Istanbul Grand Bazaar - Coin Shopping

@jfe, one really good resource for coin stores around the world is this one:

http://goccf.com/t/261670

I don't know for sure though if Istanbul is represented on that thread or not. Others may have first hand experience and weigh in. Be sure to follow up with us as to what you see there!

Coins, in particular, are forbidden to sell or export if they are older than the reign of Sultan Abdulmejid I (AD 1839). So if you are hoping for Roman, Byzantine or Mediaeval Islamic coins, forget it. It's not worth risking time in a Turkish prison.

I was in the Grand Bazaar, ten years ago. I didn't see any coin sellers there then, and I was looking, though I can't claim my search was comprehensive. There might have been a whole street of coin dealers, and I simply missed it. The Grand Bazaar is "one of the largest shopping malls on the planet", and if there's anything like a reliable map available to tourists, I didn't find one.

I do know that, while selling genuine ancient and mediaeval coins in Turkey is forbidden, selling fakes is perfectly legal. Every tourist trap (eg. Troy, Ephesus, Pergamum, Pamukkale) has at the gates a little souvenir market, and (fake) ancient coins can be bought in abundance at such locales. And even buying these fakes, knowing they are fake, can be risky - if a Turkish customs agent spots them in your luggage when you try to leave the country, they may or may not have the expertise to tell that they are fake - and you may be waiting in a Turkish prison for a month or two while they bring in an expert to verify them. If you buy a realistic fake coin (or any other antiquity), it is recommended that you take it to a government-accredited expert yourself, who will examine it and give you a certificate of non-authenticity.

Another thing to watch out for, for those few places you might find that offer more modern coins for sale, is the "old lira" scam. In 2005, Turkey slashed six zeroes off the Lira, but kept the name. So it's possible to find coins denominated in thousands or hundreds of thousands of lira, and tourists (familiar with the current lira) are often fooled into thinking such old coins are actually high in face value.

The last currency reform in Turkey was in 2009, so it's impossible to find coins in circulation that are older than this as pre-2009 coins are now obsolete and officially withdrawn. "Coin roll hunting" in Turkey is, as a result, rather boring. Though with the "new" lira having already collapsed in value to being worth just 5 US cents (it was worth 50 cents back when I was there) and with the 1 lira coin being the highest face value coin, I suspect that coins have essentially disappeared from circulation entirely by now.

Great advise about being cautious with the Turkish expert laws - you do not want to be stuck in a Turkish prison.

I was in Istanbul in 2014 and made several trips to the Grand Bazaar but don't recall seeing any coin dealers although the place is so huge and winding I could have missed some.

There were several stores in Istanbul itself that had coins for sale on displays in their windows - although I did not stop to inquire about them.

Enjoy your trip - be sure to have a fish sandwich at one of the shops along the bridge on the Bosporous. It's a local tradition.

Visiting and shopping in the Grand Bazaar in Islambul is an experience I will never forget.
An ancient shopping mall, (by far the biggest in the World for many centuries), where even the streets are roofed over.

When I was in the Grand Bazaar waaaaay back in 1970, I found that almost every fine art object was a reasonable modern fake, made for the tourist trade.

I looked at Porcelain, ship's chronometers, carpets, leather coats, brassware and of course, - ancient coins.
Even then, I had a collection of about 80 Roman coins (including an aureus and a solidus), back at home in Australia.
That was OK for me, provided the haggled price was right. I bought a genuine (believe it or not), a 14 ct gold Turkish puzzle ring of modern manufacture.
I really didn't have any spare space to take large objects in my luggage.
I didn't buy any coins.

I had come overland from India driving an old Double Deck bus, which started life on the Manly to Palm Beach route in Sydney. (google Maps if you wish)

Lived and worked In Manchester UK for two years, before returning home. I am an MU fan, went to some of their home matches.

Note well what Sap has written.