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 Replies: 45 / Views: 8,987 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
Title says it all--what country or series do you enjoy collecting, that nobody else seems interested in? My personal favorites include: 1. French Polynesia, especially 1, 2, and 5 Franc aluminum coins from the 1950s-2000s. They have a very attractive design, low mintages across the board, and are very, very cheap. https://www.NGCcoin.com/price-guide...-duid-2842782. Guernsey 2, 4, and 8 Double coins from the late 19th century. Most would describe these as rather dull, but I quite enjoy the minimalistic approach to the design. https://www.NGCcoin.com/price-guide...2-duid-679833. Peru, 10 soles 1972-75. Although Tupac Amaru was a violent revolutionary, he is a fascinating historical figure and admirable for his push for indigenous rights in Spanish Peru. Plus, I really like his hat. https://www.NGCcoin.com/price-guide...-duid-281303Edited by Finn235
12/16/2015 3:07 pm
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21786 Posts |
All coins of Kiribati.
The normal circulating coins are almost impossible to find outside Kiribati.
Mind you, most people have never heard of this perfectly legitimate country.
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Pillar of the Community
Sweden
1078 Posts |
Modern Russian circulation coins. There's just something I like about the simplicity of the design but yet pretty beautiful. Circulating coins come in several types, excluding commemmoratives.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
8137 Posts |
I have always felt that Italian coins form the early 20th century are very underappreciated. Their designs are way better looking than some US coins. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
8137 Posts |
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Valued Member
Slovenia
459 Posts |
Oh, yes, the glory of those Italian coins :) They are on my want list for some time now.
For some reason I really like Croatian Kuna. A fascination that started when as a teenager I discovered that even years bear inscriptions in Croatian and odd in latin. Every time I visit Croatia I come back with pockets full of Kunas :)
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
6130 Posts |
That's fascinating, Dagaz. I wonder what drove them to that design decision?
And I do have a few of those early 20th c. Italian coins. I am torn between those and the French bronze coins from the same time period, but Italy kept some good designs all the way up until the adoption of the Euro. I especially like the 100 lire that was used for several decades.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1304 Posts |
My favorite unpopular series would be any European copper coins from the 18th century.
Nice Italian coins CC2012!
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Pillar of the Community
Belgium
506 Posts |
You can buy almost any late 20th century circulation coin of most of the 12 European countries that switched over to the Euro in 1999 (introduction of coins/banknotes only end 2001) for less than its face value. In most countries, these coins ceased to be legal tender between 31 Dec 2002 (Portugal) and 6 Dec 2011 (Italy). Only Austria, Ireland and Germany still exchange old national currency coins for euro. The Baltic countries that recently adopted the euro also committed to exchange coins in their former national currencies unlimitedly. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/exch...ndex.en.html |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7066 Posts |
When you collect ancients, you are already in the minority. When you then limit it to ancients from "Eastern" empires - excluding Roman and Greek issues - wow, you're narrowing it down even more. If then you begin to focus on South Asia, you are in an even smaller minority. When you then go even more esoteric and specify coins from the Kushan Empire...wow, you sometimes feel like the sole member of the fan club. Just got into Kushans relatively recently, and am enjoying them. Another area I love, coins from Elymais, is similarly quirky and lonely - although competition for the rarities is intense...so apparently there are SOME others who go for this stuff.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5362 Posts |
I think everyone knows I collect Contemporary Circulating Counterfeit coins. I focus on Mexico but I am interested in most crown size silver counterfeits produced while the genuine coins were still circulating. That is one of the smallest collector groups I am aware of. There are hundreds not thousands of serious collectors of Counterfeit Silver Crowns. I estimate perhaps 150-300 collectors worldwide. Perhaps 10-12 with collections that are as large as mine.
I also like Island Coinages (all pre-1970):
Seychelles
Guernsey
Jersey
Greenland
Iceland
Crete
I also like all art-deco style coins: (All pre-1950).
Italy as shown above
France -1900 to the 1930s
I also like Switzerland because they were stable for so long and a VF-EF collection is easy to complete.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
1949 Posts |
I agree on the Italy and France being underrated for their beauty...
However, my answer would be the Metal Notgeld... I think it is vastly underrated... A collector could spend a lifetime trying to collect the Private Issue, and the municipal issues, with a few exceptions, are rather difficult to find in nice grades, as many, many of the zinc and iron pieces have been exposed to adverse conditions at some point in their life...
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Pillar of the Community
Sweden
1078 Posts |
I guess I have more areas of interest that aren't as popular.
French/LMU-standard coins. Basically any 1/100 Currency unit being 1 gram of bronze (up to 1/10 currency unit) and 1 Currency unit being 5 grams of .835 silver (fineness varies), and scaling with value. I don't remember how much the gold coins weigh but I think it wasn't as simply put in metric mesurements.
These LMU-standard coins include most French coins up to 1920, Swiss coins (½ Franc and up), some Belgian coins, Italian, Greek (and Crete), Romanian, Austro-hungarian and Bulgarian but even post-WWI currencies like the first Latvian Lats and German Reichsmark (1 Mark being 5 grams of .500 silver for a while before nazi rule). It's a very wide range of interest but some simple criterias and I want 'em.
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21786 Posts |
Bob L: I just had to have laugh at that !  |
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Pillar of the Community
Russian Federation
5173 Posts |
In with Finn235 on interwar France. The holed cupronickel, at least (5, 10, 25 centimes - a few times I was literally told something along the lines of "take these, we don't want them"). Larger denominations too, when I can find any.
Maybe I should take an inventory of what I already have (about two dozen, I think) and start an actual date set (it doesn't appear that there are many rare dates, and if needed I could always ignore them).
I also have a few of the earlier bronzes (1, 2, 5 centimes), though they aren't as common (and my examples are in really ugly condition).
I do like the early 20th century Italian coins, but they don't really come up much, so I don't have particularly many.
One "set" of coins that might be more popular than I thought, but I like it anyway: the 1920s "good for" series, regardless of the country (I definitely have examples from France, Belgium, and Romania, but not sure what other countries issued them, and probably won't be getting any that are very rare).
On the topic of Romania: actually half considering a Romanian type set now that I've seen the list on Numista, and realized how many beautiful and supposedly common types I don't have. I'll have to ignore all the gold, obviously, and likely also the large silver (and probably won't be getting any of the random modern commemoratives either), but even without that, I'm looking at a list of about 80 coins - of which I have perhaps thirty... and most of the remaining fifty are very pretty.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
@swamperbob, speaking of Iceland, here is one of the top coins on my "fun design" list:  "So tired of this bull." (Not my photo, but I do have one somewhere) |
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Replies: 45 / Views: 8,987 |
Posted 12/16/2015 5:13 pm
