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collecting world crowns


coinhunter

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Hi! just wanted to know if anybody out there collects the same way I do. :ninja:

 

World silver crowns from each country, there are 194 countries, so completing the entire series is tough. ;)

 

I collect majors and minors as some countries do not have major crowns, only minors

 

How and what do you collect??? Thank you for replying ;)

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And I collect crowns. Some crown-size coins are affordable but some will remain only on the wish list. 5 Neu-Guinea Mark 1894, Zwei Rupien German East Africa 1893 or 45 Piastres Cyprus are some of the keys. Or Biafra Crown...

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thank you gxseries and banivechi :ninja:

 

My collection is just coin silver from each country and not the rarity or year. So upon completion it will be coins (at least one from each) from 194 flying flags, the political situation of my time. I don't include non-flagged coin producing territories examples are Hongkong, Gibraltar, Macau, Falklands etc.

 

To make the collection look similar, coin size is from 30 to 38mm diameter and silver 70 to 90% fine, as some countries have only up to 30mm coins. Any year would be ok

 

Sourcing out the ones from new countries is really hard, like East Timor? also difficult is to complete the pacific island countries, wow! ;)

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I would say that a lot of people like to collect large shiny silver coins, from the half crown size up all the way to monstrous 60 mm 4 oz of silver coins struck by some of the Caribbean territories - I've just looked at my 1979 Jamaica 25 dollars which I am trying to figure out how to best (and most profitably) get rid of.

 

By far people are attracted to coins by their visible presentation value - the bigger it is, the shinier it is then more impressive it looks like. And this is another reason silver is so popular - not as expensive as gold yet it has the clout of precious metal.

 

Me? I am a rare coin collector, show me a really good South African 1926 half penny, I'll pay much more for it than for a proof 1947 crown (5 shillings), catalog valuations or no catalog valuations. Why - because half pennyes were circulation money, so despite 65,000 mintage it will be quite hard to find one in good condition while 47 crown minted in 5,600 proof units - you can get it for $50 and there is probably one on sale on the eBay every other week. Beside, I already have all South African proof crowns :ninja:

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Dumb question, what's a crown? a major crown? a minor?

 

crown = British coin, valued at 5 shillings; generally used to refer to a silver-dollar sized coin.

minor = coins with FV <$1 / 5 shillings

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Fantastic nice blog site skingspan! welcome too! what camera did you use for those great pics?

 

Sandy3075 - do you also collect old coppers? any particular country aside from south africa?

 

Thank you all, for a while I thought I was all alone there :ninja:

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Fantastic nice blog site skingspan! welcome too! what camera did you use for those great pics?

 

I use an old cannon powershot A520. I take my pics with no flash, macro mode in natural light. Usually plop the coin down in front of a window. Some of my pics are better than others. Proofs are a bear to image.

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I collect all kind of coins and not specifically crown coins. The crown coins I find the most interesting are the silver crownsized coins like:

5 pesetas Spain late 19th century

Belgian and French 5 francs 19th century

Dutch 2 1/2 gulden 19th century untill the 1940's

British Crowns and then especially the 19th century St. George slaying the dragon types

German talers or German Empire 3 and 5 mark coins

US silver dollars (Morgan, Peace)

Italian 5 lire Vittorio Emanuele II

Turkish 5 and 6 piastres 19th century

and so on, and so on.

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Sandy3075 - do you also collect old coppers? any particular country aside from south africa?

 

I like silver and coppers alike but I limit myself to XVIII centuary and later, although I do have some earlier coins - Portugal and Spanish New World mintage. My hoards are so diverse that I can only point in general direction of Bolivia, Brazil and Peru in South America, British Honduras, Jamaica and pretty uch any other Imperial territory, some others and any British, Portuguese, French, Dutch or German colony in the world plus their respective home countries. British Africa is a favorite - South, West or East as well as Southern Rodesia. Israel for historical reasons as well as little Russia I can afford. But essais, pieforts, mintages of small circulation coins in high grades are all welcome - it probably gives me a nice feeling to own somehting that no more than a few hundred people in the world can have. I do not collect gold other than an occasional coin or two as they are out of my league. and I do not collect US coins although I live right here in Alabama :ninja:.

