gxseries

Bob, I think you are being a bit harsh here to dismiss it is a fantasy coin immediately. I suspect it could be this: Not the best photos but you get the idea. Still worth at least an ounce of silver if this is the case.

The probability of it being genuine is probably worse than you winning jackpot every day. Welcome to coinpeople by the way.

I think the only coin that I really would like at the moment is a circulated platinum 3 ruble coin. That's a few years down the road. Other regional coins such as Armavir, Tannu Tuva, Spitzbergen and Georgian coins do interest me - I just seem to have a love and hate relationship with those particular type of coins. I should offload my entire collection and see how that sparks interest - haven't seen a few coins on the market for a while.

Thought I'll compile what I have. In the early years of Turkmenistan after it's independence from the Soviet Union, President Saparmurat Niyazov ruled Turkmenistan for 15 years. Featured on the reverse of the first series coinage (mandated by law) - this person is at best described as a cult. More can be seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saparmurad_Niyazov Turkmenistan had also experienced high inflation rate which is brought under control in 2009. While many coins are struck in plated steel, this is an interesting and cheap set to assemble. What I found interesting is that there is a key emphasis on geometric designs which is evident on all coins. Hope you enjoy the view: http://issuu.com/gxseries/docs/turkmenistan_type_set

It is actually in a reasonably good condition. Who knows - maybe the buyer thought that he could remove the verdigris.

I struggle to see why it is proof. A fair number of the early Soviet silver coins were actually struck with strong details. Proof coins are rather uncommon to scarce.

I would have to politely disagree with the vinegar solution - it strips the patina very quickly. Best to leave it to the experts especially if you are dealing with expensive coins.

What variety is this by any chance extant4cell? I know it's not the best photo but it's a photo that I took probably 7 years ago. Think this is the only 1730 denga that I have.

Please buy a catalog or at least look up examples of sold Ivan III rubles at various auction house - this is clearly not genuine!

Decided to compile what I had and created this Uzbekistan digital album. I believe Uzbekistan's 1 tiyin coin is voted to be the world's most worthless coin in circulation recently. I highly doubt if it's used in daily commence. A rather challenging set if you decide to collect by varieties otherwise if this is just a plain type set, it would have been easily completed. 1994 20 tiyin with the mintmark PM is the key of this series. For those who do not know, Pobjoy mint struck some of Uzbekistan's coins which have the mintmark PM. Some coins struck in between 1997 - 1999 especially 1998 are not common for some reason. Here's an example: I present you the album version: http://issuu.com/gxseries/docs/uzbekistan_variety_type_album'>http://issuu.com/gxseries/docs/uzbekistan_variety_type_album For other type sets, please feel free to view them here: http://issuu.com/gxseries/docs

I will have to disagree and side with Art. It just alienates Russian numismatics from other users and I don't believe this is the spirit of this forum, unless this part of the forum is going to be spun off. If a seller has a bunch lot of coins to sell and some Russian coins are in the lot, it just makes it difficult to put it under one list.

Very nice for 30 dollars. The ones that I can think of is these three at 1 dollar each. They were in a lot and I averaged the price after getting rid of the unwanted / duplicate coins. Yes, I know they are low grade but I don't think I will be able to upgrade them any day. 1795/88 MM 1 kopek, 1798 1/4 ruble and 1973 15 kopek. I do have to rephotograph some of my coins. 1795 MM 2 kopek is also another example that I will not be able to upgrade. That could have been a bargain as well but I can't quite remember what I paid.

Guys, I don't think BKB meant it in a negative way. I believe this forum here should hold it's head high for allowing English speaking members to discuss Russian numismatics. Fair enough, you have other Russian numismatic forums such as staraya moneta, Samara etc but they are not English user friendly. My apologies for my post earlier but there is a reason why I have been less active here.

