Areas Of Numismatics You Never Wanted To Get Into But Did...

Harmonica - forgive me - I am weak (still)

"Your check is in the mail!"

I have not posted the Newhart cheque yet. I just got back from painting an office and found the best offer was accepted. The cheque is actually in the mail, huhuhuh. It was signed as "Bob" and not "George R". When I get it I will use it as an excuse to try out my scanner and put it up.

I find that interesting. I went to errors right away. MOst non-collectors hear about errors being worth millions and that always excited me.

I kind of fell into these areas of numismatics, don't actually regret being there, but they are:

1. Modern coins after about 1950,
2. medals,
3. notes,
4. tokens,
5. NCLT,
6. bullion
7. and stamps.

I have a few in each category, but none of them are part of the main body of my collection.

Examples:
1) a) Most types of commemmorative designs of Australian Decimal currency all after 1966, all taken from circulation pocket change. b) A complete set of U.S. States quarters, mostly taken from circulation pocket change.

2. a) A 2 inch bronze Medal "Diamonds - Israels Sparkling Export", inset with a genuine 10 point diamond. I bought it out of a dealers junk box for $10 about 20 years ago, and that is still about all that it is worth currently.
Don't be fooled by modern NCLT with diamond insets. Most of them are waaay over valued. Consider them for their bullion and collector premium only, and do not add value for the diamond inset, because only very low grade diamonds are used.

b) A few campaign war medals awarded to WW2 Austrlian soldiers.

c) A 3 inch diameter hard polyethylene PLASTIC medal issued by Eastman Kodak Company in 1957, commemorating the 25th Anniversary of injected molded polyethylene plastic. This has become a family heirloom, because it was given to me by my uncle after a business trip to Tennessee, in that year. He is still alive.

d) A small collection of Mercedes-Benz Concours Display Day award medals.

3. I have a small collection of 300 World banknotes, which include a few higher denomination notes before WW2.

4. a) A small collection silver tokens of of the United Kingdom which include a couple of eighteenpence commerial tokens, a Six shilling Bank of Ireland token and five shilling Bank of England token. I had to pay quite a bit to a very reputable dealer for the last two, to ensure that they are genuine,

b) a Sydney Hogarth & Erichson threepence, and

c) Two encapsulated Nevada Silver Strike tokens, with silver center.

5. British 1937 Five Pounds and Two Pounds gold proofs.

6. 1991 Australian platinum Koala, plus about half a kilo of junk silver bought collaterally in job lots of other coins, at well below spot price for the silver.

7. A small collection of maybe 100 pre federation Australian States stamps, all all issued before 1901.

I almost exclusively collect US coins and never thought in a million years I would collect world bullion coins but I have picked some up over the last 3 or 4 years. Some if it I find rather pleasing.

Probably an area I can think of is foreign coins. I was going to stick to US but got a bag full of world coins from my dad in his navy days. I didn't want to get rid of them all so figured I would keep one of each and now I am collecting from every country different types.

I do this all the time
Numismatics is such a vast and varied area I love to branch out into new and unexplored terrain, This is what keeps the juices flowing for me with my collecting

Never in my collecting career did I think I would amass such an extensive collection of ancient Chinese. I told myself to stay away due to the high numbers of fakes out there, but now I have many scarce to rare issues in my collection.

Foreign coins

Went to the local (annual) coin show and silver was $12/oz, so I couldn't bring myself to pay the premiums on bullion. I went to one seller of foreign coins and asked if he had any Canadian silver. He laughed in my face. I went to other tables and bought some Canadian dollars, Dutch 2 1/2 guilders, a Chinese dollar (I wish I had bought a half dozen -- it cost $13, and I got $70 trade for it a few years later), and other coins at or near spot. I bought a Swiss 5 Franc that was represented at .75 oz silver, but when I researched it online (before I bought my Krauses) it was only .4 oz.

Weeks later I was at the LCS, 3rd in line, killing time, and looked at the junk box. There I saw a 1950s Swiss 5 Franc. I knew it was .4 oz silver (because I had been cheated!) and asked how much it cost. It was 25 cents.

Hmm, I can get real cheap silver in the junkbox. I started researching other European silver coins -- and finding them. Soon I was hooked.

Best junkbox purchase was a 19th century Swedish coin (I thought it was silver, but it was nickel. However, it brought $110 on e-bay). The LCS sold it, I got store credit, and purchased a Dos y Medio Peso and ex-jewelry US $1 gold. Best 17 cents I've ever spent.