tabbs

Could be quite useful in many cases, yes :-) As for the issue price, sorry, no idea. Have seen the piece advertised here in Germany, and it costs about €30. Mintage is 50,000 - but I don't even know what the composition is. Cu-Ni? Guess that, if it was a silver piece, that would have been mentioned in the ad ... Christian

Now why do I get an Invalid Item alert when I try to access that page? ;-) Here is another ship coin - and this one even has two! It is from the "Polish Coinage" series and shows, on one side, a 5 zl coin from 1936 featuring a vessel: The same ship can be found on the other side, along with the obverse of the 1936 piece: (Pictures from the mint's web site.) Christian

This is it, by the way ... Christian

Next year Germany will be the host of the FIFA World Cup aka football world championship, and many participating countries have issued or will issue coins on that occasion. But what if you don't know exactly how many hours we have until the first game starts on 9 June 2006? Do not worry, Fiji comes to your rescue. The country just issued the world's very first "countdown" coin. The 10 dollar piece has a built-in timer, and a digital display that shows how many Stunden are left. "Stunden"? Yes, the inscriptions are an English-German mix: One sides shows Queen Elizabeth and the text "Elizabeth II Fiji 2005", the other has the timer display above, then the word "Stunden" and "Offizieller Countdown". Below, it says "2006 FIFA World Cup Germany" with next year's World Cup logo, and (at the bottom) the face value. Coin collectors in, errm, Fiji will be thrilled ;-) Christian

Me too, except things get darn expensive this way ;-) So I limited my Germany (Fed. Rep.) collection to "by year" only, ignoring mint marks. Other coins I collect by type. Christian

Hmm, Aidan just wrote that this company "issued" those things, not that it actually minted them. Perfectly OK except that I would classify them as something in between tokens and phantasy pieces but not really coins. Christian

Yes, those lines are supposed to be staves. The stars are the twelve stars from the European Flag which also appear on all euro circulation coins, except that here they are aligned like notes. As for Mozart's portrait, well, it appears to be a little "flat", especially his hair. But I think he can be recognized :-) Interestingly the designer of this piece is Jordi Regel who is also responsible for one of the worst (IMO) German commems: the TV coin from 2002 ... Christian

This is - or rather will be - the coin, called "Vredes Vijfje" (Peace Fiver): Looks very promising :-) More info about it, in Dutch, can be found in the latest issue of Muntpers, the magazine of the Royal Dutch Mint: http://nl.knm.nl/domains/knm/content/pagin...ntpers%2059.pdf (page 2-3) http://nl.knm.nl/domains/knm/content/pagin...ntpers%2059.pdf (page 4-5) Christian

In January Germany will issue a €10 collectors coin dedicated to the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born 250 years ago then. The side with the eagle I find quite interesting. And the other side - well, the portrait is good, but I wonder if the regular (non-proof) version can stay free from scratches for very long ... Christian

Ah, Saint-Exupéry's Petit Prince! Or rather the fox :-) Christian

Some more info about the design competition is here: http://boutique.monnaiedeparis.fr/presse/presse_c36.htm Note the "Insister sur le côté francophile du personnage." hint ... Actually there have been several French coins with "US related" themes. For example, last year's Bartholdi/Statue of Liberty coins, the 2003 Louisiana Purchase (errm, Sale) pieces, and the 2002 coins commemorating Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Most of them are quite nicely designed but somewhat expensive. Christian

In October the Finnish Mint will issue a €2 commemorative coin dedicated to Finland's 50 years of UN membership. The coin shows a dove of peace in front of a jigsaw puzzle: http://www.mint.fi/en/press-releases/1251/ A larger (200K) image of the design is here: http://www.mint.fi/en/documents/1077/Pala_palalta.jpg The actual coin will of course be bimetallic like the other €2 pieces. Nice design again - what I find a little odd is that the country name is in English/Swedish only ... Christian

Most of my purchases are from mints/numismatic offices and "online" dealers. I also check out local coin stores from time to time. Fellow collectors - to some extent. eBay - almost nil. Flea markets - well, maybe if I am on vacation and the weather is bad ;-) Christian

