I have been building my own website for my coins ... it is almost complete except for some U.S. American dimes and other odds and ends for which I haven't yet had time to make images:

My Coins

Since I am just starting this thread, I will wait until the next new coins arrive and just leave the link to the main page as is. I have mostly U.S. American coins (pre-W.W. II) and Russian Imperial coins as well as a now almost-complete series of gold Swiss Vreneli coins. I also have most of the USA Indian cents in XF or better except for the key dates; my goal in all the series I have been concentrating on is grade XF or better. As resources permit, I will replace lower-grade pieces and add dates and mintmarks which are still missing.

At present, nothing is up for sale. I'll probably put up some duplicates on eBay before the year is over, though.

Thanks for looking!

That really nice setup for displaying your coins. Nice coins too!

Real nice shots!

The Vrenelli series of 20ff coins are one of my favourite European gold series. I was collecting these by date at one time, before I sold them all off.

Thanks for posting the link, next visit will be to your USA collection.

Very nice. I love your IHCs.

I needed some supplies at the local dealer's shop the other day, and as usual, I cannot go into a coin shop and just buy supplies!

So I asked if any new coins had come in lately (U.S. American or Russian). Sitting open, in a felt-lined tray, were some Morgan dollars. Most of them were circulated, but there was one which didn't have a price. It was an uncirculated prooflike 1881-S. I couldn't believe that they had it out in the open, unprotected from the fingerprints of all the customers and personnel, sitting in that tray. So I asked what the price was. The man who was showing me the coins was new, I suppose, for I had never seen him before. He went into the back room to ask the boss and came back. Since this is a fairly common date, especially in MS condition, he let me have it for about $28 (CHF 35) which is the price that they had marked for the other coins in AU! But it is probably my very nicest Morgan to date. Here it is:
Morgan dollar, 1881-S (prooflike)
Although there is some very light chatter on the obverse, it is not distracting (to me at least). The reverse is practically flawless. I would give it a grade of at least MS-63 but wouldn't be surprised if it went higher than that.

I suppose it didn't hurt that I also bought this Barber dime from them for about the regular retail price in AU (although it might even grade MS-62 or so), so they were probably willing to give be a break with the Morgan dollar:
Barber dime, 1892

Another recent acquisition from a different dealer:
Standing Liberty Quarter, 1928
I love the design of this coin, and nice ones are hard to find, much harder than silver dollars. So I couldn't pass this one up. I would grade this one AU-58 since there is some rub on the eagle feathers. However, the coin has tremendous eye appeal. But I don't collect these as a rule, so maybe my grade is too generous?

Opinions on the grades are most welcome!

Bobh - you did wipe out their Russian coin hoard didn't you?

Nevertheless, nice looking coins!

A long time ago!

Thanks!

Speaking of Russian coins, I do have quite a few new items. However, these are all eBay acquisitions.

1. I was finally able to find some 1899 gold 10 rouble coins which are not fakes:
1899-АГ and 1899-ФЗ. The 1899-ФЗ is a bit scratched up and only VF grade or so, but the 1899-АГ is a solid XF.

2. Some 5 kopeek coins of Catherine II. All of these have some kind of error or overstrike:
1765-EM (double-struck edge)
1781-EM, scroll is double-struck
1779-EM (possible repunched date??)
There was also one overweight coin (62g+) and one underweight (41g) among the other пятака which were newly purchased.

3. Some nice modern 3 rouble silver commemoratives here:
1994 Trans-Siberian Railway (100 yr. anniversary)
1995 Belgorod Fortress (1000 yr. anniv.)
1995 Wooden Church at Kizhi

4. As a curiosity, I picked up these two coins which amount to 2/3 of the total coinage types minted by Tatarstan:
Tatarstan petrol tokens (1993)
According to my Krause catalog, the independent country of Tatarstan existed for a little less than two years before joining up with Mother Russia again after the collapse of the old Soviet Union. In the meantime, three different coins were issued. The copper-nickel token was struck from the exact same design (or even dies) used for the bronze tokens. This created a problem because vast numbers of the bronze coins were illegally plated in nickel and traded at the higher value. Therefore, these coins are often found with test filing marks. The remaining coin was a token for 1 kilo of bread. It has a different design; the seller of these coins (who lives in Tatarstan) has promised to look for a bread token for me.

As you can see, gxseries, I'm not only interested in Imperial Russian coins, although I do tend to avoid the Soviet period.

