| Author |
 Replies: 7 / Views: 1,779 |
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1346 Posts |
I often find myself in a quandry...
I have a fun WW coin collection, all in 2x2s, annotated, and in boxes alphabetically.
The problem rears when I take out a country, and string them across my desktop. By denomination. The urge hits to put them in pages for a 3-ring binder. I succumb. Then I hit an online catalogue to see what I don't have.
So I fill in the spots depending on how much I want a piece. Trying to stay with regular issues. But, dang, a commem appears. Then another. I am torn from my initial direction to stay with regular issue coins.
I dare not collect with innocence countries which mass produce commems. Ahh, the allure of silver (now below $16/oz). I must stick to my original thinking.
So, where is this going you might ask (if you haven't bailed yet?)
Are there any (non-us or Canada) collectors who shun commems and stick strictly to regular issues?
|
|
|
|
Pillar of the Community
 United States
1346 Posts |
To clarify, I am coming from a type-set arena.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
516 Posts |
I stick to regular issues. I aim to collect type sets, so will stick to a basic set for a certain period. I do have the odd commemorative issue that I've found amongst job lots and kept. But these don't fit my main aim, so stay in the box rather than album.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
507 Posts |
At first I was confused by your post. I thought you were talking about circulating commemoratives. That is, coins that were made for a special occasion but actually circulated. A USA example would be the 1776-1976 coins. I consider these to be legitimate type coins worthy of pursuing or keeping. If what you are talking about is commemoratives that are made just for collectors and were never intended for circulation then I don't consider them an interest. Part of collecting coins from around the world is that people from around the world actually used them! When browsing numista you can click a button to remove all of these. Another gray area is a series of circulating commemorative coins, similar to the USA 50 State Quarters and successors. There are countries like Spain, Poland, Thailand with so many of these coins that I can't possibly keep up, and honestly don't want to. In those cases I might just keep one of each series as an example, just like I wouldn't be surprised for a foreign collector to keep only one representative quarter. So I guess the first step is to decide what type of commemoratives you are talking about - circulating or not intended for circulation (NIFC). -wheatiefan |
|
New Member
United States
47 Posts |
With US coins the set of noncirculating commemoratives seems well defined, but is that true with all countries? In a 20th century Mexico type set there are several coins with total mintages of say 100,000 or 200,000 - more than most US classic commems but far less than other Mexican issues of the period. They mark the anniversaries of historical events, and you see them mostly well preserved. Despite looking a lot like commemoratives I think most collectors include them. I'm puzzled myself about how they were considered by the public at the time. Just playing devil's advocate; in general I agree with the other responses above. |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
570 Posts |
Quote:
Part of collecting coins from around the world is that people from around the world actually used them! Agreed, but isn't it a bit ironic folks tend to demand them unused? |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1346 Posts |
I appreciate all the input. Thank you.
|
|
Moderator
 Australia
16826 Posts |
Part of the problem is the lack of a clear distinction in some countries between "commemorative" and "regular issues". For example, many countries have participated in the UN FAO "Grow More Food" coin programme. Are these "commemoratives"? To me, a "commemorative" has to, well, commemorate something. Some FAO coins were intended to circulate, some were issued as low-cost NCLT, with some of the profits from sales going to the FAO; most were issued in mintages so high it's impossible for someone who wasn't actually in-country to know whether they actually circulated or not. Another example of ambiguous coins are the American "fifty states" and " ATB" quarters. Are they "commemorative"? If so, they don't seem to actually commemorate anything other than "America has states". So, does each and every one of the quarters belong in an "American type set"? The general consensus seems to be "yes, they do". And they're cheap enough and readily available, even here in Australia, so the only consideration to keeping them or not is the space required. 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
|
| |
Replies: 7 / Views: 1,779 |
|
Posted 12/12/2017 6:14 pm