I'm going the very opposite direction - lost my job and I'm facing the prospect of selling what I have. This includes some of the rarer coins that you might have seen me discussing and unfortunately everything is on the table. I guess the good side is, what I have stashed are worth something even though they may not be the best condition. On the positive side, this is one coin that was mixed in a pile of Soviet coin lot that came in a while ago. Some may realize this is a tough key semi key date and rarity wise is exceeded only by 1971, 1972 15 kopek and 1942, 1970 being the key date of the 15 kopek set (except 1958). This is probably one of the last few discussion related to Russian numismatics coming from me for a while. Can't live on coins and I had the pleasure of holding onto some scarce coins.

Thanks everyone. Thedeadpoint - I don't know how I can simplify the process so that it comes down to a stage of uploading your own photos and it automatically updates an album.

This took a ridicious amount of effort to put together and I am certain I will not be making a similar album any time soon! I first started getting a hang of this back in 2009 which is almost good five years ago. Back then, prices of various Korean coins were all over the place - some of the more common ones were actually quite expensive and prices for some of the less common coins were more affordable. Varieties remain very illusive and have often popped up in the market once in the blue moon. I missed purchasing one particular coin that I haven't been able to find up to now. Some of the key dates will cost more than an arm and leg! The last time a decent 1899 5 fun coin was sold - this is a key date, I believe it was in the five figure mark so this is not an easy set to accomplish. A lot of the nickel coins in particular 1897 - 1901 (except 1898) are extremely uncommon and they average in the high four figure mark. So why do I leave all those holes open? I am thinking this could be an album that may take decades if not the next generation to take over. Still - some of the coins in this album just don't appear in the market in ANY condition! For instance 1896 1 fun, 1893 5 fun (large characters), 1907 1/2 chon, 1894 1/4 yang etc. I leave you this link for your enjoyment: http://issuu.com/gxseries/docs/korea_year_type_album I think you'll get the hang of zooming in to see the details of the coins. Just click anywhere in the page to get a medium zoom and there are some icons at the bottom right for bigger zoom. Enjoy!

I remember seeing a seller attempting to sell these coins at 150 dollars in total on ebay - had to write them a message to tell them that it's not genuine. If you happen to buy them at this price, please return it immediately. They are all replicas and you should not be paying more than a dollar each.

For some reason I missed this link and thought I'll share it - I really like it https://www.youtube.com/user/BankofRussia/videos All videos are unfortunately in Russian and this is no English subtitles. Wished I knew Russian fluently. However there are some good historical videos in them, i.e. old dies kept in St. Petersburg mint, workers in mint and old WWII video footages. I personally like this video: Around 3:14 mark

Extant4cell - this is one coin that I took before and after. I should have a couple more but can't find it at the moment. It works well with most copper coins except some that may have been cleaned previously and retoned and went through another stage of verdigris. Works extremely well with nickel-copper coin. http://www.coincommunity.com/FORUM/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=82866 There is a thread that actively keeps track of before and after: http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=62434&whichpage=1&SearchTerms=verdicare I need to emphasis that like all kinds of products, there is always some form of risk involved but this so far is the lowest risk.

I wouldn't recommand using that same method again extant4cell There's a chemical solution called verdicare which I highly recommand. Doesn't strip the patina as much as shown. http://www.wizardcoinsupply.com/products/verdi-care.html

This is a large image of the underlaying coin. Note that each picture is 1.3mb each. http://gxseries.com/dump/bhutan_half_r_rotated_large_f.jpg And I've highlighted the underlying characters that I could make out. This only appears on Indian 1/4 anna. http://gxseries.com/dump/bhutan_half_r_rotated_large_f_illu.jpg I'm confident that you should be able to see the characters. Weight of this coin is 3.78g. I believe this coin has been cut. I haven't measured the diameter of the coin yet.

