My wife and I finally found a web hosting service which seems to offer enough space for images, music files, etc. that we can now set up a nice website for ourselves and our many different projects.

I have stared out with some pictures of my nicer coins (what else??). Anyway, right now there are some USA 50 cent classic silver commemorative coins as well as some of my better Russian 50 kopek coins (I guess I like that number 50! )

Please take a look and feel free to comment on the suggested grades, photos, etc. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. For now, I won't be selling any of these, it's just a little showcase for some of my better stuff.

Here's the link:

My Webpage

Thanks!

Very nice coins. The album setup on the website is very nice. Lots of good info about the coins. Great pictures and the ability to go the larger and much larger pictures is a real asset. Good site.

Thanks, Art!

You know at first, I was skeptical about the gallery software (it is supplied for free by the web hosting service, BTW). But the more I use it, the better I like it. It is open source software -- like most such software, it doesn't do much hand-holding when it comes to configuration. But it is very flexible, and the defaults are quite usable out of the box.

The album format is not the most exiting design possible, but it is attractive and easily used. It was a no-brainer to navigate and I like the presentation when you zero in on the large format image of the coin. It appears to be a good format for someone who's first interest is in showing their coins as opposed to designing a website. Both are interesting tasks, but the latter is for someone wanting to spend their time designing and programming. The open album format appears very usable for getting your coins on line.

The pictures blow up to a great size, I liked that!

Very well done album with some great coins and pictures. You should be proud.

In the meantime, I have uploaded many coin images from my collection to my gallery:
My Coins

In particular, there are some Swiss gold coins. There is the variety 1935-no-L which has some very interesting history to it ... I have provided a link to the Swiss Mint website article which is apparently only available in German, but I have also translated the relevant part into English in the gallery.

Thanks for looking!

That is a great gallery with excellent photos. I also learned something, I had never seen the earlier Helvetica design of 20F coins and I think they are very beautiful! I think I may have to pick one up. Are they expensive? Can you offer any advice for someone just wanting to pick up one for type? (i.e. common vs. key dates etc?).

Thanks for sharing your collection!

Thanks for looking!

The key date for this type is 1888. With only 4224 coins total minted that year, retail price starts at CHF 6,000 in VF and goes up to CHF 15,000 for gem BU (1 US$ = approx. CHF 1.25 right now). The more common dates such as 1883 and 1894-96 go for a little over melt in VF and up to about $400 in gem BU. $200 will probably get you a very nice one. The problem is actually finding one in higher grades -- these were often worn as jewelry and therefore have bevel marks on the edge. Look out for those!

Just finished posting some Indian Head cents today: My Coin Gallery

I'm trying to build a set in XF/AU ... of course, many of the earlier dates miss the mark by a few points, and many key dates are missing. But I consider at least half of these to be "keepers", and the rest will eventually be replaced by better grades. Also, it turned out that I bought some cleaned coins. But these were acquired back when I didn't know as much about these things.

One of the cleaned coins was the 1872 IHC (it has AU detail, though). However, this was found by chance in a dealer's "dust bins" at the World Money Fair in Basel in 2005 (the last year it was held in Switzerland). Apparently, he thought it was either too far gone, or was too lazy to check on its true value, because he was offering it for only CHF 20 (that's right, I paid only the equivalent of approx. US-$ 17 for that coin)! Tomorrow I will hunt around for an image I saved of the coin in the original flip holder with the price tag and post it to the gallery -- because nobody would believe me otherwise!

Some coins were bought as lots ... there was one English seller on eBay who offered several IHC and a large cent together as a lot. I bought the entire lot because of the large cent and the 1875 IHC which were of much higher grade than the others. It looked like a bargain at the time, but now I need to replace some of the IHC which grade only average VF or so.

Living in Switzerland has proven to be quite a challenge in finding any decent IHC at all, much less XF or better. But I get nice Swiss coins instead, which I presume are not all that available in the USA... (???)

Surprisingly enough, a lot of Germans seem to collect the 50c classic commemorative coins. At least I find it very hard to get these at low prices on eBay when German sellers offer them there.

Thanks for looking!

Your Indian Head Cents are great. Good photography. I really like this album setup your using. Being able to look at a page and then get the 600x600 image is a superb feature.

Here's your chance at a nice one (only 16 hours left as I post this):
Helvetia 1886 on eBay

I finally found the image of the coin in the flip! It's in the album now along with the 1872 IHC.