How To Collect World Coins?

I wish I could help buy my world coin collection is mostly coins from the places I've been. I'm Portuguese so I have a larger collection of those as that's my home country. I honestly just put them in an album. There isn't a rhyme or reason. But as they done have much (if any value), it's just a memory of places I've been.






I do collect Currency from Portugal, those are stored by date and amount. Here is an example of the currency.

I went through a stack of big silver coins yesterday, many bigger than silver dollars. You might like Dutch daalders and rijders if you like silver dollars already.



I lived in France for a while. When I got back I started collecting their coins. At first it was focused on the Revolution, then Napoleon, then the Restored Monarchy, then Henri IV, on and on. Sort of like an infinite version of a type set. Dozens of branch mints. You could spend a lifetime collecting just the coins made in La Rochelle or Perpignan.

Somewhere along the line I got interested in Spanish colonial coins too. Especially the hand struck crude cobs. Piratey coins.

Really old ancient coins entered in at some recent point...Mysian, Lydian, Seleucid, Achaemenid....the beginnings of money....

There's no rhyme or reason to it really. They're all interesting in their own way.

Dive in and let it happen--make adjustments as your experience and tastes evolve.

I collect coins from every country. I try to complete date runs of all series, including different mints. It's a big job and I know I can't ever hope to collect all the coins I want, but I'm having fun trying. Started by getting bulk lots and then started trading with people around the world. Postage can be expensive, but I soon forget that when I add new coins. Once you get many coins from a country, it can then me a matter of cherry picking to get those last coins. (some can be too expensive and I will never get those, unfortunately). The main thing is to have fun doing what ever you chose to do.

Steve :)

I think you already have your solution.
If big silver and if world then collect one silver crown per country.
If no silver then copper-nickel will do the job and cost much less.
So you will have a large coin of one metal or the other from each country that has them.
If no crown from a particular country then accept the largest coin that they do have.

First, some terminology. World coin collectors in the English-speaking world tend to call large silver (or cupronickel) coins "crowns". Named after the large British coins of that name. "Crown-sized" or even "dollar-sized" works too, though a "silver dollar" is typically slightly smaller than a crown. Or to be more practical, a "crown" is a coin that can only fit in the largest possible size of 2x2. If it can't fit in a 2x2 at all, it's called a "maxi-crown".

Large silver dollar-sized coins from the German states and surrounding areas in Europe are called "thalers". "Thaler" (sometimes spelled "taler" in American English) is the word from which the English word "dollar" originates, and is actually an abbreviation for "Joachimsthaler"; this name in turn was derived from the city of origin of the first thalers or "dollars" ever struck: the (formerly) German mining town of Joachimsthal, now known as Jachymov, in the Czech Republic. German thalers are extremely popular with collectors in Germany, and prices are usually quite steep.

Krause has put out a specialized book for such coins, the "Standard Catalogue of World Crowns and Talers". It's convenient in that it covers 1601 to date all in one book; if you buy the regular Krause world coin catalogues you need four books to cover the same time period. An older book put out by Krause, the "Standard Price Guide to World Crowns and Talers", also known as "Davenport", is the more definitive guide, covering the entire period from the first thalers in 1484 and many crown/thaler collectors use "Davenport numbers" to catalogue their collections.

There is an old saying "buy the book before the coin".
So here are some samples of some books that can help the OP if indeed there may be a quest for "Crowns per Country".

I love large silver non-US coins. I'm not too particular about country, I'm much more concerned about the eye-appeal of the design.

There's lots of good advice already mentioned. Pre-1800's Thalers, even some modern coins have caught my attention. The Dutch Ducaton is probably my favorite.

Where to begin begs the answer to a few questions, what your typical budget is, what eras you may prefer, and conditions you find acceptable.

I've always understood; US coin collectors who only look for US coins are missing out on, literally, a world of opportunity. It's so bad sometimes I feel like if I see one more display case full of Morgan dollars, I'm going to be sick.