Okay what era/eras does your collection focus fall within? Is there a certain date you will not go back beyond?


Are you a modern, early modern, medieval, antiquity/classic or an ancient coin collector?

Anything that has a date on it... therefore... no medieval coins I guess for me.

1792 or 1793

Well American i tend to stick to 20th century. Germany is much the same story but i don't go beyond 1945 with German coins, nor before 1930 either.

With English well i'm in 871-1016 and 1422-27, i tend to ignore practically every other English coin minted outside of those periods.


Currently i go as far back as 899 since that's the earliest date that can be put on my oldest coin (although i play it safe and say it was minted in c. 920).

The date keeps dropping, hopefully i want to go back to the 8th century with the English one day. Then i aim to actually get something done with the ancients, so that CE/BCE line should hopefully get crossed one day... i'm just gonna keep going back in time until i get as far back as i can afford.


So US/German coins i'd say i collect modern. (If 1920-1945 is considered modern, it is to me).

English coins i'm early medieval (shifting towards dark ages) and late medieval.

Boy when I started it was the 19th/20th century, but....

Since then I've gone to 18th, 17th, and thanks to the author of this thread I have one from the 13th. I mostly stick with 19th/20th though.

I stick to the 19th century on up. Maybe I will get into much older coins some day when I find some that interest me.

Oh yeah! I'd forgotten about that.

1793, I'm a boring US coin collector

Nothing boring about US coinage... $20 Liberties, Washington Quarters etc. Wonderful stuff.

My oldest is a Louis d'or
Louis XVI 1787
Only because the earlier ones are either very expensive or look like coins that have been folded in two

Or chipped, or clipped, or ex-mounts, or still mounts, of general jewelry, or holed, crimped, 'broken but brilliantly repaired', weakly struck, filed, waterworn, pitted or otherwise below standard.

I'm hearing you all too clearly!

My emphasis is on US coppers, so I'll say 1793 to 1909.

I have stuff of other dates, for instance I have a very nice 6d from 16xx. Don't remember the date. I'll look it up later.

Although I own a couple of ancients, my interest is mostly with 1900 to present coins. I also like 1800 and late 1700 but don't have much desire to go beyond that.

lol... due to my inability to specialize in coins, I have items in my collection that span from this year back into B.C.

Anything with a date ....for me as well.....I have Polish coins from the 1500's and I have moderns....and then of course everything in between

So far I went to 1532, but I'm willing to go further.

Anything ever coined, regardless of age or origin...

Well, my area of interest begins currently with George IV, so I guess 1821 or so ... BUT, I own a bunch of older coins I've acquired over the years. A couple of the ancients go back to the 400's BC. One British copper is from around 844 AD or so.

I have decided not to buy any newer than 1918 coins this year. I've kept the decicion quite well, though I had to buy one brand new 10 Rouble..
My oldest coin is from 1749, but theoretically my collecting area expands to 1400's or If I find oil from my backyard, to 900's

1632 is my oldest.
I probably would not go much older than that, when the coins start to look more like thin punched tokens than something hammered or pressed.
So, according to MY definition, I am a modern collector.

My oldest coin is a 1788 Connecticut copper, but I would like some 1500 era Portuguese coins someday.

That's my story & I'm stickin' to it. Lost most of pre-1700's, looking for CHEAP really old stuff for edu. purposes. Nothing fancy.

No rules for me either. I generally skip 400-1500 since it's a "junky" period as far as quality is concerned.

1100-1160 is particularly abysmal with regards to the quality of strike. Although i think you're wrong about 1300-1500, there are many well struck and well designed coins out there from that period.

1160-1300 is hit and miss, mostly miss.

If you find a 200 litres barrel of oil in your backyard, what you gonna buy?
I saw on ebay many crusades era coins cheap, and very eye catching. Hammered coins are just spectacular. I love the old letters!

I collect everything, except Roman coins. I'm focused into European coins.

Amusingly the old letters are often the key point of designating which type/class a hammered coin can be ascribed to.

Although I have some earlier pieces, and my collection of British Monarchs goes back to 955, for the most part I concentrate on the 1787 - 1807 era.

955! You've got an Eadwig penny?


ow, ow, ow... lemme see!

My British collection goes as far back as the 1st Century BC with a couple of cast coins (Including a Thurrock bull) from the Cantii through Tasciovanus to Boudicca. The Romans in Britain (Roman coins made or found in Britain) commences with a Quadrans of Cladius 43 AD and found near an early Roman fort of the Claudian period to the late sub-Roman copies of the late 400's (described by Mortimer Wheeler as 'King Aurthur's small change). The hammered section begins with a copper sceat of Eathelred II of Northumbria (Moneyer Leofthegn) continues to Canute, William I then most kings /queens to the end of hammered including a milled 6d of Elizabeth I by Elois Mestrelle, Finally milled from Charles II to 1967.

British tokens from 17th, 18th and early 19th Century.

My USA collection begins with a 1795 one cent (This appears EF but I think will unfortunately need to be 'slabbed' to prove genuine.) and continues to today.

My British commonwealth collection begins with late 18th Century Demerary and Esquibo silver and copper (can't remember exact dates at the moment).

The Ancient Greek with 'olive leaf' (again can't remember date) coinage to 47BC-ish Athenian.

All in all quite a wide spread and lots of gaps to fill.

Regards,

PAB.

I have to say the majority of my focus has been 20th century era, a little 19th century and 21st century for my children.

I go back to the event horizon. My oldest coin is in this series from about
600 BC, probably a little later. This coin is a "trite" or one-third stater. Mine is a "hekte" or one-six stater. The incuse punches on the back are very different, but the reclining lion is similar.

http://www.coinarchives.com/a/lotviewer.ph...ucID=55&Lot=180

When I started collecting, I started with tokens as a project in December 1992. I went quickly to Barber Dimes and Mercury Dimes, but by Spring 1993, I had discovered that ancients -- especially Greeks -- are no more expensive than anything else. So, I focused on ancient and archaic Greek coins worth about a day's wages from the times and towns of famous philosopher.

I have another silver 1/12 stater from Miletos about 550 BC for Thales and I have I have several from the early classical era, 480-450 BC from Abdera, Klazomenae, etc., for Democritos, Anaxagoras, etc.

Of course, I have an Owl, attributed to 450-420 BC and many others after that into the Hellenistic era after Alexander post-300 BC.

When the collection was complete -- I since stopped collecting and sold off most of my coins -- I had a pretty full set from Thales of Miletos to Hypatia of Alexandria.

I still have the electrum "hekte" from 600-550 BC.

(My inspiration for all of that was a tv presentation of "Backbone of the Night" one of the chapters in Carl Sagan's COSMOS.)

That coin in lot 180 is gorgeous!

My primary focus is Finnish (proper) coinage, which begins after the mid 19th century. Of course I am not limited to that. However, I have finicky tastes regarding the coins I collect- meaning I prefer the full rounded forms of struck milled coinage. I find hammered/pressed/etc coins interesting on their historical merits, but they do not appeal to me so much as a collecting item (except for those examples that have a nice rounded, full, struck appearence).

So as a generalization, I would be a modern/early modern collector.

I seem to be aquiring more and more pre-1800 pieces now.