This coin took me by surprise as I wasn't expecting anything like this. From my understanding, this coin is struck in between 1820 - 1835. Bhutan coins circulated along Indian coins as presumably it was cheaper to import coins instead of striking fresh coins. While you think it's a coin full of jumbled characters, there is something unusual - that is if you look really hard in this orientation, you can see the characters "ONE". This appearently is overstruck over an Indian 1/4 anna. Of which era / reign it is, I am not too sure yet. I am not well versed in Indian coinage and hope you can lead me in the right direction. I will have to purchase a 1/4 anna coin for comparsion. That said, the existance of this coin got me interested - was it common for Bhutan to overstrike coins? From what I looked at, this does not seem to be the case. Maybe you happen to have one hiding somewhere in your collection?

These are coins that I have been hunting for years and just could not get my hands on them. I finally got hold of them and here is the picture: Yes, just five coins but these are difficult to locate. First coin is a Japanese 1 sen coin dated 1881. Yeah seems common so what gives? It's actually a rather uncommon variety of the large "four"(四). In high demand and I finally got my hands on one. For an image comparsion, I have posted another 1881 1 sen - with the small "four". I'm certain it's pretty obvious. The next two aluminum coins are from the Japanese occupation in Manchuria or better known as Manchukuo / Manchoukuo (however you wish to spell it). These are essentially the key date of the entire Manchukuo series. I've been trying to locate a better image for comparsion as this is an extremely hard coin to find. While they seem to look different with the character "ten" for the year 1943, I believe they look ok to me so far - no signs of re-engraving under a loupe. (would be quite upset if they are both counterfeits or altered). Another three coin left for this particular type set and funny enough, I have not seen ANY of them despite this coin priced the highest in any catalog that I have seen. Next two on the right are from the Korean empire / protectorate or Japanese ruled era. The nickel copper coin is a rather difficult coin to find - dated 1894. While many do not know the importance of this particular year, this is one of the events that triggered nasty relationship between China and Japan. The source of the problem is a revolution by the peasants. For more information, please read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donghak_Peasant_Revolution While mintage figures are not recorded, there must be a reason why no silver coins were minted in 1894 and coins from 1894 to 1895 are just difficult to find (with the exception of copper). Mintage only normalized back in 1895/6 and fully in operation back in 1898, only to be taken over by Japan. The last coin is a coin that took me a while to hunt down. This is a coin minted by Osaka mint, Japan. Mintage figure of this particular year is said to be less than 800,000. Bear in mind that mintage of most other copper coins are in terms of 3.5 million to 21 million. While mintage figures all sound pretty high, I suspect that a fair number were melted down and were not saved as the Koreans did not have good impression of anything related to the Japanese occupation. There's one on sale at ebay but I just can't quite agree with the price. This ended up to be a good year for me. Hope you all have a great year collecting and please feel free to show some of your hard earned catches.

Forgot that I bought the two key bi-metal Russian coins a while ago before the prices of them went out of control. Mintage of both of them are at low 100,000 each which is the lowest of the entire Russian bimetal coins. Bear in mind that most bi-metal coin mintage at around 5 - 10 million, which is by far the lowest mintage. Collectors believed that none of them entered circulation. Chechen: Yamalo-Nenetskiy autonomous okrug As of why the low mintage - who knows, maybe political factors came in play. Nevertheless, beautiful 10 ruble coins. I like them both. Here's another interesting error coin with a different reeded edge. Released recently, this coin has a different reeded edge. North Ossetia Error coin on the right As you may tell, the difference is in the number of reeding - I believe it was 180 versus 300. Not sure why this happened but this is quite interesting. Please show your Russian bi-metal coins too.

I have been hiding away doing a lot of things and this is one of them - I have been cataloging what coins I have in my collection. This is a rather niche market to collect and I just have to get my head stuck in this. Think it's a really really bad habit of mine. For those who don't know what overstruck means, it means using an old coin instead of a fresh new planchet to be struck as a 'new' coin. The result is that it may have traces of the old design under the newly struck coin. Here are some of my favorites: The rest of my collection can be seen here: http://gxseries.com/numis/overstrike/world_overstrike.htm Please feel free to show some of your awesome overstruck coins!