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 Replies: 22 / Views: 3,053 |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
2781 Posts |
i started a world type-set last xmas, 2200+ coins and just hit 200 countries. greenland was the one to push me over the top, not the best grade but it was cheap!   |
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Pillar of the Community
Thailand
1509 Posts |
Congratulations Wade that's quite an acheivement in a short time.
I always have problems deciding what defines a country. Does one count West Germany, East Germany, Germany or just Germany?
Is Malaya and British Borneo the same as Malaya and Malaysia?
If I were to split all the various administrations of Say the Congo region and apply it to my collection then I've probably got about 300 'countries'.
But then it's not about numbers it's about the collecting and appreciation.
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21788 Posts |
I am am working on an OFEC collection (One From Every Country) myself, but not quite.
My OFEC is One from Every Century from the invention of coinage. I have expanded that to include OFEC (One From Every Culture).
That way, my collection has become an overall statement of numismatics, over the last 2,500 years through all major World cultures: Ancient Greek Roman, Byzantine Indian Islamic and Chinese as well as Renaissance European, the Americas etc.
In all, I think that my collection should be mature with about 200 coins, but obviously will never be complete. I like the idea of such a collection being entirely open ended.
However, such a collection is heavily biased with coins of the 19th and 20th centuries simply because coins of the modern era are much more numerous and easy to obtain.
Nevertheless, my core collection of 25 coins over 25 centuries IS nearly complete.
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Moderator
 United States
14463 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
2830 Posts |
Does one count West Germany, East Germany, Germany or just Germany?
- I would distinguish the Empire, Weimar, Third Reich, and modern united Germany; plus East and West - that's six entiies for the 20th century; plus the pre-federation states.
Is Malaya and British Borneo the same as Malaya and Malaysia?
- pre-British, HEIC, Straits Settlements, FMS, Malaysia, BNB, Sarawak, Singapore, maybe more ...
I take a broad view ...
and I have an interest in "emergency money", siege money, internment camp money, occupation money, liberation money.
Why limit ourselves ?
And, Wade: CONGRATULATIONS ! You're way ahead of me.
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
9419 Posts |
Congratulations Wade. Nice coin too. I hit 200 countries recently also. This was the coin that did it for me...  Steve  |
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Pillar of the Community
Russian Federation
5174 Posts |
I'll make sure to look through my own collection to find out how many do I have... probably not quite 200 yet, but certainly well over 100.
Then again, there's quite a bit of problems involved in counting "different countries". I mean, would you count interwar and current Latvia as different countries? How many Austrias since 1750, Bulgarias since 1900, or Russias since 1570? (Or for a difficult one: how many Frances since 1855?)
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New Member
United States
27 Posts |
You must have some coins from some pretty obscure countries to have hit the 200 mark. Do you have anything from a country called Eritrea
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2605 Posts |
Quote:
Do you have anything from a country called Eritrea   , would love to have Italian colonial tallero though! For me the number of countries is not a goal. I keep them in my catalog under the modern name/borders if possible but then subcategorize. Like all of this:  (and it goes on through East, West and United) I count as one country, Germany. Never counted my countries till today, got 209. |
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Pillar of the Community
United Arab Emirates
557 Posts |
Congratulations Wade!  I'm not sure how many different coins I have, but have collected them from every country I've been to and that's 16. Of course, I do have many from those I haven't been to yet. I live in UAE now (2 month) and was just in Oman on Friday. Since my entire collection is at home in ND, I feel like I am starting anew. So, right now I have three different countries, U.S., UAE and Oman. This does not count the recent fakes I picked up. I'm almost there. Edited by BLadd
11/03/2012 8:08 pm
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Valued Member
Pakistan
207 Posts |
According to wikipedia, there are 182 currently circulating currencies, and 204 countries according to the official criteria. I'm only at 74 countries right now, with only 1 former country, Yugoslavia, and a couple of British Indian coins that I count under India. So a long ways to go for me, and by the time I reach 182, a few more countries would probably have become "formered", and maybe a few new ones would be existing.
