Question as topic heading, including the following;

1) Was it a particular coin that caught your eye?

2) World coins are generally cheaper than US?

3) Just fancied something different?



Note; If you're not in the US then the question still applies, how did you get into non-native coins and why?


Finally, is there anything, country-wise/denomination-wise you think you'd like to persue one day, time/money permitting?

My parents pile of leftover coins from overseas trips fasinated me I guess that's how I started into world-coins.

But honestly, I started to collect Russian coins, after I have been there... so yea... I guess it's something that going there helped me spark an interest in it. Although they are QUITE expensive... I admit... >_<

Well, I live in the "world" part of this planet, so that's easy.

I started collecting Dutch coins when I was a little kid, saving 1 cent coins, aiming to get a full year run. Once that was almost completed, I added 5 cent coins to that and later also 10 cent coins.

Then my collecting hobby went into hybernation, until many years later I went on vacation to a diferent country than usual and took some coins with me as kind of souvenirs. That woke the collecting virus again. I decided to collect, next to the collection of Dutch coins, all coins (denominations/ varieties) of countries I've visited.

If price was not an issue, I'd really like a UNC or Proof Gothic Florin.....

When I was 12 my godfather gave me a liberty double eagle
and I became a magpie

Ah the Liberty $20... gorgeous coins. Must get another one, one day to replace the vacant spot left by the other that got sold.

US gold coinage is an interest of mine, amongst others.

May I introduce you to some world platinum or palladium coin, like the coin I got in my avatar? *lol @ cccp*

Not too bothered about Platinum, but Palladium always sounded like a good metal to have! Afterall Platinum whilst more expensive (if memory serves correct) is just a run of the mill noble metal. Palladium is more interesting.

Although zinc and tin are firm favourites also. The zinc as exemplified by this collection currently being worked on. Currently trying to get a full date run of these in UNC with lustre. (Lustre was hard to capture, but it is there).




Infact a whole Nazi Germany Berlin (A) mint date set in UNC is the ultimate goal eventually, but the 5 reichpfennigs are currently the only denomination being pursued.

Well technically my world coin collection started when I travelled to Europe when I was 15. I brought home coins/notes from each country, but that didn't start my collecting of them.

That started when I went to the Safe Deposit box with my Mom and she let me have my father's coin collection. I had no idea he had world coins. I was going through trying to identify them, but some I just couldn't so I ended up here asking questions and it was really CP that started me going down that path.

Ah, most certainly interesting, tin and zinc. Japan used to have them during WWII, obviously because they were running out of raw materials. It is true that finding coins in good grades without corrosion are quite difficult, in fact, I think you have a better one that I do.

You know, palladium is a pretty odd metal. If you have a palladium uncirculated and proof coin put side by side, the difference in color is quite suprising, as palladium in uncirculated is really grey, and in proof, it's more silverish. I guess that's like an alunimum roll, where you have the brilliant shiny side and the dull side. But again, palladium coins are suprising as expensive or even more than gold, where palladium is supposed to be at least 40% cheaper than gold...!!! I guess the demand comes into play, as palladium is quite a rare metal used in coins...

It was last fall ... I was getting tired of outrageous prices for nice US stuff and wanted a change, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. Then I saw some gorgeous pics of Canadian and British coins on another forum, and started into the Darkside. It has been a refreshing change, mainly because of the people who consider themselves "Darksiders" ... they are, in my opinion, a lot nicer and friendlier than thier liteside counterparts, at least on that particular forum.

Hehe, I remember that.

pages long posts with picturs of all sorts of world coins and the other members shooting at them: #15 is a ...... etc.

those were hard times for my Krause

My city was part of Austro-Hungarian empire until 1918. Today, Serbian and Hungarian borders are at 60 km. Easy to find here old Austro-Hungarian, Serbian, German coins. Ironically, was very hard to find many of regular romanian coins issued ante 1914, than key dates of Hungarian or Austrian coins...

When I was little my father brought back a large canvas bag full of coins from Australia, Japan, and Vietnam that he had saved all of during his tour of duty in Asia. This would become the nucleus of my collection. I would sell off or trade off some coins, but I still have one of every type of coin from that bag.

Yep and everyone was so nice and helpful that I never left.

we anticipated for that

and we're glad you stayed

I was basically collecting world right off the bat. There's a good amount of Canadian and US coinage circulating together where I am, and also the odd other Commonwealth piece.

I have been a specialist collector of British Commonwealth coins & banknotes for nearly 20 years.I also got into collecting postal notes & postal orders from all over the British Commonwealth actively in the last 3 years,especially since last year,when I decided to join the Postal Order Society (Great Britain).I have been buying a lot of postal notes & postal orders,& now have got nearly 200 of them.

Someone had mentioned palladium coins.There is 2 countries that I know of that have had them.Both are British Commonwealth countries - Australia & Tonga.Tonga was the first country to release a palladium coin.

Aidan.

Australia wasn't certainly new into palladium coins, as they minted their in the middle 90s, in fact it was minted for a very short time, and stopped because of the violite precious metal market. Tonga minted palladium coins in 1967, followed by various nations in Europe, like France, Portugal, Russia which was minted in the late 80s. I most certainly don't know if there were any palladium coins minted in the 70s. Even smaller nations like the Bermudas did have palladium coins.

It's odd that not too many countries mint palladium coins nowadays. The only one that I know that is still under mint, which is China 100 yuan 1/2 ounce palladium coin, which is minted last and this year.

I have one "International Reply Coupon" with value 7 d. cut and 1 writed over it, issued in Commonwealth of Australia.
Maybe you can help me with some details. Afternoon I'll make a scan of it...