You got very good taste there Bobh. I should assemble a set of Nicholai II gold coins one day when finance permits.

As for the modern Russian coins, if you noticed, I am extremely stubborn when it comes down to it - if there's no certificate and box, out they go from my mind! But at the same time, I paid a fair amount more and nowadays you rarely see them on ebay. Are modern Russian mint sets pretty scarce or what? I'll ask in the forum.

Some coins which I have had for some time in my collection but never got around to putting up on the Gallery until now:

Trime (silver 3 cent piece) 1862 w/ cool die clash
Seated Liberty Dime, 1887 w/ numerous die clashes
Barber Dimes (12 coins)
Twenty Cents, 1875-S in XF

It was especially fun trying to find as many die clashes as possible on the 1887 seated dime. The trime appears to have clashes on the reverse only, but it is so spectacular that it makes up for the missing obverse clashes.

Enjoy!

Lovin' the barbers

That seated is fabulous.

Okay, my votes for the die clash trime. That is a real nice example.

From the last two or three weeks, mostly eBay purchases:

USA: Barber dime, 1908-P
USA: Barber dime, 1913-P
RUSSIA: Polushka, 1735
RUSSIA: Denga, 1758
RUSSIA: Pyatak, 1791-EM
RUSSIA: Pyatak, 1790-AM
RUSSIA: 50 Kopeek, 1901-AR

No trouble guessing which purchase was the most expensive, I presume? (hint: don't be misled by the grade of the coin! )

Nice one Bobh. I am guessing the 50 kopek is the most expensive one out of there?

Right! How did you know?
(Oh ... ... this one is marked as "scarce" even by Uzdenikov!)

Some of the nicer ones which have arrived this month; the first two I bought at the recent bourse "Internationale Münzenmesse" here in Zürich:

USA: 2 cents 1865
USA: Indian cent, 1864-no-L (bronze)

The rest were eBay purchases:
RUSSIA: 1 kopeika 1710-WD (Bitkin 3386, R1)
RUSSIA: 5 kopeek, 1792-AM
RUSSIA: 50 kopeek, 1896-АГ (NGC AU-58)

The 1 kopeika coin is a somewhat rare error variety -- actually it is supposed to have the mintmark "МД" (MD) but whoever punched it in the die put the M in upside down.

Thanks for looking!

Hi! I do have such bread tokens if you need. I also live in Tatarstan & have blue star rating on Ebay. If you are still interested in it, just contact me for details.

Добро пожаловать в coinpeople, prodigykid! (trans: "Welcome to coinpeople, prodigykid!")

Funny you should ask ... just about a week ago I received a bread token from the same eBay seller from whom I bought the other two coins. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to make pictures of it!

I am also interested in modern silver proof Russian coins ... are there any issues especially devoted to Tatarstan?

Пока!

Peru: Gold Libra, 1900

Does anybody else here collect these? It was going for about melt on eBay; has a little rim ding at 12 o'clock on the reverse, but otherwise is in good shape. I love the design, and couldn't resist, although I don't really collect these actively.

Can't beat it for the price. And I agree, nice design.

Really nice, BTW did a quick browse on your gallery, thats a neat set up.

Nice one bobh. Definately very nice.

I was a bit critical of the most recent UBS auction (69) in the thread about the Isabella Quarter. But I did manage to win this nice trime there:

Silver 3 cents, 1860

Unlike some of the commemorative coins, the toning on this one looked natural to me. Of course, I could have been fooled (wouldn't be the first time! ).

So I went downtown to pick up this coin today at the UBS headquarters in Zurich. While I was there, I asked if they had any Peruvian 1 Libra gold coins. Sure enough, they pulled out a tray with a half-dozen or so, and I cherry-picked this uncirculated specimen. The picture doesn't do it justice; I can't find any of the obverse chatter on the coin with my 10x loupe:

Peru, 1 Libra 1966 (1/4 oz. gold)

I might just get hooked on these next!

Both are very nice coins. I could see you getting hooked on the Libras. It's a great looker.

Love the trime.

Picked this one up recently on eBay for less than $170 including shipping:

USA Morgan Dollar, 1883-CC in original GSA holder

I thought it was so nice that it arrived yesterday, on July 4th! Living in a foreign country makes one a bit sentimental about such things, I suppose...

Nice, just wondering have you checked for VAM type yet?

