Is It Normal To Be Disinterested In Your Own Country's Coinage?

I would not think that it would be out of the ordinary, especially since you see your home countries coinage on a daily basis. Modern U.S. coinage is so bland...bring back the classics! I would almost guarantee it would strike up some interest!

I must agree almost 100% Force, I came to a point early this year where finances dictate what Ares of collecting I could persue effectively. Meaning, what can I complete or at least do justice to the series. World coins, except the very old, had to go. I enjoyed thoroughly collecting and learning about all the over 120 countries I had. Great learning to be had, but no way would I have been able to complete any one country in set/denoms example or otherwise. They had to go, same with foreign currencies although still have them, just dontbpersue actively. Same happened to a lot of contemporary US coinage. My quarters start with clads stop after the territories of 2009 of which I "cheated" (won at face value a nice custom whitman folder w/ BUs), tossing what few ATBs into that current bank dump along w two partial Presidential dollars and few SACs. Been glad ever since! Now I can concentrate on completing sets according to what I can afford, and ultimately enjoy. I don't think a Disney princess is a collectable item, even as whimsy, too bad they even have to fake 'em so much, quit making the real, no need to fake it twice anyway!

But of course.

Weird - pretty much the only reason I have Indonesian coins in my collection at all is because they're so beautiful. Maybe I've just never seen the really worn ones?

(I even picked up some Riau coins, having no idea how rare they were, for the beautiful design. Fortunately I got them for only a dollar each, since the seller didn't seem to know what they were either.)

January1may, soon after the aluminum coins lose their luster and start to tarnish grey, personally I think the dull ugliness overtakes the (little amounts of) beauty of the design.

For the Riau coins, they're a bit uncommon since only circulated for maybe a year until recalled by the angry central governemnt, but not many people are interested in them either . At least the mint cared enough to put some edge lettering

Add this with the exact same reverse since 20 years+ ago...



Pic: Indonesian coins since the 90's, excluding 2016 issue and IDR1000 ones. (Who decided to put nutmeg plant in the IDR25 coin design though, very odd design )

The strike quality of these coins is poor too, the text on the banner held by Garuda (should read "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika" looks blurry except the large alum IDR500.

Example is from '90s IDR100 "traditional cow race" coin.

And here are the decent IDR1000 coins:



So in conclusion here's why I don't like most coins of my own country:

1.Too much aluminum
2.Many have exactly same reverse, boring
3.Poor strike quality
4.Odd design choice. Nutmegs? Parrots? Why not tigers or rhinos, or maybe some batik pattern?

It's a shame - uncirculated aluminium coins can be quite attractive, I have some nice examples. I think the Indonesian coins are nice in high grade.

As others have said above, I think it's mostly the modern coinage I lack interest in. British predecimal had some incredible designs. It's a great shame what our decimal coinage looks like. The shield split down over each denomination was a novel idea when first released, 9 years on it's boring.

I really like the crest on the Indonesian coins.

Oddly enough I have been to Indonesia a couple times and I have no memory of the coinage. lol