Nalaberong's Weekly Coin Buys

I ran into some relationship trouble lately, and so, awash with Christmas money and feeling sorry for myself, I decided to buy a huge pile of coins from the store I almost never go to because it's far away.

Total cost was $40, but this includes a $10 gift for a friend that is not being posted here. Don't tell anyone!

The 20-cent trough was full of certain bimetallic coins, which I bought plenty of. Ask me about duplicates! The Dominican coins on the left are scary - the composition is different, but the look, colour and even the edge are almost exactly like the Canadian toonie. 10 pesos, though, is only 25 cents. Imagine the potential horror!

Here's a long-sought-after bimetallic! 50 Taiwanese yuan/dollars/whatever has a face value of $1.79, but this bimetallic coin replaced a small coin similar to the British pound, and it was replaced in turn by a big coin with a lateral image.

All kinds of bimetallics! I was expecting this bin to have been picked clean of them, but no... here they are. The Italian commemoratives on the left are in nice condition.

The oldest coin in the lot, Sweden, 1/2 skilling, 1828. This has been chewed-up and it is probably not even worth a dollar, but it is nearly 200 years old, which is cool!

Many new countries! Bahrain, Estonia, Mauritius, Qatar, Slovakia, Suriname, and Yemen (People's Republic).

EDIT: I also got a coin from Bangladesh that I had misattributed to be from Nepal. So add Bangladesh to that list

This Mauritius coin is shiny and the design has been unchanged since the British colonial era - notice Kruger-Gray's initials. This guy must have designed coins for half the world...

Coins from Central and South America, including a nice Mexican 5-centavo coin from 1944 with a bit of luster to it.

Coins from Europe and thereabouts. I am happy to find a Dutch commemorative, an awkward denomination (Spain, 2.5pts), and the newest Swedish kronor.

The Middle East (and Iran, so this is a bit of an expanded definition).

Turkey: I found five of the older kind of New Lirasi (the latest ones have a brass outer ring and a gray center). Exchange rate is about 50 cents.

Asia and Oceania. Some Thai commemoratives are easier to find than normal Thai coins...

Indian coins, which are fun because most of them have funky security edges. Also, India has a large population, and so the four domestic mints (Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Noida) cannot keep up with the demand. As a result, foreign mints from all over the world are called in - in this picture alone are coins made in Daegu, South Korea, Birmingham, U.K., and Moscow, Russia! Collecting an Indian coin from every mint the country has subcontracted to would be a fun challenge.

This one is a commemorative

A very subtle Croatian commemorative. The design is the same, the only difference is the double-date... so what is it trying to tell us? Why, that it's been 10 years since the introduction of the Croatian kuna in 1994 (although some coins were minted in 1993), of course! Reported mintage is only 30,000 (!), although this may be doubtful.

It makes a nice set with the 1 kuna coin commemorating the 5th anniversary of the kuna in an even more subtle way. Since all circulating Croatian coins depict things that are alive, the text alternates between years - in odd years, we see the Croatian common name, and in even years, we see the full scientific name.

A very nice Hungarian coin. After World War I, Karl of Austria tried to return to the throne of Hungary, but was stymied by threats of war from the victorious Allies and the Hungarian regent, Admiral Miklós Horthy. Karl voluntarily retired from the Austrian throne in 1918 and died in 1922, yet Hungary remained a kingdom with no monarch, just a regent. You can see Miklós on some nice silver 5-pengÅ' crowns, and one cheap aluminum one. Get a load of that radial design - it's pretty much all rays.

A Sri Lankan rupee. I like the text on these.

I found another Saudi riyal to go with my old one... for 20 cents instead of $4. Whoops.

Nepalese coins always look so arcane. This is a very polished, nice design from 2006, meaning that someone must have gone to Nepal fairly recently for this to end up in Edmonton. I hope they had a nice time

This Italian coin has some gunk (old tape?) on it, but it looks really great! While the Third Reich was pumping out nasty occupation zinc, Italy had some pretty attractive WWII coins. The last king of Italy, Umberto II, was appointed in 1946 in a last-ditch attempt to drum up support for an Italian monarchy. It failed, and Umberto was kicked out of the new Italian Republic - the constitution was very harsh about any former monarchs returning to Italy. When he died in 1983, he was refused a burial in Italy, no Italian representative attended his funeral, and he was eventually interred in France. However, the coins of the Italian Republic are equally nice, so no great loss, I guess?

A cool Syrian coin (5 pounds) with a lateral image. Of course, wartime inflation (because who wants to invest in Syria right now?) has made this coin worth only about 5 cents.

