Coin Shopping Around The World

Newcastle-upon-Tyne is a major city in north-east England, some 70 miles south of the Scottish border. The traditional local industries of coal mining and shipbuilding have been replaced by light industry, retail and services. The city is home to England's most northerly cathedral and university, is a popular cruise port of call, and also has two surprisingly good coin shops right in the centre! (Photos from Gooogle Street View)


Corbitts are long-established coin and stamp dealers in Moseley Street. The shop is on the first floor (second floor for Americans) and is reached by a flight of stairs from the street. They usually have a good range of British coins, including silver crowns and sovereigns, and a few foreign ones. Their grading is very strict: I've bought a coin from them described as 'heavily polished', which I would consider just lightly wiped, and a friend of mine bought a gold £5 coin described as 'badly scuffed' that had a few tiny marks! They have annual auctions and you may get a bargain as they sometimes sell the unsold lots in the shop afterwards.


Intercoin is a shop in Clayton Street that also operates as a pawnbroker's. The dealer's name is Brian and he's quite a character. He's knowledgeable about coins and usually has a good variety, both British and foreign. The only problem is that Brian can talk for ages, show you things you're not interested in (you have to request trays one at a time) and his coins are arranged somewhat haphazardly: one tray might contain Morgan dollars, British Victorian crowns, French silver 5-franc pieces and Indian rupees, and the next tray will have a similar selection! Oh, and Brian has an annoying habit of suddenly ignoring you and moving on to the next customer... But it's worth persevering: I've made some very good purchases from this shop!

If you look on Yelp for coin shops in Belgrade, Northern Ireland, Oakland Antiques pops up as a hit. This store can be found on Donegall Pass, down toward the River Lagan.

They must have a thousand silver spoons, but the pickings are quite slim for coins. Their inventory is all modern coins (such as mint sets) and silver rounds like those sold by the Franklin Mint. If you are an avid silver spoon collector, then definitely stop in, but traveling numismatists can safely skip this one.

The Silver Penny (Dublin Ireland) is located over by the bus station and has numismatically-exciting signage. Unfortunately for the travelling numismatist, it is not a museum or LCS, but rather the Irish equivalent of a sports bar and was chock full of fans when I stopped in. You will want to pick off-days for the local teams if you would like a table.

A plaque on the wall reads in part:









Perhaps coincidentally, I noticed some interesting graffiti on an electric junction box just down the block from this pub.

Ah very nice @tdz. I had forgotten about that!

I can vouch that the shop in Belfast is completely rubbish for coins. There was another shop opposite it where you go up the stairs to a 1st floor dealer. It's been a few years since I was there so he may have gone now. However if you're after coins you want to check out Stephen's stall in St. Georges Market every Friday morning. He has ALOT of material.

There was a fantastic and dedicated coin shop in Dublin in the 1980s but alas when the owner died the shop folded and all the stock was sold. I did manage to get a lot of material from the subsequent auctions of that material though.

Ireland, north and south is, overall, poor for dealers. There is the odd fair where a few come out of the woodwork- and the Dublin coin fair in particular also attracts quite a few from England and beyond.

It should be. It's been a few years since I travelled down to it (other priorities) but it normally runs alongside an annual Whytes coin auction - but they haven't updated their forthcoming auctions web page yet. I might nip down next year to see what it's like - assuming I actually can cross the border given the whole Brexit debacle.

http://numismaticsocietyofireland.com/

The numismatic society of Ireland should announce it on their webpage too - and there's always an article about it in coin news https://www.tokenpublishing.com/

I'll keep an eye out for it.

For anyone interested Coin News is a British base coin magazine. I think its one of the better ones about as it's very international. Naturally it focusses on British coins - but there's a lot of ancients and medieval there too - as well as oriental numismatics. An annual subscription for 12 issues is only £12 for the electronic version which is pretty good value.

Excellent!

A little more focused on coins is Numismatica Terziani, on via Castiglione in Bologna--much nearer to the towers at the center of the city. This too was closed when I was was around, although it appears as though they have a nice selection of world and medieval gold coins, plus medals.