find, just stuff they paid 4X too much for on HSN & QVC.  Lots of liberty silver dollars, state quarters and a tobacco can full of coins from around the world when Dad was in the USAF. 

Mom had some strange reasoning.  She was spending money like a drunken sailor on shore leave on trinkets and crap that will just be donated now.  But then she worried about having to have money before she died and clung onto the coin collection like it was highly valuable.  Honestly, it's worth maybe $400 at most.  She probably spent $2K buying it all.