ikaros

That was weird.

Got a roll of quarters for bus fare and laundry at the grocery on my way in to work today, stuffed it in my pocket, didn't think anything about it. Got home, took a look at it and saw a *lot* of shiny, mint-fresh edges, and I'm thinking that out of all those, there has got to be at least one National Parks quarter.

I now have $7.25 in mint-state 2004-P Florida quarters.

I mean, these have clearly never seen circulation, beyond that necessary for a machine to put 'em in a clear plastic roll. Heck, they're better'n what I already have in my album!

Gotta be one of the weirdest pulls I've ever had.

Now, about those Eddie 7 pence...

1902 high tide

1903 normal 3

1904

1905

1906

1907

1908

1909

1910

Whoops, I think I wasn't clear with my question. I wanted to know if you'd be going back to English/UK shillings from before (not after) the Commonwealth... and if so, how far back? I imagine shillings go back into the middle ages. (You did say "Empire" which is somewhat before, I am trying to figure out how far back that is.) I am asking out of a great deal of ignorance of the details of English history. (It's been a while since I read "History Of The English Speaking Peoples")

The British Empire only officially dates to 1876; the title 'Empress of India' was basically a gift to Victoria from Disraeli to keep her daughter (married to Kaiser Wilhelm I) from outranking her. Certainly it was functionally an empire long before that.

As far as English/UK pence and shillings go... the earlier the better and the more the merrier. I'd like to get some Commonwealth coinage, too. At a bare minimum, I want something during Isaac Newton's tenure as Master of the Mint -- 1700 to 1727. So, very late William III, or any Anne or George I. Probably want to avoid 1727 just to be safe, though, since Newton predeceased George by a couple months.

A type set would be a cool thing (I am biased, though, being a type collector myself!). Would you want to collect all English/UK shilling types or just ones contemporaneous with the Commonwealth (which would be UK, not English)?

Commonwealth and Empire both. I was surprised to find that a few Commonwealth members issued shillings with the second portrait of Elizabeth II -- in general, the change from the young portrait to the more mature portrait in the 60s and 70s was coordinated with the change from LSD to decimal.

Now, not all members of the empire or the Commonwealth were even on the LSD system to begin with; India and Hong Kong come to mind first, to say nothing of the 'doubles' issued in Guernsey. So I want to do the penny set -- or at least a 'one minor currency unit' set -- to get everyone involved.

On a related note, has any country in the Commonwealth not decimalized yet?

 

Interestingly a nickel set would sort of "go" with a shilling set since after decimalization a shilling was equivalent to 5p (I understand shillings continued to circulate for a while because of this), and 5p is analogous to the US "nickel" five cent piece. Okay, it's a very tenuous connection . But still....

I think everyone's decimal now. I can't think of any nation anywhere that's not decimalized by now, in or out of the Commonwealth. If anyone has a counterexample, I'd love to know about it.

I hadn't thought about the connection between the nickel and the shilling, but you're absolutely right! I tend to think of the shilling more in terms of the dime because of the number of pence involved, but it was to the pound what the nickel is to the dollar.

Ahhh, eBay. Edward VII pence, 1902 to 1910 inclusive, nine coins, three bucks. 1902 high tide and 1903 normal 3, already checked for those. Still, not going to complain about 50c per coin -- and that price includes shipping. Pictures when I get 'em.

I'd love to know how you guys get pictures that show the colors so well. I don't seem to have the knack for it.

Retired a circulated 1946 nickel today; nothin' else interesting recently.

American Samoa quarter today, and Guam, but I already have Guam. Still never a '10 quarter.

I got a Zachary Taylor dollar the other day in change, but needed it for bus fare. It was pretty beat up anyway... alas!

So far, I've kept the collection to only portrait coins, which are more intersting to me.

That's what I love about this hobby - every way someone does it is the "right" way.

This has proven more difficult, of course, especially concerning those countries where maybe only one or two issues exist that fit the criteria. The hardest to find of the ones I have, so far, was British West Africa, since the only QEII portrait is on the 1957-H 3 pence and there were only 800 issued. I know I paid too much for the coin, but I may never get another opportunity to find one, so I jumped in with my heart, instead of my head!

Yeah, I'm bumping into similar issues with my birth year world set. There are a couple issues that I know are going to hurt me, but I gotta have them eventually. At least since I'm only interested in circulating issues, I don't have to worry about gold... yeesh!

The St. Vincent & The Grenadines, which I do not have, has proven to be equally challenging to find. I did find a collector in Siberia, Russia, that has one of the C/N versions, but he is not inclined to part with it, despite my very high offers and willingness to make trades of more valuable and rare issues.

 

Also, I had to "loosen" the definition of portrait, in the traditional sense, as some of the countries' coins I have included have depictions that are not the standard profile portraits most people think of when referring to coins. When I have the time to spare, I will post some pictures of the coins in the collection.

Easiest way is probably if you have an Omnicoin account. Many of us do, myself included.

Yeah, when I started making subsets within my general agglomeration, I had to start making decisions about how I wanted things organized, what did and did not fit, what I wanted and didn't want. Personally, I don't include NCLT in any of my subsets, my thinking being that the essential feature of a coin is that it circulates. Other people don't draw that line and include them. And the great thing is, we're both right.

Going back to your question; I have toyed with the idea of buying an Edward VIII coin from BWA, just to have an authentic representation of a coin from his reign, since I would never be able to afford a coin with his portrait on it, even if I could find one available!

 

Thank you for your comments and I wish you success in mounting your new collection.

