Nalaberong's Weekly Coin Buys

More fun and affordable stuff!

Oh wow , I love the bimetallic coins !
That 1997 Dominican republic coins so reminds me of some our coins here - its gorgeous

Something came in the mail! Actually, two things did!

Thank you to Numista members pegasus and Andrey1976, who made today's update possible. My coins have already safely landed in Panama, but Russia is taking longer... hopefully it is inefficiency at work, not corruption.

Let's start!

From a distance, these could be mistaken for an Ike dollar, a Kennedy half, and a Washington quarter. But they are all balboa-denominated coins from that little Central American isthmus, Panama. They are also all commemorative designs.

The balboa celebrates the Panama Canal being handed over to Panama proper, which took place almost a hundred years after it was built... so it was about time. But since it's a big coin, there was also room to commemorate the new millennium and the presidency of Mireya Moscoso. Its mintage is just 348,000, making it rarer than any single Eisenhower dollar, NIFC or otherwise, and yes, it is the same size:


The half dollar is part of the "Panama Viejo" (Old Panama) series. Silver-poor Panama had a tiny mint built in 1580, only authorized to produce small denominations. The mint was audited in 1583, some shady behaviour was found regarding how the silver was acquired, and the mint was never heard from again, the wooden building being burned to the ground during a pirate attack. Today, only 43 cobs from this mint are known, and it almost passed out of history: for a long time, the "AP" mint-mark was thought to stand for "Alto Peru" (Upper Peru)! Most interestingly, the design on this half balboa features "ii" for the denomination... 2 bits. This would make it a quarter balboa, not a half balboa! I don't know who to believe. Here's one of the cobs it's based on:


As for the quarter balboa... it was made in Winnipeg, so it's good to have it back home. There are others in this series, but I don't have them yet.


Here are the other Panamanian coins I received. I didn't ask for the centesimo, but it was a nice bonus... 99 more and I'll have a dollar As for the bimetallic Balboa... Panama decided to make a more distinctive dollar coin than the United States, so these bimetallic beauties are rolling off the presses in 1 and 2 balboa denominations. The 1 balboa coin is the exact same size as the American small dollar, but the edge has 2 sections with reeding (a first for me... normally you see a lot more than that) and the lettering "PANAMA 1 BALBOA", which looks suspiciously like the latest Canadian toonies' "CANADA 2 DOLLARS". This is a much nicer coin, and much more interesting, than the American golden dollars!

On to Russia!!


What's this thing taped to the rest of the coins I got?


Why, it's a folder for the Russian War of 1812 coins! Fair is fair - I did the same thing for the Canadian War of 1812 coins. How are these wars related? Napoleon was invading Russia in 1812 (and he failed! The Russians burned down Moscow out of sheer bloody-mindedness), and so the UK was focusing its attention on Europe... so the United States decided the time was ripe to take over British North America. They lost


The Sochi 2014 25-ruble coins. Krause prices the 2011 issue at $40.00 so I am starting to doubt Krause's infallibility . Just a week after I sent everything in the mail, the fourth Sochi 2014 coin was released...


The non-Russian or non-coins I got: Latvian 1 lats, which has less than a month left to live before Euro replacement (face value is almost exactly $2.00), and a St. Petersburg subway token. It looks almost exactly like the Moscow token! I think Russian subway systems are nationalized, or this Metro symbol is instantly recognizable across the country.


Here's a Soviet ruble. I've finally broken out of the easiest "Common Three" rubles (1965 WWII, 1967 50 Years of USSR, 1970 Lenin Centennial), which are all you can easily find in Canada, although this one is not so rare. It is also the first commemorative Soviet ruble to be made of straight copper-nickel... the Common Three have a bit of zinc in them and they're a bit yellow.


I'm just 1 coin away from finishing this set (until 2015, probably): Russian/Soviet WWII commemoratives! How many years has it been since 1945? Russia doesn't want you to forget.


These 2-ruble coins commemorate the Soviet Union's Hero Cities... or... the ones that still lie in Russia today. I still have two to go (Tula, Novorossiysk), but Yuri Gagarin (40 years since he went to space) is here to comfort me.


Monometallic 10-ruble commemoratives. The far-right one has been lightly wirebrushed! That's it... next time I see a wirebrush it's going in the trash. However, it is not the rarest of Russian coins, and I'm sure I have room for it in my pocket. The middle one (50 years since Yuri went to space) is very nice.


And the bimetallic 10-ruble commemoratives, including the WWII one you already saw. These are very nice, but there are so many of them I'd have a hard time finding them all, especially some of the latest bimetallic ones (they can't change to the cheaper monometallic type midway through a certain series, so instead they are cutting costs by making very few of the bimetallic coins).


And we end with four kopeks, because I think such a worthless coin is cute, and one of the very last coins of the USSR.

Thanks for reading!

I went to the store today anyway, spending $7 (but I was also short-changed $3... )

First, the new quarters:

8 are going to Mexico and the other 4 are filling in my folder. The ones I ordered from the Mint are still in the mail.


It was a good day for OFEC: Cayman Islands, Kazakhstan, Monaco and Mongolia.


Some of the mix I got. Those two Egyptian pounds from last week had been tossed into the cheap bin... so I grabbed them. Patience pays off :P


And some world (ok, world and Newfoundland) silver! Sometimes the silver bins are full... other times they're emptied by speculators. Today they were full, so I grabbed these two little coins.

