What Our Members Collect!!

I mainly collect Russian and Japanese coins but they cost a lot these days

There are alot of great people here to trade from.I only had a few world coins when I first joined the forum,and now they are running out my ears.Each so unique and different,I love them all.They are going to be good education for my kid.Good luck to you Berry,and welcome to the forum :) sn31.

Well since I only collect medieval (and only 10th-12th century medieval at that) it means i'd have to wait a long, long time before any of them turned up in circulation!

Although to be fair I'm collecting stuff I can't afford anymore which explains why I only get roughly two new coins a year. Soon to be half that.

Just about everything...

Ben

I don't get coins from circulation because I'm just not into modern coins in any way, shape or form. In fact the only modern coins I do possess are actually fake One Pound coins that I spotted and pulled out of change. I've got a small pile of them somewhere, but it's hardly a collection because they're just piled up on top of a dressing table and half forgotten about.

It's true I do have some modern coins in my collection, coins from various places, an 1821 US dime, some UNC Third Reich coins, an Austrian gold ducat from 1786 (i think!), and a few mid-high grade 1780s French issues of Louis XVI. But although I have these in my collection that part of it is no longer active.

I sold off the vast majority of my collection to specialise in a partial Anglo-Saxon monarch run (899-975) and in coins of the Anarchy (1135-1154). My collection had consisted of a somewhat sporadic and broken date run of 1674-1787 British sixpences mostly in some form of VF. Well I had about a quarter to one third of a date run collection there. Plus about half a dozen sovereigns, and several half gunieas. Every single one of them went.

The truth is I'm not much of a numismatist these days, I'm much more into history for history's sake. Sure I have a passing interest in Anglo-Saxon history because in the way that the American or French Revolutions formed the modern idea of those respective countries, the period from about 839-975 CE is the period that the idea of England as a nation came into being. Prior to that it was all little kingdoms and regions fighting against each other.

The Norman conquest of 1066 though captured my imagination, the way it was so overwhelmingly complete within a few decades is stunning. However, the overbearing and extremely efficienct Norman governmental system collapsed into anarchy and civil war in 1135 with a succession dispute between a rightful female heir and her usurping male cousin. How a mighty omnipotent power fell so quickly and so devastatingly always intrigued me. The fact that the events are full of really charismatic and entertaining historical figures makes it all the more alluring. And why did it all happen? Because the usurping king was too nice and too lenient and the rightful Empress was overbearing and persistent.

Coins of this period though are tough to find in nice condition, nice condition being "decent portrait, some legible legends so that it can be ascribed to a mint", that makes it a good one.

Most are off centre, often chipped and cracked, weakly struck and impossible to tie down to a mint because the legends are indechiperable.

So I'm kind helped by the fact that although they're not rare, the ones that are nice to look at and are attributable aren't easy to find nor are they cheap.

I'm focusing all of my money onto U.S. coins (actually, almost all morgans) but I do have a small world coin collection from family trips and such (it has about 250 coins).

Morgans,Morgans,Morgans,oh and did I say Morgans.
Also WWII German coinage.