I have two of the Edward VIII issues; the British West Africa 1/10 penny, and the East Africa ten cents, and were very much gotten for the novelty value of being able to say that I have a couple Edward VIII issues. They were quite reasonably had at the Central States show here a few years back -- if I paid more than four bucks for the both together, I'll be very much surprised.

I'm a big fan of what I suppose could be called unusual sets, sets other than a particular year, or a particular nation, or even a particular size or denomination -- one of mine is all science themed: astronomy, physics, chemistry, cosmology, mathematics. I've contemplated (but never actually started... yet) sets of portraits of people in glasses and mythology-themed sets. Think of the historical sweep covered by a set of coins with just centaurs on them: Greek and Roman issues all the way up to the Somaliland 10 shilling coin of just five years ago. Over two millennia of coinage!

Good luck on your run! Keep us updated on the progress!

I am a collector of World and US coins. My latest obsession has been the completion of a set of every country's coins that now feature, or have featured in the past, the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.

 

By my reckoning, there are 78 different possible countries, territories, dependencies & colonies that make up the list.

 

I have been able to collect 76 of these (missing St. Vincent & the Grenadines and Swaziland) and I am wondering if there are others out there with similar collections. Also, if anyone knows of any countries with her portrait that I might be missing from my list, below.

After a fashion, yes. I've been toying with mounting parallel Pence/Shillings of the Empire/Commonwealth collections--not all Empire/Commonwealth states were on £sd, so the penny collection would be the larger and more complete, in terms of the nations involved. So this is a list that is Relevant To My Interests.

Are you not going after non-portrait issues, like the smaller denomination East Africa and British West Africa issues?

I got $10 of nickels the other day. A couple upgrades, one or two holes filled in my 'circulation finds' collection. Nothing really impressive. The oldest was a 1947-D; nothing in the 1950s; 1960s were few, and not impressive. No 2009; a few 2010s.

The 2009 coins seem to be increasingly difficult to find in circulation these days. I expected them to hit circulation en masse once the novelty of all the new designs wore off, but the number I see on a daily basis in my till seems to be slowly dwindling. I still have not seen a single '09 cent with the "Presidency" reverse, and probably never will...

The only '09 cents I've found on the street have been literally on the street -- lying on the sidewalk or in the gutter -- and of that, only two. I still haven't got any in change.

Oh, I *like* that shilling.

Doggone it. I *am* going to have to do a Shillings of the Empire/Commonwealth collection, aren't I?

Finally got another one of the '09 SLQs -- the Northern Mariana Islands:

I get a roll or two of quarters every week for bus fare and laundry, and these suckers just are *not* turning up. I still haven't seen a State Park quarter.

Yaknow, I voted in this so long ago, I forget what I voted for. It's a safe assumption it was the Flying Eagle, since that's always been my favorite cent.

Picked up another box from the bank today. Still have about half of the box left, but so far:

 

1935 buffalo

1942-P war nickel

1942-D pre-war

1952-S

 

...and many, many more I will get around to posting. I have to say I like these nickel boxes. I am only 12 coins away from completing the entire series from circulation! Wish me luck!

Buffalo? Sweet.

D'you mind saying which ones you're still looking for out of change?

I've got two 2009 Lincoln centennial cents this past week -- but both were found on the ground, not in change. One of them was beat to snot, the other was *very* shiny. Weird. Also pulled a '76D Jeff that's retired to my Whitman folder that I would not hesitate to call AU -- still has lots of lustre. I don't know how some of these things survive in the wild sometimes.

There are weird gaps in my folders for pocket finds. Washington quarters from 1965-1998 are complete except for 1971, which was relatively low mintage, and 1983D, which was not. Denver-minted Washington, Utah and Hawaii Statehood quarters are the only ones missing from that set -- forget anything from the territories and after. One DC, both Puerto Ricos, and a Guam, and I haven't even *seen* a National Parks quarter, and I get quarter rolls a lot for both bus and laundry change.

Now, what would be great would be to own a Coinstar and get to go through *that* every week.

Think the key dates have to be those last couple of mintages, less than 50M each.

Lowest mintage since 1959 -- or to put it in perspective, tens of millions more 1909 Lincoln cents (72M) were minted than either 2009 P or D Jeffs. Actually the mintage of 1909 Lincolns isn't that far short of the total of '09 P&D Jeffs together...

Picked up a box of nickels from the bank today. Still going through them, but so far, it has not been a disappointment. So far, about 10 nickels from the 40s and 50s, 3 Canadian nickels, a 1942-P war nickel, and a 1936 buffalo nickel! I'll post the full counts once I'm done.

Never tried getting a box of coins; do you just go up and ask for one, and how many rolls per box?

Love the squirrel!

It's an almost whimsical design, isn't it? A nice break from all the heavy representations of monarchs and leaders and concepts like justice and liberty -- nothin' wrong with those, but a cute fuzzy critter sure breaks up the monotony.

Very nice additions. A collection of Commonwealth Shillings would be rather nice. Good luck with it.

Probably a lot saner to tackle a type set rather than a full year/mint set, so I think that's what I'll eventually do. But the nickels first!

More!

1963 Norway 1 øre:

1963 Pakistan 5 paisa:

1963 Poland 5 groszy:

1963 Portugal 50 centavos:

NZ shilling's one of my commonwealth favourites

Yeah, and I've started toying with the notion of a collection of commonwealth shillings... I *am* insane!

I'm glad to (finally) be back at it, too.

Anyway, here goes. 1946PDS:

1949PD -- no S in stock at the time. I wouldn't've got these except for the colors on the '49 that this image only really hints at:

1963PD - these are probably more bound for my birthyear set than the Jefferson Project. I am discovering that finding really sharp coins from the late 50s and early 60s is going to be a challenge -- they really did let the dies go to pot, didn't they?