What Do You Collect?

[mmarotta]

Right... As if I could typify my own collecting that way. We all collect everything. However, if I had to pigeonhole my habits for easy labeling, I would say "Ancient Greek."

 

In fact, I happen to have about equal amounts of all kinds of things including among them, Hungarian coins from the 1400s to the Malcontents to a proof commemorating Karosi-Csoma (scholar of Tibetan language). I have an array of Romans: a sextens of 180 BC; two quinarii of Cato; a denarius and sestertius of Marcus Aurelius. I have an arrray of Tibetan tangkas, srangs, and shos. I have a bit more of this and that.

 

So, I understand that the question and your reply must both be arbitrary.

 

Given that, click away and then explain yourself!

Thanks,

Mike M.

[Trantor_3]

Topics regardless of time

 

 

I collect coins of those countries I have been to. I'm trying to build type sets of these countries. Due to the fact that modern coinage is much easier to obtain, it automatically results in having a collection with mostly modern coinage (19th century and later) but if I run into an older one, I like it and I can afford it I will get that coin. Didn't happen yet though....

[akdrv]

I collect coins from Hanseatic League cities regardless of time.

[16d]

mm, I can't begin to touch the era you collect. But I'm all over the map on everything else. Tokens, medals, script, wierd & unusual, tax stamps,lit.(400+ books), errors, big silver from wherever, small gold.

And, of course, anything U.S; except SQ's & colorized junk.

[geordie582]

Only one 'click'? As i am interested in the early English history, it encompasses Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Hammered silver (up to 1400). How on earth should I classify that lot?

[16d]

Only one 'click'? As i am interested in the early English history, it encompasses Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Hammered silver (up to 1400). How on earth should I classify that lot?

Stuff I don't touch.

[Ætheling]

Well i don't collect very much these days, the focus has narrowed down considerably.

 

Apart from the odd Washington Quarter for that luke warm set i maintain basically for trade purposes, i only collect the following;

 

US Double Eagles (P mint only), Nazi Germany coins from the Berlin mint in UNC (5 reichspfennigs only at the moment) and silver coins of Louis XVI of France. Those three collections are added to as and when. The first two are date sets, the Louis one i'm just getting that one started and i'll just add coins to it as and when i come across them, basically it'll be the Dixieme d'Ecu's upto the Ecu's. I've no real plans to make it a proper date set or anything. I'll just buy what looks nice.

 

Although my main proper area of focus is on my two English hammered coin sets.

 

Tenth Century Anglo-Saxon two line type pennies by monarch. These were struck within the 899-975 time period. (6 coins for the full set)

 

And a 1422-7 Henry VI Type set of all the silver denominations of the Annulet issue. (5 coins for the full set)

 

 

Basically that's my entire collecting aspirations. I've pretty much gone off everything else. I've sold everything else off, there's a few odds and ends here and there that really need to go.

 

The English hammered collections are quite small ones. Once they are finished i'll be able to get cracking on the Nazi coins proper and hopefully build up full date runs of all the A mint denominations struck under the regime in UNC condition. Although this set is currently a side set i suspect it will take over and become my main one since i get more fun out of it than i do with most of the others.

[SlavicScott]

Considering numismatics covers several thousand years, I had to choose modern, as the majority of my collection is from 1918 to date (WWI brought a huge change to the geography of Europe, especially eastern.)

[ccg]

Various, though I have barely anything for the period 450-1700.

[AuldFartte]

I don't exactly fit any of those categories as my current collection interests include a British Victorian type set, British George IV type set, British Conder Tokens with architectural designs, world coins with ships, and a large group of "miscellaneous" coins just because I like the design.

[Scottishmoney]

Now only payments for the sale of the larger portion of my collection. Something a lot more important than collecting came my way.

[elverno]

I collect Napoleonic and French Revolutionary periods (1789-1815). So, two centuries I guess, and by topic, though actually only within those years with very few exceptions...

[mmarotta]

I collect Napoleonic and French Revolutionary periods (1789-1815).

