tabbs

Neat! The only difference I noticed is that the mintmark-or-whatever-that-is can be found right below the A (of "gramos") on one coin, and below the AM (ie. further right) on the other. Similarly, the O's (in "peso") are positioned slightly differently. Oh well - nice (and heavy) pieces they are ... Christian

Lessee ... the ones for Trantor_3, Ray and Tiffibunny I have; the ones for henare and Ukraina Dvi I'll get later this week. And yes, I sure like the "price" of these coins. Silver euros being available at face value can be found in a few other countries too. The Netherlands come to my mind, also Austria (most issues), Portugal, Spain (only some issues). In other countries (Belgium, France, Italy) it's pretty much the same as the US: The price you pay for a silver piece, even if you buy directly from the mint, is much higher than the face value. That does of course not mean the Dutch/German/... silver coins actually occur in everyday life. To a very limited extent maybe; but if I take one to a store, I sometimes hear "No, we do not accept those". Others will accept €10 coins without any problems, but you hardly get one back in circulation. Plus (or rather minus), I cannot use a German collector coin in the non-German parts of Euroland and the other way round. That works only with the circulation coins and the €2 commems. Christian

Not really. That is, I don't have any "left" right now, but can pretty easily get more later this week. Christian

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have here in my hands the very first German "2006" coins. Since the local Bundesbank branch is just a few subway stations away from here, I grabbed some Mozart €10 pieces today, on the first day of issue. Erik, Ray, Tiff wanted one each, right? You'll get PMs later. The guy at the counter was nice; he ligned up several coins in front of me (knew where to hold them, and where not), and I could pick the ones I wanted. Well, I am a little disappointed by the Mozart portrait. As I wrote before, it appeared to be a little flat on the pictures ... and the coins do actually not have a high relief. But the coin as a whole is not bad - especially the eagle with the "vivid" staves looks interesting. Christian

The Mozart coin will be available as from Monday (2 Jan). If anybody is interested in getting one, let me know. Problem is that the "uncirculated" coins we can get from the banks here come in rolls - and the Mozart piece has a huge empty area ... Christian

Isle of Man? (duck) Christian

Now that "horse coin" looks interesting! Is it a commem or a normal circulation piece? Christian

Forgot to mention that I did actually get that Italian €10 coin ... http://coinpeople.com/index.php?showtopic=...ndpost&p=139098 The piece shows a Roman sestertius coin from the year 69 (Emperor Vitellius). The woman with the olive branch and the cornucopia refers to the "Pax Augusti" (see the inscription) ... Not the best way, in my opinion, of visualizing the "60 Years of Peace" theme - but the design by itself I like. Christian

Not a single coin (that may come tonight, but not in the mail ). However, I got a nice Christmas card from Trantor_3. Dank je wel, en prettige kerstdagen! Christian

That coin is listed in the catalog part, but it is not among those pieces discussed in detail. Weege (the author of this book) says that years other than the official ones existed due to private orders; we discussed that here before. So this coin dated 1910 would either be fake or one of the private pieces. The book shows a detailed example of Hamburg 20M 1875 (small eagle) though. Christian

Today I got about 1000 counterfeits. Well, not the metallic variety, but a book about "Münz-Fälschungen" - about 300 pages with lots of images. Written by Volker Weege (in German), it focuses on German Reich (Empire and Weimar Republic) coins but also has quite a few examples from other times and countries. The emphasis is on counterfeits made to deceive collectors, but the book explains "circulation counterfeits" too. Christian

You may like the US coins to be issued on that occasion: http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/commem...action=Franklin I do like the "Continental Currency" design. The other side of that piece, and the second coin, are not so thrilling in my opinion. Mais quand même plus belles que la pièce française. (And about as expensive ...) Christian

