What Is Your Theme Of Coin Collecting?

My main focus, if you can call it a focus, is 20th century world type coin collecting. However, I do dabble in just about everything from banknotes to some date series to exonumia.

I collect mostly classic US coinage and am working on the best type set I can afford at the moment. But I have been known to drool at the sight of a flashy Mexican peso or a Canadian silver too!

I started out collecting old British coins from c1800 to the present day, but I got bored (pre-ebay it was pretty hard to find what you were looking for), and I was only looking for the few remaining expensive key dates - so I ended up collecting world coins by type and have had much more fun :)

I never really thought about my theme. If I had to summarize in one sentence: I like building sets.

Oh yeah , I like to build Erector sets too !

For me I really specialise with coins of my own country New Zealand of all eras.

For world coins - silver has always fascinated me along with change sets (Like one of each coin in current and past use).

I also for some odd reason want date sets of Australian 5c and 10c pieces, GB 5p, 10p and 20p USA Dimes and Quarters and also British coins from 1816 onwards.

But my number one thrust in the whole world of coins is HALFCROWNS

Mostly British ones, but also New Zealand, South Africa, Rhodesia, Ireland and anywhere else that had them. Something about that denomination speaks to me, if you look at all my posts on the How far back can we go thread, the Halfcrown whether NZ or British dominates.

I chose the Halfcrown as so many people collect Crowns, Shillings, Pennies, Quarters, Dimes, Sixpences, Gold etc - but not so many Halfcrowns.



I like the regality of them too, most of them are around crowned coats of arms, lions, heraldic devices, tendrils, ribbons etc. For those not entirely in the know, a Halfcrown was a British sterling coin worth 30 pennies or 2 shillings and 6 pence, and 8 made up a Pound sterling.

In many places and many times, it was the highest face value silver coin (Although periodically the full crown was this). The coins are slightly larger and heavier than an American Half dollar coin.

My second favourite not surprisingly is the Florin (2 shillings).

But for me its definitely all about Half crowns.


New Zealand and British Halfcrowns

My theme is a bit of everything.

British coins - I have a large folder which contains pre-decimal coins and also decimal coins collected from circulation
British Notes - Every single denomination and signature, Treasury notes and a small selection of White notes
American Coins - Folder of USA coinage, nothing spectacular and still missing some of the Presidential dollars
Australian coins - date collection in its own folder
American Notes - A selection of standard american notes, some of the larger sizes and silver certificates, Each denomination and type of fractional note (just missing seated liberty and Lincoln)
World coins - Mainly started from my Grandfathers collection during the war
World notes- Many sets collected from my own travels, then expanded backwards to obsolete notes,
LTNC coinage - several sets of coinage in silver, lots of commemorative and silver bullion
Bullion - Completed 10 types of Full soveriegns and 8 half soveriegns, also some other assorted gold
Ancient - including 36 Greek silver & 12 Bronze, 12 roman and 12 bronze, 12 Chinese, 12 Assorted
Aside from that I have some decent coinage, medieval, USA and British

I also collect other things, particularly watches, antique silver, whistles and anything I find interesting when I trawl antique fairs.