That is neat! I admire someone who has a focussed interest. I suppose that you know all the politics and military background, as well. Just how Napoleon came to be consul is something I never investigated. For me, there was the storming of the Bastille (did you celebrate on the 14th?), a few years terror until 1792 when everything fell apart and Europe declared war on France. The king and his family were executed and then Danton, Marat, and Robespierre executed themselves, and the next thing you know, Napoleon! Somewhere in there, ten years are missing.

 

Also, your interest shows the arbitrariness in assigning "years" to "eras." I mean, in what way is 1800 special, compared to 1789 and 1815? The 19th century actually ran from 1815 to 1914, from the Congress of Vienna to the Assassination at Sarajevo. I consider Kennedy to have been an "Eisenhower Era" president, with the 60s not starting until his assassination, and, really, the Beatles' appearance on Ed Sullivan. The 60s actually ran until Watergate or even the Fall of Saigon, though you could say the 60s ended with the massacres at Jackson State and Kent State universities: the kid gloves were off the iron fist at that point.

 

We mark the "fall" of the Roman empire from the retirement of Romulus Augustulus by Odovacar in August/September 476. However, the withdrawals of Roman troops from Britain (383 to 410) certainly argue for an earlier date, while the momentary successes of Belisarius (536-548) do the opposite.

[Ætheling]

Well Michael you've opened up a whole can of worms there.

 

I think one of the notable examples of this kind of debate is; "when did the medieval period end?"...

 

Many say 1500, in the Italian cities it end much sooner. Other's say 1492 when Columbus discovered the Americas (which lets face it had been found much earlier by the Scandinavians, aka the Vikings).

 

In France you could say the medieval period ended with the accession of Henry IV, or perhaps it was with the reign of the Sun King, but then again you could even argue that France didn't leave the medieval period until 1789, when the Ancien Regime finally fell... then lingered on displaced till 1792 when it finally died. The king went the following year.

 

Of course medievalism could have then been revived by Charles X. The Renaissance is often seen as the break with medieval period in taste and styles such as art and building works. The Reformation is another factor.

 

However some countries like France despite changing the 'adiaphora' such as the building designs and the superflous things such as fashion. In reality it was still one man one vote, the king was the man and he had the vote. The importance and power of religion still held society together more than science and the following enlightenment of the 18th century. Although the Enlightenment was very much around in France during the 18th century it was isolated to the interllectual circles, the Rousseau's and Voltaire types that argued whether the Enlightenment was good or bad. The average person ploughing his field was never really affected by it. (Actually you could say Britain left the early modern period in 1750 with the Age Industrial Revolution beginning, but yet France was still arguably in the early modern period in 1914, still a largely agriculturally based society, still mostly illiterate).

 

 

In that light you could still say the Vatican is medieval... the Pope is an absolute sovereign power, albeit elected by his peers initially but once he's there, he pretty much there for life. (With a few notable exceptions of Pope's being poisoned and murdered in the past).

 

 

Time period specifications are generally very loose.

 

 

My memory is a tad sketchy but;

 

With regards to the 1793-1798 period Michael that is when France moved out of the 'Terror' of 1793 (the Jacobin era) and into the Thermidor Period, and then the Directory. Basically if i remember rightly it was a system of having something akin to a cabinet in which one of them was chosen to be the leader for a specified period, i think it was only a year or two. The point of it was that the person at the top changed regularly so that they couldn't become too powerful. Unfortunately the whole period of 1789-1794 had been one of relatively little stability, and the 1794-1799 period was just a further complication to this. To put it bluntly it was a failure which gave Napolean his chance to cease control.

[tabbs]

The focus of my collection? Nothing to write home about ... so I'll write here.

 

Mostly coins from my country, the Federal Republic of Germany. One day I may have a complete (1949-present) collection by denomination and year ... so that makes me a collector of modern pieces. I also collect coins from the other euro countries (mostly type only). Am interested in other/earlier German coins but do, of course, not aim at being complete. Same with other European and North American coins.

 

Christian

[Ætheling]

Mostly coins from my country, the Federal Republic of Germany. One day I may have a complete (1949-present) collection by denomination and year ... so that makes me a collector of modern pieces.

 

 

That's pretty much what i'm aiming for with the Third Reich set i'm working on, so i too am a modern coin collector in that sense.