Pakistani coins! The aluminum rupee at left replaced a cheapo copper-plated type. These designs are very nice and I hope Pakistan issues some higher-denomination coins one day.

Face value purchases... if you convert it all, it adds up to $27.34. That almost recoups this $30 purchase...

Finally, a non-commemorative Austrian corona. Man! This Austrian silver is nice. I am entertaining the idea of a full set of silver coronas - it would go pretty well with the set I am working on of Austrian schillings.

Until next time... and Happy New Year's!

My personal troubles look resolved, and school's back in, so I headed back to the usual store! I spent $14:

A Victorian farthing in gradable (above G-4) condition! These are a rarity in Canada. Most of the old copper here is worn slick.

Where's Guernsey? It's Jersey's less popular friend, or "That Other Channel Island". There were 8 doubles to one British penny, which is a bit awkward.

And a sweet Austro-Hungarian commemorative! This is Hungarian, celebrating the 1000th anniversary of Hungary's formation... certainly a significant number. It didn't photograph too well, but the design is a killer. A full set of Austrian coronae and Hungarian koronae may be worth pursuing - I've got three so far, two of which are commemorative. The edge lettering is different from its Austrian compatriot, but the size and weight are the exact same. I wonder how much they got mixed around over the border?

Hungary wasn't doing as well in 1942: the pengo experienced the worst inflation ever recorded in 1945, having originally maintained its dignity as a silver coin. The scale of the paper money reached the quintillions! The largest pengo coins to be produced, though, were the aluminum 5-pengo coins, replacing an equally-sized silver crown. They are an interesting blend of overworked, lovely design and cheapo wartime cutbacks.

Nigeria issued a bunch of one-year types in 1959, as it made the transition from East Africa to British Protectorate to Republic. As the most populated country in Africa, mintages are high, but I very much like the coins of 1959: they have the exact specifications of the British coins of that era, but the design is completely changed. This would not be too difficult to complete.

A new country: Indian princely states! There were hundreds... Gwalior was one of the larger ones. This 1/4 anna dates from 1896 and is very thick, completely unlike the British-made 1/4 anna coins made for general circulation. Despite the historical interest and unknown (likely small) mintage numbers, the Indian princely states attract little attention: nobody has time to go through them all! In VG, this books at an extremely affordable $1: this was $1.50 and I don't know how it grades. Definitely interesting enough for a buck and a half.

Another new country: Macedonia! Not much to say here.

South African coins: before and after independence from the U.K. Some British designs were kept. The 1/2 cent is made of brass, not aluminum bronze: this one gives gold a run for its money.

And the rest!

Two things came in the mail yesterday and today, and I went on a little shopping trip (mostly to buy coins to trade off for other ones). Let's start with today's package from numista user erdvilla...


Mexican $20 coins are hard to come by. The $20 bill is used much more frequently, and so these do not get very far from the capital - minting in Mexico is highly centralized. So I was happy to get this release of 2013! It is incredibly new, probably only about 2 months old. These Mexican commemoratives are terribly impressive in this BU condition.

The next shiny, shiny commemorative, this one actually circulated. Looking up the holiday Cinco de Mayo, the event that it celebrates is the same as on the coin: the Battle of Puebla. Actually, more Americans celebrate this date than Mexicans, as May 5 is only a day off work in the two Mexican states of Puebla (of course) and Veracruz - the really important Mexican day of independence would be September 16.

Octavio Paz appears on another $20 coin! This makes two for him (the previous is from 2000, and I already have one). The text "VIENTE PESOS" here looks like it's echoing the curve seen on the long-gone gold $20 coin of Mexico.

This is it - I have every type (all 6) of Mexican $20 coins! Hooray! But the silver and millennium coins were made in more than one year, and the 2001 Octavio Paz $20 is pretty hard to find. Still, lucky me!

Back to the old peso: this commemorates the World Cup, which Mexico hosted in (can you guess?) 1986. This is a nice thick commemorative - unlike the 1985 set of two $200 types, its edge is reeded, not lettered.

Finally, some more coins for my Mexico 2010 set. I tried to pick the more interesting historical figures: Augustín de Iturbide on the left declared himself Emperor of Mexico in 1822, and was executed just 2 years later. Now that's efficient! He left behind a Manifesto to the World in his clothes on the day of his execution by firing squad, and it is actually stained with his blood. Nowadays he is seen as a hero of independence (for the record, it was colonial Spanish forces that led to his downfall). Francisco Villa (nicknamed Pancho) was one of the biggest generals of the Mexican Revolution and we got to see Young Indiana Jones ride with him on TV. All of these guys are pretty interesting!

