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 Replies: 22 / Views: 2,672 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2443 Posts |
The summer weather and my cold must have gotten to me, but I've decided to collect a gold coin from every country. Does anyone know what countries it might be hard to get a gold coin from? Are there any books that are specific on just world gold coins? Also, what type of premiums are there on gold? First I think I'm going to collect gold from the countries that I've visited and then I'll move on to the others. Thanks!  |
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Moderator
 United States
6563 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
2443 Posts |
Thanks GO, I'm going to order it. 3 down, 190 to go...  |
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Moderator
United States
6563 Posts |
I imagine this might be one of the craziest undertakings ever by a member here. I hope the money aspect might doesn't keep you at bay though.
Do be careful with counterfeits if you are actually going to buy them while visiting the countries.
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Moderator
 Australia
16857 Posts |
Some countries have never issued a gold coin. Ireland, for example. Other countries, such as Benin, have never issued normal circulation coins, and buying the gold ones is just about the only way to get any kind of coin from that country.
There is an older series of gold-coins-only catalogues called, perhaps unsurprisingly, "Gold Coins of the World", by Robert Friedberg. I have an old 4th edition (1976); the last I believe is the 9th editon (2003). It's cool if you want to go way, way back, because it includes mediaeval gold coins, too.
Krause also puts out some books, the "Standard Catalog of World Gold Coins", including platinum and palladium and covering 1500 to present. There's also a "Modern World Gold Coins" book from 1801 to present.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2443 Posts |
Thanks for the addition books, Sap. I still need to do some research on this. I want to buy coins that I like, and not just buying them because I want to fill a hole. I would love to do medieval gold. Ideally, I would like to do 19th century or earlier gold(if available) but I would go broke pretty quickly. But also, I would like to buy them for as cheap as possible. Do you guys know the best way? I've seen some smaller country gold on ebay for $100, but the gold value is $66. While I don't mind paying a premium it seems a bit high to me, it's almost a 1/3 premium. But, I might be able to buy a larger one for let's say $250 but it's closer to it's melt price and it's larger. Yikes, this is already giving me a headache, lol. I need to win the lottery. GO, I'm crazy so this fits me perfectly. The money part of it will be a problem, of course. I think it would be for most people but obvious this is a huge undertaking that will take a significant amount of time. I did the math at paying an average of $350 per coin for 190 coins and let's say when I saw the price my first words were...well if I posted them here I would probably be banned. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5318 Posts |
Wow--that sounds like quite the project! Despite current gold prices, this is probably a good time to collect foreign gold, since so much was redeemed at dealers for "melt" value--you could easily benefit from the glut of supply.  |
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Valued Member
United States
303 Posts |
I have gold coins from 6 countries :)
United States
Mexico
Switzerland
Russia
Great Britain
Austria
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2443 Posts |
Looking around, I've noticed some places like Libria have gold coins that are tiny...some only .5 gram of gold.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5318 Posts |
Amazon99, I'm going to drop by a dealer I trust who trades a lot of gold--should I look for anything interesting "at melt"? I recall he had an Australia Victoria era half-sov. at melt last time, LOL. (I should've mentioned this to my Aussie friends) |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2443 Posts |
If you could that would be great. I already have France, Australia and the US. I'd be more interested in some countries that aren't too well known for their gold (Canada, Britian, Austria, etc) since those coins will always be more around than some of the other ones. But, I'm open minded to anything right now.
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Valued Member
United States
303 Posts |
Mexico is easy. A 2 peso coin can go for $50.
If you know a good dealer, they can give you great deals (like sell you a coin for melt). I always thought about collecting random gold coins from different countries.
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2889 Posts |
Sap, - Actually Ireland did strike very few (and very rare) gold coins in 1646 - the pistole and the half pistole. There is one in the Ulster museum (where I used to work) as well as a few in the Dublin museum. From memory I think there are only one or two known in private collections - so I do agree that to all intents and purposes getting one is an impossibility.
I think there are also a few gold pattern ECU's and Euros and such like from modern times but I wouldn't really count them.
Malcolm
Edited by Bacchus2
07/03/2008 03:27 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2443 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2889 Posts |
Yes - horrible isn;t it :)
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Pillar of the Community
Norway
510 Posts |
Interesting project! Best of luck with it.  I myself have always liked gold coins, and I have from eight different countries: Norway Denmark Russia Sweden The Netherlands Switzerland Great Britain Belgium The youngest of these: The Swiss, from 1921. Modern commemoratives have less appeal to me. |
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Replies: 22 / Views: 2,672 |
Posted 07/02/2008 02:33 am