Austria has indeed issued some silver/titanium and silver/niobium coins (bimetallic and bi-color). Latvia issued a similar Ag/Nb piece. These were all made by the Austrian Mint. There may well be other countries that also made such coins ... Christian

Yes, counterfeiting notes is much more profitable indeed :-) And yet, in 2004 Europol confiscated 140,000 fake euro coins. In Germany alone, about 50,000 counterfeits were found in the same period of time. Most of them (more than 90%) were €2 pieces. Many of the fake coins are used in vending machines and the like, not so much for "face to face" payments. One problem we have in Euroland is that the coins are made in 15 mint locations, and despite common production standards there still are differences that the testing devices in vending machines have to allow for. Now the higher the "tolerance" is in such a case, the fewer legitimate pieces will be refused by a vending machines - but it may also accept certain counterfeit or foreign coins more easily. From what I read about this new optical recognition technology, it can handle such problematic cases, especially when combined with other (conductivity etc.) testing methods ... Christian

Wow, that was certainly worth giving you my address, Tiff :-) The coins arrived today; thank you very much! Christian

Me too, and I have that coin too :-) However, it was issued by the GDR (East G.) in 1981, on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the Berlin mint. City jubilee coins, dated 1987, were issued by both the Federal Republic and the GDR. My first GDR coins I bought solely because I find the idea of the same occasion commemorated on coins from different countries, such as Einstein on GDR and Swiss coins. Later I got some more, but, like the coins from Saarland which also joined the Federal Republic (see first message), they are not part of my Fed. Rep. collection ... But where one draws the line is up to the collector, I think. When it comes to German coins, 1871 is also a good starting point. And theoretically you could go back to Charlemagne or rather the Treaty of Verdun 843 Christian

A question of definition :-) Elsewhere I wrote about collecting the coins from my country - and that is the Federal Republic of Germany which was founded in 1949. Of course I also have some older pieces from earlier times, but that is not my primary area of collecting. Christian

The Technical University Harburg (in Hamburg, Germany) has developed an optical sensor system that helps recognizing counterfeits. Current systems usually check features such as the size and weight of a coin, and the conductivity of the alloy. This sensor, developed for Crane NRI http://www.nri.de , can recognize photographic images and "wrong" relief structures. http://www.uni-protokolle.de/nachrichten/id/101588/ http://www.handelsblatt.com/pshb?fn=tt&sfn=go&id=1053938 (articles in German) Christian

A medal from Romania, I'd say. The "left" side has an inscription about the Municipal Museum in Bucharest ... Christian

The German €2 pieces have "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit", the first words of the national anthem, on the edge. The ones from Finland and Greece have the country names ... The edge of the 2 cent coin is interesting too. While milled pieces have many vertical lines on the edge, this coin has one horizontal line. The 20 ct pieces have a "Spanish flower" shape. Several countries have polygonal coins, such as the UK 20p and 50p pieces which have seven "sides", or the Austrian €5 collector coins with nine sides. Christian

Seems so, yes. On the other hand, this software has a nifty archiving feature: In your Control Panel, try "Archive Messages". Select Inbox and/or Outbox, date range, file format, etc., and a few seconds later you get the requested file via e-mail. That file will, unlike the messages stored here, not be accessible from any computer, of course. But other than that, I like the idea :-) Christian

While this won't quite be in your primary collecting area then, it may still be interesting: In February a German €2 coin showing the Holstentor in Lübeck will be issued; later in 2006 a €10 piece dedicated to the 650th anniversary of the Hanseatic League comes out, and in 2007 the €100 gold coin from the Unesco cultural heritage series will feature Lübeck's old town ... My own collection focuses on 20/21c European coins. I may one day have a complete type/year collection of the issues from my country (Federal Republic of Germany, 1949-) but a few pretty expensive pieces are still missing. Next, euro circulation and commemorative coins (by type only), complete so far. Then I have a collection of US state quarters (type only), complete so far. And, circulation and collector coins from Europe and North America - only what I like and can afford :-) Christian

Hmm, that sounds promising! Christian

Weeelll, not really all at one time :-) Yours went into my collection a little while ago, but after that, new stuff simply ended somewhere on or near my desk during the past couple of days. The ones from the UK and Iceland I bought at a local coin store, the others came in the mail ... Christian