The rest is going to go into another post because there is too much to fit into one...

Here's what came on Tuesday from Numista user donmart! I also went to the store, but that was mostly to buy Canadian large cents to trade off for Imperial Russian 1, 2, and 3 kopek coins. Hopefully you'll see those in an upcoming post.

Three Tunisian dinars. These coins have really circulated, and the girl has survived all kinds of upheavals... on the oldest coin, we see Habib Bourguiba (deposed 1987), then we see a map of Tunisia, then the Tunisian arms (under President Ben Ali, deposed 2011). The latest post-revolution dinars of 2013 still bear the design of the girl in the field!

And a Tunisian half dinar, made in 2011, probably after Ben Ali left in January 2011.

Socialist Romanian coins. The 3 lei coin depicts the largest illegal still in the country (citation not needed).

Spain, 200 pesetas: a commemorative! I like the incuse design, it reminds me of the British cartwheel penny.

A new country... Kyrgyzstan.

Reichpfennig from Vienna (except the copper one). It's strange to see pre-war Third Reich coins made of reasonable metals, not just zinc.

Both these coins were made in Austria. The earliest post-war groschen were made of overstruck reichpfennigs... 1 groschen vanished a few years later, 2 groschen became aluminum, and 10 groschen also became aluminum, but 5 groschen was made of zinc until the Euro introduction: so it's likely that Nazi-era coins circulated in Austria for decades. Spooky.

Not a millionaire... but close. "Bin" means "thousand" in Turkish. Sadly, six zeros were removed from the Turkish lira recently and the currency is no longer ridiculously inflated.

Slovakia, the Czech Republic's estranged sibling. They both use the koruna (until Slovakia switched to the Euro).

The mix I got at the store, including a very squished quarter. I'm probably going to drop it in an envelope as a freebee.

I didn't buy anything today, but I did open up the SDB in order to photograph and re-holder this:

Austria, 1 ducat (trade coinage), 1915 restrike

This is the most valuable coin I own - two of them were a gift from my grandfather when I was baptized. The story behind them is apparently very strange, with post-war turmoil, a family feud, a rich aunt, and more, but I haven't heard it in full. This coin was almost certainly made after 1915 and is a restrike with little value over melt, but I think it's much, much nicer than any modern gold bullion coin... although the weight is not "standard".

If you're dying to know what Franz (commonly anglicized to Francis until World War I, when it became more politically appropriate to make him sound more German) Joseph's full title is and which parts of it are shown in the bundle of Latin abbreviations up there...



After a little while, the lesser possessions peter out, but most of the big stuff is there: nowadays these areas are part of at least a dozen countries.

awesome coin and I like the stamp it's cool as well

Today seemed like a good day to visit the local sleazy gold-buyin' shop. They are now trading in Bitcoin so I hope they manage to stay in business... because look what they sold to me today!!

First I asked to see "other foreign silver", not wanting to see the coins they've already put into 2x2s and overpriced. I got to see a little stack manhandled onto the table (each coin, yes, held by the face!!) and these coins were "5 to 10 dollars each". A worn-out Swiss franc, a blotchy Dutch gulden, a slick sixpence... two German-states 3 marks?!



A little noise went "ding ding ding" in my head and I was worried my eyes were going to light up. That's Prussia, 3 marks, 1910, and Saxony, 3 marks, 1913 (commemorating the Battle of Leipzig). $10 each... I had to postpone the evil laugh until I was walking away from the store (bare-minimum melt value is $10.93, numismatic value is at least $20). The only sad part is contemplating what they must have bought these for, considering most of their world coins are brought in by "little old ladies"...


Four picks from the 50-cent bin. Apparently only one other person ever goes through this little pile. Here's a cash (I think the emperor is Kao Tsung, 1736 - 1795, let me know if I'm right or wrong): it's in much nicer condition than what you typically see.


A new shield pound, the first one I've seen


And my second commemorative British coin! My other one is a boring old EEC clasped-hands 50p. This one is much snazzier... the UK is the only country that does good, wordy English commemoratives. American coins have too much on them to begin with so there's no room to put any extra text, and Canadian coins must be bilingual so space fills up fast.


Pakistani paisa, in very nice condition. The first Indian Republic patterns incorporated Hindi, English, and Urdu, but Urdu was dropped from the roster for the actual circulation strikes as Urdu-speaking Pakistan was no longer along for the ride. Inversely, the Hindi-style (not sure of the actual language, sorry) script on this coin hung around for a couple more years before disappearing as well: pretty fitting for how the two countries split apart.