Nice piece, really nice when you consider the nice clean fields on it.

Thanks, Mark -- I haven't checked yet, but I do have the VAM book. Don't know if I will have time before leaving on vacation, though.

Thanks, Scottishmoney! It has a fair share of marks on the cheek, so it probably wouldn't grade higher than MS-63 (IMHO). However, the fields are very nice, and it has a lot of luster (the pictures don't do it justice!)

Both this coin and the 1884-CC I recently bought are the normal VAM 1 variety, AFAICT.

This type has eluded me for a long time. Never saw one that I really liked until now. It's far from being perfect, but it has lots of mint luster and a fairly good strike (good strike is not very common for this type, you know):

1921 Peace dollar (one-year type)

Picked up on eBay for €91 (€101 including shipping). I would estimate the grade of this coin to be at least MS-63, perhaps MS-64 ... any other opinions on grade?

Here's another silver dollar which arrived last week ... discussed in the "Do you see what I see" thread:

Morgan dollar, 1900-O (VAM 35)

Would have been nice if it had turned out to be VAM 29A, especially in this condition!

Picked this one up at a local dealer's shop for a little over melt value:

Russia, gold 1979 Chervonets (10 roubles)

Something if you can find in coin dealers inventory, say my local dealer, they will sell for roughly spot price. Otherwise if you goto someone that deals in Russian coins more will sell for far more now. Several months ago I bought a Lev Tolstoy gold medal that was minted ca. 1976 or so and sold through Mezhnumizmatika for spot. I would imagine what it would go for to collectors of such things.

Nice!

That is one that I have wanted to get for quite some time. I was tempted when I came across them at some of the banks in Stein am Rhein. That was 2 years ago. Now I wish I had.

Bumping this one to the top ... I looked around the Heritage archives for some slabbed Peace 1921's just for comparison's sake; there's mostly MS-64 and above over there, but a few in lower grades as well.

I'd really like to know what others think of this one. It has very nice (to me) even toning, never been cleaned, and only a few marks here and there. Do I hear MS at all on this one? 63? 64? ... ???

As always, thanks for looking!

Picked up all of these during the past week or so:

Peru, 1 Libra:



Barber dime, 1911-D, in AU (getting harder and harder to find these nowadays in XF or better, IMHO):



Next, there is a Swiss eBay seller I have dealt with a lot in the past. Although pricing of his coins is sometimes over the top, once in a while there will be a bargain, and I have never been disappointed in the coins once having received them. He had both of these Indian cents (both 1873, close and open 3 varieties) for sale at EF-40 money each -- and they turned out to be very pleasing, problem-free XF-40's (IMHO) Here they are:

1873, close 3:



1873, open 3:



When I received the coins, the label on the holder for the open 3 said "double die, outside legend". Naturally, he didn't try to pass it off as the doubled liberty (which it isn't), but I looked for machine doubling on the legend and could only make out a tiny bit of doubling on the "M" in AMERICA. Does anyone see any doubling there, or anywhere else?

Nice doubling on the year, in particular the number 7 for the Peruvian gold coin, as well as a minor die crack.

Good catch, I hadn't noticed the die crack; I did see the doubling on the top of the "7" right after posting these.

Forgot to mention that there seems to be some die clashes on the dime, too!

Almost forgot about this one:

Russia, 1790-EM, five kopeks (пятак):




Lots of detail. But surfaces look like they might have been treated with lacquer, or some such thing, long ago in the past (maybe it wasn't such a bad idea?)

And this one -- only VF grade (IMHO), but I didn't have one yet and got it for less than VG money:

Indian Cent, 1908-S:



Some people might call this XF-40, but I don't think it would grade quite that high.

It's pretty tough building an unslabbed set of these in XF or better (... especially when you live in Switzerland)! I'm still lacking most of the key dates, and there are some coins that don't make the grade. Slowly but surely, I'm getting there.

I think I bought a fairly decent '08 S cent several years ago, where it is, I have no idea. That is the lousy thing about having coins in the bank, you never see them. It is why I have a private website so I can visit my lovelies online now.

I am hearing rumblings all through that cents are going to be on the march up in price because of the interests created next year with the commemoratives for Lincoln.

This isn't a series that I actively collect, although I do have a few lower-grade Buffalo nickels. But I liked the looks of this one:


There is some very noticeable die polish around "FIVE CENTS" on the reverse.