My Sunday Market Finds

CoinCollector2012: I think it's the same for all of Scandinavia (according to my experience, at least. Please feel free to correct me). American coins are pretty easy to find here. However, slabbed coins by American TPGs aren't. Also, good quality, like the coin X2an posted, usually doesn't come that cheap. I have bought a Morgan dollar at about the same price, but it doesn't look that good. But then, usually such coins are sold at regular coin shops, not market stands. .

Today started out as a rainy day and it essentially kept on raining the whole day. Needless to say I skipped the disappointment of soaked, lone sellers on today's market. Strange, since yesterday was like an oven outside. I rarely experience extreme heat (anything above 22°C), and with shining sun, it's almost unbearable.

Let's hope for the better next week, happy to see lots of interest in this little coin hunting scheme I do.

Today I was in Stockholm and just 2 streets away from Høtorget was my hotel. Despite X2an telling me there's nothing there on weekdays, I sure wanted to see for myself (stubborn and yet optimistic, I guess). X2an is completely right. There were loads of people around, but just 11 stands: 3 for flowers, 4 for fruit and vegetables, 2 for cell phone and general junk and 2 with shoes and clothing. Not a single coin in sight. Literally, as all merchants explicitly encourage their customers to pay with plastic. I'm not disappointed, as I had a little meeting agreed elsewhere where I got hold of some of the key coins in Norwegian numismatic history.

Anyway, I won't be checking here again when it's not Sunday. I agree with X2an on the weather around here in Scandinavistan. It's the same in Oslo and around: weather predictions are useless right now, as the weather changes fast and seems to go from one extreme to the other in just hours time.

I don't want to say "what did I tell you", but what did I tell you?

Sundays only, pretty much. Any other day is worthless.




Guess I'm not the only one finding nice stuff on Sundays.
I see some nice silvers in there (Sweden, 10 & 50 Öre and what could be 25 Cents, Netherlands 1890:s?)

Really nice collection of older coins, I love getting those. Plenty of nice stuff as far as the eye can see.
And for two pounds! What a steal!


As for me, I had a blast myself. I too brought plenty of coins home. Too many to nicely organize.

The highlights of today:



2 Dollars, Australia

1 Cent, Malta 1972
5 Cents, Malta 1972
100 Lire, Italy 1979
200 Lire, Italy 1990
200 Lire, Italy 1992

½ Franc, Switzerland 1969
1 Franc, Switzerland 1981
5 Francs, Switzerland 1987 & 1988

1 Penny, Jersey 1980, 1981 & 1988
5 Pence, Jersey 1992

1 Shilling, UK 1928
5 Piso, Philippines 2005
5 Rand, South Africa 2004


1885 HUF


19,61 LVL (still redeemable, 0,70 LVL ~~ €1)


850 ISK
1185 ESP (still redeemable, 166 ESP ~~ €1 until 2020)


And the rest, the bad.

Total, this all cost 60 SEK. Again, another day goes down as a steal. I love summer!
I hope this keeps up, since for now this is my only way of acquiring coins, apart from circulation.

I'm actually jealous of your finds. Those are beyond steals, lucky both of you!

@X2an: you know that the main rule of science is that, when the method described is followed, results should be equal to earlier findings, right? So let's just call my 2 minute detour a scientific experiment.

If anyone knows a nice Sunday market or car booth sale in Norway, please let me know.

You do realize that the pressure of the moon's gravitational forces depending on its cycle affects the end result greatly? Or were you there just to disprove of my most important work so far?

Better be there on a Sunday next time, and you might find me lurking around

On to today's finds. I had some important things to do later on today so I didn't look too thoroughly as usual. Despite that, I stumbled upon the seller who's had plenty of coins with him lately. He said there would be many new next week, looking forward to that.



2 Pfennig, Germany 1906-A
10 Pfennig, Germany 1911-F
1 Cent, Curaçao 1947
10 Cents, Netherlands 1938
5 Cents, Ceylon 1942
1 Rupee, Sri Lanka 1972
200 Pesetas, Spain 1987 & 1991

5 Millièmes, Egypt 1960
2 Dinara, Yugoslavia 1938
5 Øre. Denmark 1918
50 Bututs, The Gambia 1971
5 Kuna, Croatia 2001
5 Kroner, Norway 1998

5 Cents, US dateless
1 Kopeyka, Russia 1899
2 Öre, Sweden 1873
5 Öre. Sweden 1873 (reverse worn off, one-year type)
25 Centimes, Tunisia 1919
5 Francs, Belgium 1931

UltraRant, I'd like to give you tips on how to find a bargain place like this, but fact is I just stumbled upon this while walking through city on a Sunday. I have seen plenty of posters announcing other flea markets scattered around the place. Pay attention to those. I did attend one and they turned out to have a coin seller that had more than the usual junk bin. Unfortunately there's plenty of worthless rubbish on these markets and it's quite rare to find coins for sale. Just keep looking!

Some quick tips when traveling east:
Riga, Latvia
The Central Market has a couple of coin sellers who seem to be there all the time. Outside of the actual market halls there's plenty of stand, and a group of them close to the railway (I think) have some coins. They seem to be there all the time. If you see guns on display, it's most likely there, as I remember seeing some hanging there.

Tallin, Estonia.
Past Old Town there's a railway station called Balti Jaam. Trolleybuses and trams go there. By the tram stop there's a big market called "Jamma Turg". They are the best. A marketplace of all sorts of old relics are being sold there. I even bought an old Soviet passport there. Anyway, they have 10+ coin sellers who are spread around. Some like to overprice their stuff but somewhere in there there's a pretty good dealer who probably has what you're looking for (though, not the cheapest). ome have bargain bins, some have modern coins and "collectors items". Great place for finding coins in Tallinn!

Not too much to say about today. I though there'd be more but there wasn't. I hurried home to try and catch some online auctions for single coins but didn't get the ones I wanted. (France 1 & 2 Centimes, 1910's)

Anyway, I technically got these coins for free today. At the bus stop I found a 5 kr coin lying in plain sight. I found another one by a shopping cart.

Today's finds aren't too impressive either:



2 Krone, Denmark 1995 & 1997
5 Lirot, Israel
50 Santims, Latvia 1997
½ Dollar, US 1976 (actually quite unusual to find here)

Despite the little results of it all, I did see something rather interesting while walking around the market today, scanning for coins: a Chinese counterfeit completely regular 1971 Ike dollar. The ones who sell it bring up new Chinese fakes every other week and I've even called them out for having fakes but what difference does it make? I still saw someone buy them last week, and I'm certain they thought they got a steal there. They sell them for 100 SEK, which is too much for a piece of curiosity and WAY too much for the original Ike. Atleast I'm not falling for their scams, a trained eye can make a serious difference for your wallet.

I was going to ask. They are rather common here. A bit too common for some, but I still like finding them since it reminds me of grade school (that is when they came out). Nice find.