Nalaberong's Weekly Coin Buys

More fun pick-ups.

How's your conscience buying from a sleazy gold-buying place? Sleep okay? What's your secret? I don't mean to put you on the spot and you don't have to respond to me if you don't want. Just be aware of the people with whom you do business. I sever ties quick once I figure out somebody is a cheat.

I also find these places a little creepy, so I commend you for your bravery. It is a worthy cause.

OK, I think I've officially exhausted my local store's junk coin bin. This was all I dug out for $1.25...

Even uncirculated, German pfennigs from the 90s cost like 5 cents. They might win the "least desirable coin ever" award - even on Numista they have a rarity rating of 4/100 (I have yet to spot another this low)... and even the French franc on a website full of French users gets 5/100.

But hey, I got two banknotes out of the $1 banknote box! Worn banknotes are not my thing, but you can get a whole variety of strange countries/provinces that never issued coins with them (Republika Sprska, CSA, my native Alberta...) so I pick up the more interesting ones. Sadly they are probably not even worth $1... but they are neat!


The Austral was a short-lived Argentine currency in the 90s. Tucuman Province ("Garden of the Republic") issued this provincial Austral... and look, it has fine print! Any bill with incredibly complex fine print is a winner to me, plus it's crisp and new (it probably became worthless within weeks).

Israeli fractional currency from 1952, this worn-out note is worth 50 prutah (0.05 pound/lirot/whatever). It's very crudely made, which makes it charming: Israel has a history of incredibly slipshod printed items. Its first postage stamps were drawn up and printed within 24 hours of the announcement of a Jewish state in the British Mandate of Palestine... they were completed before the new state actually chose a name for itself, so the stamps just read the generic "Hebrew Post" (in Hebrew, of course). This might have some value to it but I doubt it.

I got to go for an extremely short visit at the distant coin store with a giant trough of 20c world coins! I needed to grab some Canadian silver dollars because people from all nations love them and they are great to trade off, so $30 got me 2 plus some very quick picks from the world coin bin.

Exhibit A: 1967 dollar. It's probably better than my old one. One of them is (hopefully) going to go off to Romania for some silver leu coins, a silver peseta, and more.

Exhibit B: Proof-like 1964 dollar still in original Mint cello-wrap! I cut it out because the wrap was scratched-up and you couldn't see the coin very well. Any day where you can find a proof-like silver dollar for melt value is a good day.

Some cool world coins. Most interesting is the Czechoslovak 5 koruny coin. My grandparents visited Czechoslovakia in the very early 90s as the country was just beginning to dismantle communism, and they crossed the long-closed border with Austria via car. What my grandmother remembered the most, along the border, were "miles and miles of rusty, tipped-over power pylons"... they had never been installed and were just rotting in place. The rest of the country was the same way - lavish hotels that hadn't been touched for decades suddenly being dusted out and re-opened for tourists... rotting mechanisms from the pre-Communist days being rediscovered and repurposed. So I thought it was interesting that such power pylons, which seemed to my grandparents like the very symbol of Communist desolation, were featured so prominently on this coin.

Blew $12.50 at the suspect gold-buying store. I probably won't visit for a while... world coin stock is thin on the ground and the atmosphere is freaky. They will be at an upcoming Bitcoin show... what could be more exciting?



Two Newfie coins for $10. The fifth dollar was probably overpriced at $6, but the dime is at least XF which recoups the whole $10 at least.

Five world coins, one new country (Seychelles, 1 cent). The Tonga coin had PVC on it but I removed most of it... the cash is probably the same as my other old cash... and the Indonesian coin is neat but near-worthless. They know nothing! An Australian dollar was considered "small" for 50 cents. An Australian half dollar was considered "large" for $2.25! They literally price by the physical size of the coin!! Sadly, British Pounds are exempt from this rule.

Look what came in the mail today! I had been hoping these would arrive before the opening ceremonies of Sochi 2014, and lo and behold, they have. So the post office does have a sense of dramatic timing. Thank you Numista member moi_dela_horowo



Three Russian coppers - two are in miserable condition. 1k has scratches and 3k has been vinegared (it has that tell-tale salmon colour), but 2k is intact and lovely. Oh well. This was the only part of this package that was an unpleasant surprise - the 3k coin's colour looks much better to the lens than the eye.

Bulgaria, 20 stotinki, 1912. An interesting old coin from the era of the Balkan monarchies (although this coin was actually issued by Bulgaria as an Ottoman principality - an independent Kingdom of Bulgaria would pop out of the crumbling Ottoman Empire after WWI). Some countries, in their quest to find a legitimate royal, got a younger brother shipped in from somewhere in Germany. Carol I of Romania didn't even speak Romanian when he got off the train from Prussia, but he learned quickly and even managed to endear himself to his people in a very long and apparently enlightened reign. I am hoping to find one of him soon as well.

Kazakhstani commemoratives, each one with a city's arms on it. These are lovely coins - Kazakhstani heraldry seems to be very diverse and nice to look at.

A world coin mix, filling in some European and other coins I am missing. There are also some new Euros and a tiny, tiny aluminum Spanish peseta.

Yuri Gagarin on a 10-ruble coin. I already have the 2-ruble coin with the same design so this finishes a set for me!

Modern Russian commemoratives!! I accidentally asked for two of the Battle of Stalingrad series but was too polite to opt out. Oh well, everyone loves duplicate coins. My favourites are the ones that don't come from the endless series of Components of the Russian Federation - 20th anniversary of the Russian Constitution and two coins commemorating the Universiade Games in Kazan. I also have the commemorative silver dollar from when these Games came to my city, and the Serbian commemorative for the Universiade in Belgrade. Along with the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games, these lesser-known sporting events lead to tons of commemoratives that don't get nearly as much attention as Olympic coins.


I have completed the 25-ruble coin set! Well... by type. I lost my previous 2011 coin somehow so it's replaced, and I also grabbed the 2014 type that was released after my last swap with Russia. These are awesome commemoratives.

I also traded for an excellent commemorative banknote. Because this note lacks the "EURion constellation" anti-scanning feature, it is very easy to make high-quality scans of this note. I have thought ahead and defaced my images. Feel free to zoom in on the really ornate fine details, this is a fantastic note (the tiny 2014s are essentially invisible to the human eye - take a look at all the sports scenes in the diamonds and see).

OK, time to start catching up...

Last Wednesday, I bought a lot of coins, most of which I intend to trade away.

The latest $20 for $20 with Russian coins for scale.

Australian dollar in coin-card, this design was not a circulation issue.

From the 20-cent bucket... I have a real pile of high-face-value Scandinavian coins. Canadian dollar value is $5.40, so not bad for 60 cents.

I struck silver!! It's because I went to a different store. 6 silver finds... this might be a new record for me, hooray!

A boring mix. It occurs to me that Canada might be the best place in the world to find Cuban coins in.

Another pretty boring mix. I have way too many 500-peseta coins, they can be converted to about 3 euros each until 2020. Is anyone going to Spain?

More interesting world coins. The Brazilian coin has an interesting edge pattern, it's repeatedly scored like the 20 euro cent coin is.

A new country - Swaziland!

I also got two fairly boring proof sets.