 

My theory says that unlike the 1960-90 when the coin collection was a privilege of many in developed Western contries and few rich people everywhere else - with the exception of the Eastern Europe and specifically Russia that have deep numismatic traditions - XXI century on we will see a great shift of numismatic material back to the countries they were originally minted - take Brazil for example. Real has a lot more buying power today than it was 5 or 10 years ago and so we see prices for Brazil going way up, same for Australia that draws ridicolous prices for anything other than ordinary mintage, same with South Africa or Canada - all because their currencies appreciated so much vs. dollar. Or for example think of Chinese that are buying any Chinese coins they can get their hands on. So I buy in the US where many collections are being sold every week nd I can always look up something different and interesting other than some of the British empire mintage that one can still find in the UK in higher quality at reasonable prices. Even though I never told myself that I really want to, some of the countries I may eventually collect complete mintages as I collect not only by the type but by the year and varieties as well. So while they are reasonably cheap I will gtladly buy New Zealand florin with the total mintage of 20,000 or British Honduras with the same or even simple 50'th and 60'th Seychelles that have had similar small mintages. Because in 10 or 20 years when I still hope to collect, these small mintages are going to move to China and India to disappear in the growing middle class collections to make them rare enough that they are likely to be ten, twenty or fifty times more expensive than today. More common coins - large mintage silver or copper or copper nickel - are always going to be around for an equivalent of one's 15, 30 or 60 minutes of work.

 

Sorry for being so longwinded, kind of felt like it. You can see some of my coins (probaby 10-15%) posted on the OMNICOIN using the link in the signature.

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Thank you sandy for the omnicoin link on your coins, the cameroon coin with an "E" is very helpful. I have many CFA coins of Africa but I cannot distinguish each from the 14 countries that use the CFA currency. Now at least I know one for Cameroon, that leaves only 13 left :ninja:

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... from 194 flying flags, the political situation of my time. I don't include non-flagged coin producing territories ... from 30 to 38mm diameter and silver 70 to 90% fine ...

 

That is interesting and focused. Nice challenge. My interest in numismatics is more as the artifacts of history, and that can include modern history. In this case, the crowns that interested me were France 5 Franc, Hungary (Austria) 5 Corona, and Bulgaria 5 Lev, all struck to the same standard in the same context of the late 19th century, thus showing how they facilitated trade and commerce.

 

That was also known from ancient Greek and medieval European times when cities engaged in trade would issue to the same standards.

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Thank you sandy for the omnicoin link on your coins, the cameroon coin with an "E" is very helpful. I have many CFA coins of Africa but I cannot distinguish each from the 14 countries that use the CFA currency. Now at least I know one for Cameroon, that leaves only 13 left :ninja:

 

Krause lists the following "country letters" - A for Chad, B for Central African Republic, C for Congo, D for Gabon and E for Cameroon, the rest - well, you'll have to find them, I suggest a trip to Africa can help ;).

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  • 2 weeks later...
Hi! just wanted to know if anybody out there collects the same way I do. :ninja:

 

World silver crowns from each country, there are 194 countries, so completing the entire series is tough. ;)

 

I collect majors and minors as some countries do not have major crowns, only minors

 

How and what do you collect??? Thank you for replying ;)

 

 

Hi!

 

I collect crowns too, though perhaps with different parameters. Here is a thread that I originally posted a few years ago and have on occastion updated. I have not acquired anything recently as other things have taken financial priority, but I still have my eyes open if the opportunity arises. ;)

 

http://www.coinpeople.com/index.php?showtopic=5318

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Hi!

 

I collect crowns too, though perhaps with different parameters. Here is a thread that I originally posted a few years ago and have on occastion updated. I have not acquired anything recently as other things have taken financial priority, but I still have my eyes open if the opportunity arises. ;)

 

http://www.coinpeople.com/index.php?showtopic=5318

 

 

Hello. Good to see you again. Hopefully you'll be posting some of those beautiful crowns in PCI2010. :ninja:

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