Krause X#'s?

Bob: You are correct. As a general rule you should stay away from the X#'s if you want to have legal tender. Most of the coins in that catalog are fantasy issues. There are a few exceptions. The original Lundy Puffin coins come to mind. They are tokens that were circulated, and there was a whole dispute when the authorities found out they were being used as money. But other than that, most of the coins in the Unusual World Coins catalog are there to prey on unsuspecting collectors who are looking for out of the way and rare countries.

There are some countries - such as the Congo - where it is far easier to obtain a fantasy / non-legal-tender "coin" than it is to obtain a legitimate coin. For other countries, they have never issued legitimate coins at all so owning an X-numbered coin is the only possible option if you wish to have that country represented in your OFEC collection.

Private "mints" prefer to strike their gimmicky "coins" from countries that aren't likely to complain or make a big fuss about somebody in America (or China or Poland or wherever) making "coins" in their name. Failed states (like Somalia), unrecognized states (such as Hutt River Province), states in long drawn-out civil wars (such as Congo and Liberia) and remote, inaccessible islands (like the Northern Mariana Islands) are their favourites.

Even sticking to Krause does not necessarily guarantee that your NCLT coins really are legal tender or legitimately authorized, since there are some "coins" listed in the mainstram Krauses that should not be. Every single coin ever issued in the name of Nauru, for example; the official Nauru government has never made its own coins, yet Krause still lists a dozen types "from" there. I assume The Krause researchers are simply unaware of this fact, or may be aware of it but have not been able to verify it. Krause has changed it's mind about the "legality" of certain coins in the past, de-listing them from the mainstream catalogues. The Griquatown "tokens" of South Africa come to mind as a group of coins recently de-listed and given KMX numbers, as noted in this thread.

No, I don't have such a list. No one does; experts in certain fields or people who have happened to do the research into particular coins, series of coins or countries are each holding their own separate pieces of the puzzle. I know about Nauru, for instance, because I had to research up on Nauru coins for a local media interview after a big coin dealership in southern Australia started mass-marketing Nauru "coins" (you can read about them in this old thread). In the thread I linked to earlier, Scott has done the hard research into the Griquatown tokens.

As for other countries, I have no facts, only suspicions and the power of statistics: with a sheer number of questionable coins just in the three countries listed above (Congo, Liberia, Somalia), some of them are bound to turn out to be unofficial. Liberia, for instance: whether a certain specific coin from the 1990s-2000s lands in KM or KMX seems to be random; sometimes they're listed in KM, sometimes not, and even coins "from the same series" are split across the books. The private mints issued so much stuff in Liberia's name that there are still coin types out there that Krause hasn't published in either book, even 10-20 years after their issue. I suspect that someday they're going to have a good hard look at their Liberia listings and de-list pretty much everything the private mints issued.

One can also note some suspicious connections. These "circulating coins" of Niue listed in the mainstream Krause, for instance, share a lot in common with these bogus Cocos-Keeling "coins" and these bogus Galapagos "coins". They're all sold in suspiciously similar-looking glossy "mint sets" of "circulating coins", clearly targeted at OFEC collectors. You'll also note that none of the series overlap in date. It is reasonable to deduce that the same shadowy company is responsible for all of them, jumping from one country to another as the years pass. So I suspect that shortly, those Niue coins are going to find themselves de-listed.

Faulty it may be, but the Krause books are still the best place to go for info on whether or not an object claiming to be a coin really is a coin. They're the ones with the money, the resources, the pulling power and the motivation to get all those separate pieces and put them together. It just takes time and the willingness of the piece-holders to share their information. So be prepared to have some of our cherished "coins" de-listed someday, since Krause has changed their minds about certain coins in the past.