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 Replies: 40 / Views: 5,231 |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
36800 Posts |
All coins are a little piece of history. Enjoy them for what they are as not all times were happy.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10038 Posts |
I can understand where you are coming from with certain coins bringing unpleasant thoughts. I also visited Dachuau and it changed my life. You can read history about the horrible things that mankind can stoop to, but walking where those people walked makes the history more cemented into your mind. I was unbelievably moved inside when I was abe to freely walk out the front gate that so many people had wished for the opportunity to do, but instead were tortured and slaughtered.
And although the Civil War was horrible, the evil behind the concentration camps was, to me, infinitely more evil.
The same goes for Soviet coinage, having personally been friends from families who fled the communist regime, and hearing their horror stories firsthand makes it hard for me to want these.
The insane amount of murdered peoples in communist regimes (and still being murdered/persecuted) leaves such a bad taste in my mouth that its hard to not think of this. And seeing current events happening around me makes it all the more difficult.
But this is just my own personal feeling - not science. There is no real right or wrong here. Just opinions concerning what feelings are stirred when a person sees these.
I believe that closer to the end of WWII, most people in the civilized world would have definitely not had a desire to own ANYTHING Nazi related since it reminded everyone of how low man is capable of going. But as time marches on, "heals all wounds," and first hand encounters are not the norm, the nostalgia of historic artifacts becomes more and more appealing.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
To me a coin is just a coin. If old enough, possibly lots of history that could go along with them Some good, some average, some OK, etc. I never even thought about anything bad, scarry, horrors, etc that could go along with a coin.
If anyone stops to think of all the bad things that could go along with a coin, possibly just would have to give up the hobby. A coin could have been handled by Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, Hitler, John Wilkes Booth and maybe Dommer. If you think of all the serial killers, robbers, rapist, terrorist, etc. that may have handled your coins, what does that do to the coin?
Then too you could sit and think of all the great people that could have handled you coins and possibly some of that greatness could rub off on you.
Almost all of my relatives were sort of exterminated during WW2, should I never collect a coin from that time in History? No, They are only coins and had nothing to do with the War.
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Valued Member
Canada
306 Posts |
One of the fascinating things about old coins is thinking about what they could have bought when new. Coins that have minimal face value now like a nickel or penny actually could buy things. That Standing Liberty quarter will buy a gumball today (don't do it though) but in the depression it would be nearly $5. They also are remnants of a part of history and that history was not always good. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1227 Posts |
Hm. An interesting topic. I own coins from the Civil War, Nazi Germany, the WWII era in general, Soviet-occupied Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, and modern-day Israel (without taking sides, I'm just going to say that what's going on in that couple of hundred square miles of land is a travesty). Of these, the only one that gives me that funny "I'm really not sure I want this" feeling in the pit of my stomach is the Nazi one-pfennig, which was a gift from someone here on the forum. I've been tempted to send it to the Holocaust Museum as a donation, because I honestly think if I traded it for something else I'd feel weird about the coin I traded it for, too. (It's probably, no, actually, certainly significant here that a large chunk of my family--the portion I happen to be staying with right now in fact--is Jewish.) But, I have varying levels of feeling about the other coins--Soviet coins don't horrify me that way. Israeli coins disturb me, but not to the point where I twitch and toss them to the bottom of the box. And when I look at the IHC, the only negative I feel is sadness that our country seriously had to come to that to do something that's plain old common sense. (And I'm rather connected to the Civil War--http://dmna.ny.gov/historic/reghist/civil/cavalry/9thCav/9thCavPersonMason.htm That guy on the right? If I got all the records right--which I will admit is iffy, because I know little-to-nothing about that side of my family--he's my ancestor.) |
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
548 Posts |
I've got coins from Franco's Spain, South Africa under Apartheid and Palestine in 1939. None of them make me feel melancholy, quite the contrary. They are pieces of history that will survive when memories have faded.
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Valued Member
Canada
178 Posts |
As a humerous tangent to this thread, when I first started coming to this site and saw people refer to "darkside" coins, I always thought they meant coins like the ones being discussed here. Nazi coins, Soviet coins, coins from evil regimes. It was like a year later I finally figured out that darkside coins are any foreign coins. I like my definition better!
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
548 Posts |
I don't consider many western democracies to have a "darkside", certainly not the likes of Canada or the USA. We've been lucky.
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Valued Member
United States
82 Posts |
Part of the interest in coin collecting is history and asking yourself (or your newly acquired coin) where have you been and what have you seen? We will never know but sure interesting to wonder!
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Valued Member
United States
449 Posts |
Quote:
I also would like to walk the beaches at Normandy. Closest I've ever come was walking through what's left of The Alamo in San Antonio Texas.
also the the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor, going to the spot where 1100 american sailors were lost and entombed, is as moving as anything. Quote:
A coin could have been handled by Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, Hitler, John Wilkes Booth and maybe Dommer. If you think of all the serial killers, robbers, rapist, terrorist, etc just about any coin of any year could be tainted just look at the last 12 years... viginia tech massacre, aurora colorado, newtown pa, 9/11. I'm sure we have all handled coins that have been touched by people involved or atleast traveled through those cities. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1227 Posts |
If we're talking about moving places, you should visit the Holocaust Museum in DC. I don't think I've ever cried so hard for so many people I will never get the chance to know. Pro tip (my mom was a teacher and did a yearly trip to DC; I've been to the museum three times, I should know), take a box of Kleenex with you. Not one of these stupid little pocket packs, either. You'll run out.
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
548 Posts |
If you think a Holocaust Museum is upsetting I dread to think how you would handle a visit to Auschwitz. That is a sad place indeed.
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
3831 Posts |
If you have a conscious about this, this will apply to every single coin that you have.
Imagine how many people have died mining minerals from the earth? Underground mining - roofs collapsing on them. Imagine how many people die from breathing poisonous fumes when extracting impurities. The list goes on.
I personally dislike gold for this matter - I consider gold as a blood metal and do not own much myself. Appearently one of the professors that I remember quoted that 17 men die from mining 1 ton of gold and this is from mining alone - does not include extraction, transportation etc. Needless to say, the figure was a lot higher during WWII.
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Valued Member
United States
169 Posts |
some of the 1795 Washington series liberty security cents have a lettered edge that reads-an asylum for the oppressed of all nations- makes you wonder how life was for many in that period
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
548 Posts |
Imagine how many people have died mining minerals from the earth? Underground mining - roofs collapsing on them. Imagine how many people die from breathing poisonous fumes when extracting impurities. The list goes on.
I personally dislike gold for this matter - I consider gold as a blood metal and do not own much myself. Appearently one of the professors that I remember quoted that 17 men die from mining 1 ton of gold and this is from mining alone - does not include extraction, transportation etc. Needless to say, the figure was a lot higher during WWII.
I don't accept that line of reasoning at all. Gold is fungible and as such the gold that goes into making coins can be from anywhere. It could come from the crown of a Pharoah, or from a ring worn by George Washington, or from a mine in Wales with an exemplary safety record.
No point feeling guilty about gold because ultimately it's impossible to say where it comes from and who might have suffered to bring it to us.
Diamonds are a different story...
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Replies: 40 / Views: 5,231 |
First Page
Posted 03/03/2013 8:29 pm