Not a correction but rather some additional info: The German 5 DM, 10 DM, 10 € commems all have "interesting" edge inscriptions in that the usual "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit" (the first words of our national anthem) is replaced by some motto that relates to the occasion. The Bavarian Forest coin issued earlier this year, for example, has the edge inscription "Grenzenlose Waldwildnis" (something like "Unbounded Forest Wilderness"). The Bertha von Suttner piece is interesting because it says "Peace" in three different languages: EIPHNH (Greek), PAX (Latin), FRIEDEN (German). The most "different" edge inscription can unfortunately be found on a pretty dull coin. The €10 Documenta Kassel piece (2002), dedicated to an international contemporary art show, says Kunst (art) in German, English, Hindi, Maori, Hebrew, Russian, Arabic, Igbo and Chinese ... Some weird inscriptions: In 2000 a 10 DM coin was issued that shows a simple (almost childish) drawing of "Man" between "Nature" and "Technology". Nothing about the occasion - until you look at the edge where you see that the coin was issued for the 2000 World Expo. And the FIFA 2006 series of four €10 silver coins has the motto of next year's football world cup in Germany ("Die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden"), plus all five mint marks, on the edges. So you cannot tell which piece was made where ... except ... The text of the inscription includes the character E five times. In four of the five E's the horizontal "bars" have the same length; one E however has a shorter middle bar. And that indicates where the coin is from. Christian

... is the (kind of formal) Dutch version of "kiitos", but nothing to apologize for, I think. Christian

Nah, it's not that bad. Got a very nice Christmas card from you yesterday. Lesseee ... one of the US pennies turned into crumbs, but the other pieces stayed pretty much intact and in place. Including the non-edible one. Vielen Dank!! Christian

Mail from the Vatican arrived here today: I am allowed to order some of the coins that were issued earlier this week. For some reason the number of items that I can get was already entered. And there is a note on the bill saying that orders which have not been modified will be dealt with more quickly. Hmm, sure, it should be easy for me to sell those that I do not actually want. But this new system still does not make much sense in my opinion ... Christian

Two new web addresses here ... Berlin: http://www.muenze-berlin.de Numismatic Office: http://www.deutsche-sammlermuenzen.de (The new address of the Numismatic Office is supposedly "permanent". That is, you can use it now, and can continue to use it in 2006 when the Federal Securities Administration won't be in charge of that job any more.) Christian

In the past couple of days (sigh, I am behind on this) I have got the Australian coin set 2005 with the three "60 years end of WW2" coins (I like the dancing man!), the UK 2006 set, with the Brunel and Victoria Cross commems, and a few pieces from Albania, Canada, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and San Marino. The two Latvian ones I find particularly neat: There is the 1 lats coin featuring an ant (not my pics, I'm lazy) ... ... and the other one is a circulating commem dedicated to Latvia's joining the European Union last year. Instead of showing a map or country names, it features Spriditis, a little boy (from a fairy tale and the writings of Anna Brigadere) who discovers the world. Guess that was the message from Latvia (and some others) to the EU: I may be small, but don't underestimate me. Christian

Got 70 Estonian surprise senti yesterday along with a nice card. Thank you, Harri! Christian

Yesterday I got a neat Christmas card from a valued member of this forum. Thank you, "Sir"! Christian

It takes two to mend a rift. But I suppose the reason for issuing the pieces is not primarily a political one - Monnaie de Paris makes them because they will be appealing to collectors in both France and the US. And yes, Franklin sure deserves to be honored on a coin. The obverse I like, but the reverse design is a little too simple in my opinion. And the prices - yikes. The 1/4 euro silver piece is €25, the 10 euro (1/4 oz) gold coin is €265, and the 20 euro (5 oz) silver coin is €269 (EU price which includes sales tax.) Quite a lot ... Christian

And voilà, here it is. Or rather, here they are: The coins (two silver pieces and one gold coin, all with the same design) are dated 2006 but will be available as from mid-December. Christian

Got a phone call last night, and it seems that something from a certain Ray in the US has arrived. I have no idea what it is, but I think I know which Ray that is ... Also, there is something from the AASFN waiting for me; guess that is this year's 2 euro commem. Too bad that I currently am in Barcelona. ("Too bad"? Not really. ) Christian

In case you are really really into these, Gietl just published a new two-volume catalog about Swiss shooting medals - Schützentalers, Schützenmedaillen, Schützenjetons, in German, 600 pages, and pretty much every described piece is depicted in color. The author is Jürg Richter. The not-so-neat part is this: €98 ... Christian

Thanks for those (FI - UN) and all the other coins you have sent me so far! Looking forward to future exchanges Christian