Darkside Philosophy: What Makes A Country?

The rough latest date of my World collection is around 1950, when silver was all but gone from World circulating coinages.

Except for Mexico, the latest date that is carried on a circulating silver coin anywhere in the World, is 1974, which is the 5 Mark silver coin of Germany. Austria withdrew the silver 10 schilling in 1973.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that France minted some 50 Franc coins for circulation as late as 1979.

If I were an OFEC, or 2FEC, or even 3FEC then jgfindring's "philosophy" would make perfect sense. Knowing my collecting habits, I'd say, I would go for as many counties as I could. And having experienced different regimes in the same geographical locale I agree that those ARE different countries.

But I am a magpie who brings everything that shines and available to his nest, so I am not concerned with the number of countries in my database. Actually I find it easier to have fewer big categories with subdivisions than just hundreds of separate "countries".
My first division is by continents (which itself already could be problematic). Then I have countries, with their modern names and their current boundaries. Then each country could be subdivided according to different regions and principalities and governments it had.
So, I have "Germany" with subcategories of different German states and different regimes.
I have "India" with subcategories of different states, European colonies, and the republic. I know, that is unfair to Pakistan and Bangladesh who make their own countries in my catalog, but to construct a 100% accurate catalog you would have to make it four-dimensional.

All the "oldies" I place by the location. I have a couple of Romans, I stuck them in "Italy". If I ever get Roman provincial they would get to the country which currently occupies the territory - Turkey, Egypt, Croatia, etc.
I got a pulo from the Golden Horde, a Tatar - Mongol khanate prostrating over most of modern Asian Russia, and I filed in under "Russia".

Couple more examples, I catalog Nagorno-Karabakh in "Azerbaijan", and Transdniestria in "Moldova".

vb3347 My cousin was a market trader in Northern France and would often receive both the 50 and smaller 10 silver franc coins. He used to keep them in a large jar and each time that I visited him from the UK he would give me one. The latest year that I have is 50 francs from 1977 so I know that they were circulating to some degree then.

I just rely on the Krause world coin catalogue to answer this for me. If a coin is listed in there, either from the 1700's, 1800's, 1900's and now 2000's, it is eligible for my OFEC collection.

Times change, new countries are born and old ones disappear. You can't trust the Krause in issues like this, it is too illogical and inaccurate. Sometimes it thinks that a name change is enough to make a new country (DRC vs. Zaire) but on the other hand a complete reform in political, social and economic system of a country isn't (Russian Empire vs. the USSR). The only way to get some sense to it is to study history and politics and make up your own mind.

The problem will be less complicated if you only restrict the collection to current coins - then you can usually just check the member list of the UN.

Then there are countries which have no real coins, but only make collectors issues (DR Congo, Belarus) and on the other hand there are entities which are not recognized as countries but still have their own real circulating coins (Transdnistria)

Sel: Mexico issued its 10 peso coin with a sterling core from 1992-1995.