US Or Foreign--Give Me Everyone's Input

I got started when I found a 1942 Half dollar in the neighbors garden.

I think you should rephrase your question to: "What are you mainly collecting (your own country's coins or foreign), number of coins wise and amount of money put in?"

That should keep everyone happy....

I'm 90% on US (where I live) and 10% on other countries.

My wife is a very casual collector and does animals. She prefers world coins because they are reasonable in price and many of the animal coins are beautiful. If that's where your interest lies, there are many great coins to own. I like early US stuff.

I collect any coin from anywhere.

Steve

As for the other half of ILSC's OP:

quote:

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What got you started on collecting?

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I believe there are two basic types of collectors... we'll use the terms "darksider" and "litesider", since many on this forum know what these terms mean (for those who don't, darksider = collects foreign, litesider = collects USA and/or wherever they happen to live).

A litesider will most likely get their first interest in collecting when they find in change, or are given, some old or "unusual" coins. For folks in the US, that might be things like Liberty and Buffalo nickels, Franklin halves, wheat cents, or State Quarters. For folks in Britain or Australia, it might be old predecimal coinage or circulating commemoratives. In Europe, it might be pre-euro coinage or the various types of euro coins from different countries.

A darksider will most likely get their first interest in collecting when they find in change, or are given, some foreign coins. Maybe they or a friend or relative went on an overseas holiday and bring back their loose change. Maybe a war veteran in the family returned from their tour of duty with coins they picked up along the way. Or maybe they just found an unusual coin with weird foreign writing on it in change.

Now, as time passes, people can switch from "lite" to "dark" and back again, or even come to find both "sides" equally interesting. But it's been my experience that most collectors start out as one or the other.

I love U.S. and Foreign coinage for its fine art and beauty. But I'm more infatuated with each coin's History than its monetary value. However, if the coin is rare and valuable then Double the pleasure!

The problem with your poll is it doesn't take into account where a person is at. You must remember although most members here are probably from or in the USA, there are also some from other countries. For those to collect US coins is not as simple as a person in the USA. Now if you were in Mexico you'ld be finding a lot of Mexican coins in change so that is what you would primarily collect. Kind of a one sided type or slanted poll. If a person lives in China now they would probably be a USA coin collector since they probably make them.
Possibly your poll should have been if in the USA only which do you collect? Another poll would be if your in another country, do you collect their coins or others?