Well Visting Asia in 1992 I got Many Different Coins From The Asian Region And thought That World COins Would be Neat to Collect So From 1992-Present i Still Collect World COins

About 10 years ago when my grandfather passed away. I recieved his collection of world coins, and have continued collecting them ever since then.

Wow Tiffi! Do you mean that your world collection just took off after you became a member here? If that is true, you have amased some great coins in a very short time.

I had tinkered around with the idea of a “hobby” that would allow me to do something that I would enjoy, and be worth something at the end as well. I have always enjoyed history, so I looked at stamp collecting. Didn’t take long, not my cup of tea at all. I had lived through the baseball, football, hockey, Nascar card crazes, and wanted no part of that. That left teapots or coins.

I chose coins.

It then did not take me long to realize that all the really neat looking U.S. coins I was liking cost a full arm, part of a leg, and sometimes a right eye as well. Man, U.S. coins can be expensive for being as “young” as they are. So surfing the internet I found a bunch of sites for “darkside” coins. Granted, I could not read a lot of them as I barely can read and speak the Queen’s English, but I can understand pictures. And world coins are beautiful, and remarkably affordable compared to U.S. coins.

My ancestral roots are from Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Those were the first three countries I started with. It has now moved like most collections to the pat “anything I find pretty” area. I love the darkside coins. I just wish I had a local dealer who would deal in foreign coins, instead of treating the word “foreign” as an obscenity.

That is absolutely correct.

I started with Baltic states silver and then was drawn off to Bulgarian silver and Habsburg silver. I've always been partial to French gold and silver but only recently began to appreciate Great Britain silver.

If it ain't silver or gold, I'm not usually interested, though some of the Portugese, Italian and Spanish coins struck in nickel and cupronickel have begun to appeal a little.

i first moved to bahrain when i was five, and i've been hopping around the world ever since. my first collection items were more like leftover fieldtrip money, and eventually went on to include leftover vacation money (which i pilfered from my parents/siblings). by 1994, i lost all interest completely and basically forgot about coins altogether. but as i was leaving korea in '98 (for the first time), i noticed a small dealer set up in my hotel lobby. what better souvenir than having a couple sets of north korean specimen notes? i've been a strictly-paper kinda guy ever since.

Ah, but paper has no heft. No weight. No clink when dropped into a pile of like items. Oh to be sure paper is wonderful in its own right, fabulous designs and colors and watermark tricks. Love paper myself. But it is the coins with their size and weight as you cup them in your palm that keeps me going after the precious metals.

heheh...that's the problem, they all look the same! to me, an album full of morgans looks like the same thing over and over with maybe a different mintmark here and there. i don't find that very exciting. every one of my notes are of a different design, and the lack of heft and weight means i can store them more easily in a very small space. i have about a thousand notes in my collection so far...and if they were all coins, that would be around a hundred pounds! heheh, the coin albums alone must take up a library shelf worth of space.

i'm really quite impressed with a lot of the gold coin designs i've seen...but that's currently out of my budget range. the only coins i can afford to actively collect right now would be modern cheaper stuff with less than extravagant designs.

Not a paper fan sadly, not enough uniformity and sameness of design, too colorful too. Sombre dark colors are good, bright abstract modern looking note designs, not too intriguing. US notes are the preferred here, simply because they are in a word old fashioned, old fashioned is good.

I could not agree more there. And you even picked a series that I do not care for. Kennedy halves are another example of when you see a complete, or near complete collection, it is damn boring.

Again you do make a good point. Coins do weigh, and they take up space. And if you have been reading the album threads here, you know there are dozens of different ways to try and display these coins, none of them really good in my humble opinion.

Ah yes, the shiny yellow coins. Those that have any weight to them come with a really high price tag. I agree with what you said about notes, notes are cool and have great artwork on them. But I keep coming back to that 1632 Austrian thaler, with over an ounce of silver, and hold that weight in my palm, and wonder who in history has also held that precious metal disk. Hard to find 370 year old paper notes to hold.

I just picked up my parents accumulation of world coins (they had kept all the coins brought back from abroad) when I was 10 and the rest is history...

Jose

Started in the mid-70s with the occasional pause. My wife got me going on Napoleonic era coins and medals when she told me flat out that the swords had to go!

I collected cents, nickels and dimes (silver) from my parents pocket change when I was 5 or 6 and later got some Mexican and Brazilian coins and notes from their friends. I knew of no way to get more so kept on collecting U.S. minors until I saw a Littleton Coins ad about 1967. After that 99% of my collecting was of world coins (& paper money) but I have kept my 'dusty' U.S. set as well.

I think the coins I got at swap meet the other day are Hungarian, I thought they looked interesting so I bought them for 50 cents.

1967- 50 Filler
1963- 5 Filler
1961- 2 Forint

I guess I should reply to the posted subject Got into world coins quite awhile ago when I got some from work. However wasn't much interested. Now the thing that interests me is the different designs each country will select, it can leave an impression on those from other countries as to the cultural importances and beliefs
of that country. A picture is worth a thousand words.

I was a child and the relatives brought "strange" money from abroad. I have collected "world" coins from the beginning.

I just recently became interested in foreign coins. I like the diversity of the coins and also in learning the history connected with the coins. The bimetal coins are very pretty. I am only interested in current circulating coins in uncirculated condition due to the cost. I give them to people and tell the a short history of the coin hoping that they will also become interested in the histories. Our world is shrinking each day and the different coins is a way to learn information of the countries.

Jerry Webb
jerrydwebb@aol.com