OK, this is the end of this week's buying spree, but I headed to the far-away coin store today and spent $9. Next week I'll have to abstain from buying anything.


$5 went into this, because it looked like a good deal.


Plus, it's much nicer and shinier (for $5) than a real predecimal Australian shilling.


There was a 20-cent bin... let the games begin. The 2 10-kronor coins here recouped $3.28 in exchange rate... everything else is just a bonus.


Brunei coins are fairly tough, and there's some Cyprus in here too. This makes 2 coins featuring sheep that I bought today...

...I lied! Opportunity knocked today... I had to wait for about half an hour in the vicinity of the shady local coin shop I try to avoid, because the silver prices are high and the world coins are expensive (50 cents each, unless they arbitrarily decide to bump one or two up to $2.25). Luckily, the creepy owner himself was out for lunch. The following cost $8.00, 50 cents per coin, so I had to pick out the best ones.


A nice Swedish ore! I can't spot any significant wear on it.


This is one of the first coins issued by the Irish Free State. Sadly, it's nickel, not silver.


These are nice to find for under $1, and they have a certain amount of charm.


Today was a good day for OFEC... 5 new coin-issuing bodies! Aruba, Falkland Islands, Reunion, Samoa, and South Arabia. I am currently at 169 countries (ok, they are not all countries).


Three uncirculated Thai bahts. I really like these commemoratives, and they are in very good condition. I'd like to go for the whole set of bahts, because catalog value is low and there is a huge variety of commemoratives.


The other four I got today... the Belgian coin was probably not worth it, but the other three are very shiny and nice.

More bad news... tomorrow, destiny brings me to yet another coin store I don't often visit!! I made $20 today by painting, so at least I'm not overspending :I

All right! That's all. Posting every day for a week gives me a headache. Today, I got to ride the bus all the way to West Edmonton Mall, which meant West Edmonton Coin and Stamp (and tons of other crap). I don't recommend this store: they know that West Edmonton Mall is essentially a constant flow of idiots and everything is priced significantly above catalog, because if you don't buy it, someone eventually will. Even the mixed world coin bucket is 25c each and thoroughly picked-over, but $9 got me the following:


Israeli new shekels! The exchange rate is 30.3 cents Canadian, so I pick them out of 20 and 25 cent bins on principle. Unfortunately, this has led to me owning a literal pile of shekels. I am the proud owner of ₪45, exchange value $13.65:



1968 is the rarer date of this two-year type, and it's always good to have duplicates (especially now that I've got my Secret Santa assignment... but no promises that this, or anything else in this thread, will be sent!). Speaking of Cuba...


This piece of play money is from a fairly well-known firm, but the plot thickens... it has a crude rendition of the Cuban arms on it! This may not have been intentional, but it makes you wonder what the significance was (maybe the company's logo was very similar?).


Two tokens. The left tax token is probably plastic, because it's light and doesn't feel like metal.


Hey! Another nearly unrecognizable Shield nickel. I have no idea if the side with the 5 on it is the right way up or not. Nice to find, though.


Two Belgian coins. The 25-cent one may not have been worth buying, but it co-existed with 20 and 50 cent coins, which is interesting (and it was eventually discontinued). Albert II did not issue too many coins before the Euro changeover, so I like finding them.


Back to the Eastern Bloc: the brass East German 20-pfennig coin (inexplicably, 50pf, 1m and 2m are all cheaper aluminum despite having a higher face value), a Bulgarian coin, and two Yugoslavian dinars. The last coins of Yugoslavia are the same size of the Serbian coins that replaced them in Serbia, so they still circulate there (but these are not them).


Netherlands and Aruba again.


Here's Asia! I finally got some South Korean hwan coinage and some Japanese sen coinage. This one is very shiny; apparently it is tin-zinc.


An old holed coin. The 100-reis before it were silver, and the 100-reis after it were silver, and lucky me: I found the only year of the whole lot made out of copper-nickel...


The rest, including the first Algerian dinar, a beat-up Italian coin, a Markka I've been looking for, and an older Maltese coin.


In the 2x2s were more commemorative bahts. I am trying for the full set, so I was glad to find them for $1 each... but Krause puts them at 50 cents! I realized that every world coin in that store was overpriced by at least 2x over catalog value!! Don't go there.


The stores closed, but Galaxyland didn't and we had to wait around for a little bit. After 10, they start intermittently playing this terrifying, jangly discordant music, which I assume clears out the mall rats. It got progressively creepier as we waited - I can only assume that by 1 A.M., the only thing coming through the sound system is loud static punctuated by the occasional blood-curdling scream. I hunted around the edges of the fountains, because if your coin doesn't even land in the water, you've had your chance! And it paid off, as I found this shiny new Arctic quarter - the first one I've seen in the wild.

Anyway, I guess this is a warning: you won't find very many good deals at West Edmonton Coin and Stamp at the coin counter, maybe because the store also doubles as a toy/merchandise/plastic collectibles store and there's a constant flow of drunk or well-meaning people in West Ed to rip off. Besides, it was -30 Celsius without wind-chill last night and we left our coats in the car: after dislodging the door, the coats were frozen almost rigid. It took 10 minutes with the heater on full blast to stop our breath from fogging up inside the car...