A Short Hello From Holland

Dear all here at the coin community family ,

I have been reading a large portion of the posts here for approximately half a year or so, and thought it was time to finally show I exist. And who knows, perhaps show some of my coins. But first, please allow me to introduce myself. The name is Mika, at the time of writing I am 17 years of age and currently residing in the Netherlands, to be more precise in the tiny and picturesque village of Vianen, although I don't expect anyone to have ever heard of it. We did, during the 16th century, mint some Thaler-like coins, so who knows ;). Some of you, although that is a rather slim chance, might know me from Zeno.ru, or for being the moderator of ancient coins on a Dutch forum, under the nickname George_III. I started collecting coins at the age of 14, mainly the commemorative 2-euro's circulating and any coins my family and friends brought back from their vacations, nothing too old. I have one older brother, who, at the time, was busy collecting Roman coins. The 'virus' slowly spread to me, but really hit me when we found out that Heritage Auctions Europe (Formerly known as the MPO) was located within a 5-kilometer (3.1 mile, for you non-metrics out there) radius from our home. After intensively studying the catalogue for a while, my eye was caught by two coins listed under "China". I ended up buying one of these Wang Mang "Huo Bu" spades, and was instantly hooked on collecting more seriously! I started out with collecting coinage from George III, quickly moved on to medieval European coinage and ended up with managing the small collection of mostly Roman republican silver my brother had built up.

However, my true passion regarding numismatics has to be ancient Chinese coinage. The Wang Mang spade sparked a hobby, that got a little bit out of hand (this probably is rather familiar to some of you). Within one year of focusing entirely on this area, I have built up quite an okay-ish collection, and a library to match. The only thing I find rather difficult is authentication. I try to only buy from reputable dealers and auction houses, but even this is no guarantee. I mainly focus on anything issued during the Warring states period (476-221 BC), mainly square foot spades and smaller knives, but I try to represent all of the other dynasties by a single coin. The real reason I collect, is because of my passion and interest for history. The feeling of holding a coin minted more than two millennia ago is just indescribable. Who knows what this coin could have been used for, and what route it has taken before ending up in my collection?

At the time of writing, I am still finishing the last year of what you would call high school. After that, it is off to university, but I am going to let you guess which study(ies). The winner gets.. uhm . a smiley face?

Anyway, I hope this introduction isn't too long. But then again, you only get to write one of these....

With kind regards,

Mika (aka AnYangMan)