 

However i'm focusing on Berlin mint pieces alone, are you including all the mints Christian or are you ignoring the mintmarks?

[tabbs]

No, I don't care about mintmarks. On one hand, collecting them all would be really expensive, and I rather have "only" one per year plus various nice coins from other countries :-)

 

Guess that, if I collected Third Reich coins more actively than I currently do, I would also focus on A/Berlin pieces. In the German Reich, Berlin was not only the capital but - unlike today - also had the mint with the biggest production share. The nazi government even had plans to build one central mint for all of Germany in Berlin ...

 

Christian

[mmarotta]

Mostly coins from my country, the Federal Republic of Germany. One day I may have a complete (1949-present) collection by denomination and year

 

So, is that the circulating coins, or the commemoratives?

 

It would seem that you could do the circulating coins from pocket change -- until the Euro, of course -- but are there significantly rarer pieces? Meine Frage ist wirklich, "Where is the challenge?"

[mmarotta]

The nazi government even had plans to build one central mint for all of Germany in Berlin ...

 

Well, yeah, I heard they planned to have one mint in Berlin for the whole world, but they forgot to factor in everyone else's opinion on that.

 

German coinage is fascinating right up to 1871. One of the reasons -- probably the reason -- that Germany was a leading "nation" (culture, really, it was not a nation) is that they had a more or less common language courtesy of Luther's Bible -- despite about 40 dialects -- and they had a plurality of local governments. So, academic learning thrived in a complex environment where there was no central authority to quash diversity of opinion. Paralleling this, of course, was a plethora of local coinages of competing beauty and utility. I think that my favorite German state coin -- city view thalers being stunning, to be sure -- is still The Wild Man.

Guke mal:

 

http://imagedb.coinarchives.com/img/cng/06...rged/691963.jpg

[tabbs]

Mostly coins from my country, the Federal Republic of Germany. One day I may have a complete (1949-present) collection by denomination and year

 

So, is that the circulating coins, or the commemoratives?

Both - except that, as I wrote, I do not care about mint marks. The commems from the 1950s are somewhat costly, between 500 and 1000 euro depending on the issue and grade. The silver commems issued in the past 50 years are literally mass products; now it is the gold coins that make a "complete" collection more expensive ...

 

It would seem that you could do the circulating coins from pocket change -- until the Euro, of course -- but are there significantly rarer pieces?  Meine Frage ist wirklich, "Where is the challenge?"

Sure, until late 2001 I could get quite a few "missing" DM/Pf coins (the ones made until about 1995) from circulation, just as I can now get missing €/Ct coins from pocket change. And the latter is even more fun due to the many different obverses. Completing my Federal Republic collection is an issue of funds rather than a challenge ;-) What I find interesting now is mostly theme series, "coins on coins", and coins from different countries dedicated to the same occasion.

 

If one wants to collect Fed. Rep. coins by year and mint mark, that would cost a little. Partly because now the DM/Pf pieces have to be bought from dealers anyway, but also because some are "rare". 5 Pf 1967G would be about €100 in unc. and €25 in VF. The famous 5 DM 1958J is about €1000 even in VF. Common coins in lower grades are usually not expensive but expect to pay much more if you want the same thing in unc ...

 

As for that Wild Man, that is actually fascinating ... not so much for myself, but I know a guy in Southern California who has this, pardon the pun, Marotte about wild man coins. (Don't get me wrong, he is very nice.) Once I met him, he showed me parts of his collection (not "only" coins but various other Wild Man related objects). He and his wife travel to Europe quite a lot, and almost always follow those men's traces :-)

 

Christian

[Tiffibunny]

I started by only collecting modern to 19th century. Slowly that went back to 18th, 17th and 16th centuries. Then I ended up with a 13th Century. So time is out. The only thing I really don't collect is ancients.

[28Plain]

I collect silver coins and the odd medallic piece in silver or gold. I also hoard silver and gold coins, mostly US and other .900fine silver and gold coins, though British sterling and higher fineness gold gets moved from hoard to collection and back at times.

 

There's no real focus in my taste where periods of history are concerned, but I'm not really very enthusiastic about ancients and early coinage because of the crudeness of design and strike and the debasement of the alloys.