Foreigners

With coins from other countries I put them in 2*2's and add them to my list and add them to my collection. I'm a new collector also, been collecting for about a month. I collect coins from anywhere, if you like them put them in a 2*2. If you don't like them sell them. If they are rare expensive specimens, it might be a good idea to get them slabbed.

Do any of you start with the tough countries first? (You know, NOT France, US, UK, Italy, etc)

I have a few collections of Foreign coins.
Canadian ,New Zealand and US coins

I put them into jewelry bags for now. Had to many Canadians that I got a cent book for them since they are obsolete now.

here is a list of countries I have found from so far:

Austrailia
Bahamas
Brazil
Canada
Euro
France
German Federal Republic
Great Britain
Greece
Italy
Mexico
Panama
Philippines Republic
South Korea
Switzerland
Trinidad & Tobago
Tunisia Republic

Made myself an HTML with example pics of the coins and that coin number thing for each so I would know what currency it is, from where, and all that at a glance. I am hoping for more from the Bahamas. Starfish and pineapples, it looks like an arcade token more than a coin.

I have a collection of about 4,500 World coins, ancient to modern, collected over about 40 years.

I write all of the details I need to know on the mylar / cardboard 2x2, which protects each coin.
That info can, but not necessarily include:

date acquired
who I bought it off
price paid
country
weight
alloy
date or period in which it was struck
if ancient, a brief description of each side
catalogue references

Slabbing does not lend itself to the recording of this sort of detail. Perhaps for those who have lots of slabs, the maintenance of a separate data base would be a better approach.

With limited remaining space on the 2x2, occasionally, my writing has to be REALLY tiny!

I usually don't bother writing the grading unless it has a critical bearing on the value. I simply assess the grade of any coin if the need arises, when reviewing my collection. None of my coins are slabbed; slabbing is incompatible with my storage and display approach. 95% of the coins would be worth less than $20 apiece, and so slabbing would be unjustified, anyway.

The 2x2's are stored in archival quality album pages.

With all of that information on the 2x2, there has been occasions where the collection has had to be re arranged to a lesser or greater extent, and all of the information relating to the coin automatically moves with it.
This system largely negates the need for a separate data base, and so less work is needed to maintain the collection.

Since my collection is essentially a historical statement of the development of coinage as a whole, the coins are (mostly) arranged in date order up until about 1800, irrespective of the country, and after 1800, by country, then by date order.

Unless you're adding to an existing collection or finding enough coins to start a collection, I don't see the point in doing much except tossing them all into a jar/bag/etc for all miscellaneous foreign finds. Coming from the US, I managed to find enough Canadian pennies to put together a respectably solid run from about 1960-1998, with a few more modern or George VI outliers. If I find a more noteworthy find (best to date is a 1927 canadian nickel), I separate it from the rest of the finds.

As long as I'm making a profit, breaking even, or only losing a few cents on keeping a foreign coin, it goes into my "foreign" jar, which currently has a good 50-ish coins from about a dozen countries, all from circulation. I keep that separate from my larger world coin collection, which has been a multi-generation effort of saving pocket change as souvenirs since my great-grandfather came to America from Finland nearly 100 years ago. I stopped keeping tabs on that long ago.

Up here in Canada a quarter of the pennies, 10 percent of nickels and dimes, 5 percent of quarters,and 1 percent of dollars are USD. I just reroll them and stoke them away for the semi annual rip to the US where they go to the bank, or to pay for food at mcd's. Sometimes I sneak in a canadian here and there, to profit off the exchange rate XD. If you are in the washington, new york, or buffalo/niagara falls area this is where your canadian CRH finds are coming from LOL

Working for an airline, I find world coins all the time. I have a nice container filled with them.