| Author |
 Replies: 22 / Views: 3,874 |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
624 Posts |
I have learned a lot in the past year and a half I have been on this site but one thing that had never even crossed my radar in my years of research prior to joining was the existence of the 2000 P Cheerios Dollar ( Sacagawea dollar with the 1999 Reverse). I think that no matter how much we know or learn that there will always be something else that we just missed altogether. With so many experts with so many different specialties it's easy to understand how something well known to others could be foreign to you. What is something that blew your mind that you learned about here first? My hope with this thread is that this will open the door for me to learn more things that will blow me away that I didn't even know to ask about. I'm still here to learn despite all the information I have already picked up. |
|
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
I learned about the Indian Princely states; several dozen semi-autonomous political entities in 19th and 20th century India that each produced their own coins, often very easy to mistake for ancients or medieval Islamic coins. I then got the horrible, bankrupting urge to try to assemble a collection of princely state rupees.
I also learned that age and value have no correlation whatsoever. I dove headfirst into ancient coins, and learned that many of them can be had more cheaply than modern coins. At one point I had well over 500 coins that were over 1,000 years old, and it cost just barely over $500 to get them.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
Canada
5246 Posts |
Well, I would not say that it "blew my mind", but I did not realize how bad the counterfeiting problem on ebay is until I started reading. |
|
Valued Member
United States
282 Posts |
That I would need to put together over 450 Capped Bust halves to complete the full set.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1316 Posts |
The passion of the lowball collectors. The complexities of authenticating Colonial 8 Reales. How overpriced US coins are. How much more fun my hobby is thanks to this forum :) |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1695 Posts |
Great question. I had completely been away from the hobby for more than 20 years, so coming here has been eye-opening about the development of the hobby. I've been "blown away" by:
1) the role of TGPs in the hobby since I first left, as I had not heard of TGPs as a kid;
2) the number of counterfeit coins that exist;
3) the hobby's degree of privileging of MS coins over circulated ones; and
4) microscopic viewing of coins to establish varieties for a series.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
 United States
7174 Posts |
I too have been away from collecting for more than 35 years. I'm blown away by the knowledge & information that is on this site. Back then I didn't know what variety or error I had until the next monthly meeting of the coin club. Now it's just a click away. And low ball collecting blows me away.
|
|
Moderator
Australia
16842 Posts |
I learned that, sometime between the mid-1980s (when I last visited North America) and the year 2006 (when I joined this forum), the colloquial definition of the word "currency" had changed, so that for most North Americans it now means "paper money", rather than just "money".
I learned that many American coin collectors are in the bizarre habit of paying third parties to entomb their perfectly good coins inside giant slabs of non-biodegradable plastic.
I learned that the Chinese counterfeiting "cottage industry" takes place inside some pretty big "cottages".
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
666 Posts |
Quote:
I learned that many American coin collectors are in the bizarre habit of paying third parties to entomb their perfectly good coins inside giant slabs of non-biodegradable plastic. Maybe not 'blown away', but 'delighted' by the great sense of humor of so many forum members, such as the quote above from Sap.  I had no idea how many varieties of coins exist and how desired many of them are ... and how some are not desired. How much comic book collecting has borrowed from coin collecting. How sneaky and devious some of the fraudsters can be - but not if I check here first!  Great question Mayflower2020!Edited by dd27
08/01/2016 7:24 pm
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
7390 Posts |
Finn... I have a silver India princly states that I mistook for an ancient lol.
Pm me if you're interested
|
|
Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21788 Posts |
The fact that slabs can be so easily faked.
The optically variable color print labelling that appears on slabs is also used for fake drug labelling.
The fake packaging contains fake, poorly made or under strenth drugs. Very dangerous. That is one of the reasons why some of the blister packaged drugs available from our pharmacist have to be verified, then re sold in generic packging.
A lot of this sort of print fakery for drugs originates in India.
Edited by sel_69l
08/01/2016 8:42 pm
|
|
Pillar of the Community
 United States
624 Posts |
There are some great responses here so far. I have already started looking up a few of them.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
6370 Posts |
The hike in relative value of rare coins.  |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1156 Posts |
I am frequently blown away with the ability of the world coin forum members to identify "anything"* -- even with bad photographs.
* That includes buttons and gaming tokens made to look like coins.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
Norway
1358 Posts |
Too much to sum up, really. Some highlights are:
- the incredible amount of fake coins and bullion that's around. Even just simple coins that don't seem to have much collecting value are faked now.
- how Americans are getting more and more into slabbed (entombed, as Sap says) coins and how many fake slabs there are.
- same goes for the fascination with pre-produced albums like Dansco makes them.
- the art of coin roll hunting (really not something we do around here. We just buy coin lots by the kilo).
- lots of ways to clean coins and even more reasons why I shouldn't use my knowledge.
and so on, and so on...
oh and one more thing: that I really need to buy me a good and large monitor screen.
Edited by UltraRant
08/02/2016 3:15 pm
|
|
Moderator
United States
34424 Posts |
Quote:
I am frequently blown away with the ability of the world coin forum members to identify "anything"* -- even with bad photographs. Agreed. I would specifically mention BobL in this regard. He is the only one on CCF for whom I have used the "blown away" emoji.  "If you climb a good tree, you get a push."
-----Ghanaian proverb
"The danger we all now face is distinguishing between what is authentic and what is performed."
-----King Adz
|
| |
Replies: 22 / Views: 3,874 |
Posted 08/01/2016 12:22 pm
