Yet Another Forum Game - Numismatic Go Fish!

It would depend on what my other coins were. If all my other coins totaled 87 points, for example, then this one would be 13 (10 on the reverse, 3 for the roman numeral "III," and I would choose to not count the highly stylized "A" monogram. 10+3).

My guess is that the roman numeral exception will be extremely helpful in hitting exactly 100 for many people.




1. A coin must be worth at least one point. If a coin doesn't have any letters or numbers, it doesn't meet the requirements of rule 3.
2. I usually don't even think about ancient coins when I create a challenge, so I hadn't really thought of this scenario. My intention was that you could play a coin from a country or its historical predecessors. For example, one coin from the Russian Empire OR from the Soviet Union, but not both. So I would say, those being "ancient Greek" coins, that you could play one or the other.

...Huh, that makes things trickier - I expected to be able to use both Austria and Salzburg.

Also, separate question: what to do with designer's initials? They're not always particularly obvious, and online legend listings might not necessarily include them.

I guess it's too complicated?


I think I've figured out the first three coins I want to use (Germany, Poland, Lithuania, for 7 points). Other than that, honestly I just expect to be able to fudge up the remainder with something once I get past the obvious must-haves, but I'd need to take some pics before it gets to that point.
(The trick is to include coins that are almost anepigraphic; I was lucky enough to find a coin in my collection with exactly one letter.)

Quick question: which country do Pantikapaion and (Byzantine) Cherson count for, and is it the same country for both or not?
(And if it's Russia for both, can I use Olbia for Ukraine?)

I tried to make it as simple as possible. Maybe I overcomplicated it by trying to anticipate some questions that might arise (and then not anticipating others). Originally I wanted to do the fewest coins instead of the most but then I realized that a lot of coins have a lot of writing on them. lol. So I thought we would have ended up with many 2-coin entries. That's boring.

Here's a hint that I was alluding to before: Any recent coins with a British monarch are flexible by one point due to the likely a Roman numeral.

What rule modification would make this more doable? Remove the "exactly 100" rule? Lower the required number of points to something like 30? Limit the dates to more "modern" coins?

Maybe I should have posted an example myself to see how difficult it was.

I chose 100 because I saw that I had many coins which were around 20 characters, just from what's photographed. That would make it pretty easy for me to score 100 with a respectable 5 coins. I can understand, however, that if there is someone who has a few very low scoring coins, they might erase their advantage by the necessity to use a few higher scoring coins to get to 100. Maybe I should lower the total form 100 to 50?

I just did a quick look through my gallery and came up with this:

19 points


16


14


18


18


15 (choosing not to count the "A" monogram and "III" as 3)


19+16+14+18+18+15=100
6 coins

edit: fixed image link

@bd251, since a few of us have coins with no letters/numbers on them, would you mind if I suggest that a further refinement to the rules be that every coin must have at least one?

Ok @b251 here is what I have.

Assuming that coins with no letters or numbers are off limits, but still including the rule that no more than one coin from the same issuing country are allowed, I think that this is my best entry:

1. Byzantine Empire Half Siliqua (K)
2. Austria Pfennig (A B T)
3. Pflaz-Oberpfalz, Germany Schwartzpfennig (IO and AM)
4. Austrohungarian Empire 2 Heller (2 1901)
5. Salerno, Italy (SM and V V DVX)
6. Ireland Penny (EIRE 1971 and 1P)

By my count, the total number of digits on these six coins is 30. To be clear, some parts of some inscriptions are off-flan.

...I'd say that the Duchy/Archduchy of Austria and the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary is definitely the same country, so that's ineligible. Sorry.

I think I can get to 6 without breaking any rules, though...




Nurnberg (Germany) pfennig, ca. 1457 AD
Legend: N
Points: 1



Gdansk (Poland) denar, 1556
Legend: 5 6
Points: 2



Lithuania denar, 155x (let's say 1555, doesn't matter for the calculations)
Legend: 1555
Points: 4



Pantikapaion (ancient Greece or Ukraine, your choice), tetrachalkon, ca. 210 BC
Legend: ΠΑΝΤΙ
Points: 5



Salzburg (Austria), pfennig, 1521
Legend: 1521 M
Points: 5



Tver (Russia) pulo, mid-16th century
Legend: ΠY ΛOTB &PbCK OE [the & represents an exotic Cyrillic character)
Points: 13

Total coins: 6 (Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine or Greece, Austria, Russia)
Total points: 1+2+4+5+5+13=30


If Pantikapaion is considered to be in Russia (it's on territory that is currently under Russian control), I can still get 6 by using Olbia for Ukraine, but I'd have to crop my photos of the Olbian coin first.

If I try a bit I could probably squeeze it up to 7 (especially if Pantikapaion counts as Russia), but that would definitely require using some coins that I hadn't photographed yet.