So...congratulations on your milestone!
I wonder how many total countries (that minted coins) ever existed....
Edited by Babar
11/05/2012 12:36 am
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Rest in Peace
United States
1501 Posts |
I am currently 17 short of the 200 mark, and each "new" country gets harder and harder to come by. So a big coingrats on getting to 200!  |
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Pillar of the Community
 Canada
2781 Posts |
i am using numista.com to determine "what is a country". they are pretty liberal so between all the germany's (i only have 3 - they class all the 'states' as 1), french colonies, and african countries etc it wasnt too difficult. it did slow down after 150 (100 was pretty easy just buying bulk lots of ebay). can be viewed here: http://en.numista.com/echanges/voir...php?id=17195my goal now is to trim it down from a "hoard" to a "collection" (with some countries like brazil the coins just start to get repetitive and boring) to maybe 4 of each country (one row in a binder) and then start upgrading grades. I might have trouble giving up some of the favorites like austria, italy and switzerland though (it will be hard to narrow it down to a limited number of each) SEL Quote:
Nevertheless, my core collection of 25 coins over 25 centuries IS nearly complete do you have those cataloged online somewhere (viewable), I (and others I am sure) would love to see that. Edited by Wade
11/04/2012 8:49 pm
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Moderator
Australia
16844 Posts |
Quote:
Does one count West Germany, East Germany, Germany or just Germany?
- I would distinguish the Empire, Weimar, Third Reich, and modern united Germany; plus East and West - that's six entiies for the 20th century; plus the pre-federation states. Personally, I only have three Germanies: "Reich" (which includes Empire, Weimar, Third and Occupied), "Federal" (which includes West and United) and "East". German states are all listed as separate countries. Quote:
I mean, would you count interwar and current Latvia as different countries? How many Austrias since 1750, Bulgarias since 1900, or Russias since 1570? (Or for a difficult one: how many Frances since 1855?) For me, to be a "new country", there has to be some kind of significant change in government plus a change in borders, or a change in name. I don't really see any of that in Latvia, so I call both incarnations of it one country. Russia's a little more complex; I have three: Empire, RSFSR and Post-Communist. The USSR has it's own separate listing. For France, I used to subdivide it into nine parts: First Kingdom, First Republic, First Empire, Second Kingdom, Second Republic, Second Empire, Third Republic, Vichy State and Modern Republic. I've since re-amalgamated them all under "France", except for the Vichy State; all the others are really just government changes; the borders and name stayed much the same for the other eight transitions. Quote:
I wonder how many total countries (that minted coins) ever existed.... While the definition of "country" comes into play even more once you go back before the development of the concept of nationalism, I'd say the answer is in the thousands. Perhaps as high as 10,000. Remember, prior to being assimilated by Rome or some other ancient superpower, ancient Greek cities each regarded themselves as independent city-states. There are several thousand such coin-issuing city-states known, including several cities whose existence is now lost to history apart from their coins. Add to that Indian States, German States and Islamic States and you easily cross the 5,000 mark. And if that's still not enough for you, add notgeld. There were several thousand more German cities and towns that issued their own coins and notes in the early 20th century. I'm up to about 750 coin-issuing entities, so I've still got quite a ways to go. 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
Canada
2781 Posts |
for those collecting OFEC how do you make the decision of what stays and what goes?
do you limit by oldest, rarest, most valueable etc? do you have side collections (typeset or themed etc?)
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Pillar of the Community
United States
797 Posts |
Awesome! I just started this about a month ago. Near 200 but its getting more and more tough, and expensive withs ome of them.
I eventually want to include a silver coin from each. I am keeping a broad view on my list, but currently its countries that have existed after 1900
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Replies: 22 / Views: 3,053 |
Posted 11/02/2012 10:14 pm
