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How did you start collecting ?


jb1967

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I am new to this forum but I collect paper money since 1967.

 

I live in Quebec and in 1967 there was Expo 67 in Montreal, a Universal Exhibition that changed my view of the World. I was 9 years old. Among all the magnificent things I saw there, I was fascinated by the vending machines filled with world coins and paper money!

 

For 25 canadian cents, you could get a plastic bubble with 5 or 6 bu coins (aluminum or bronze), or you could get 2 banknotes!. I went a few times to the exhibition (from april to october), but every time a member of my family went there, they would bring me back some plastic bubbles. I started collecting coins and notes this way. At the time my parents had a store, so they constantly watched for someting interesting for me. Eventualy, I specialized in banknotes.

 

I am now 48 and have been collecting for 39 years. Many years without touching the collection but every 3 or 5 years I start again since there is always something new. I remember the breaking of the USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia with all it meant to a collector (new countries, new paper money, emergency issues, etc.).

 

For me, the latest interesting issue is the eBay Buy It Now option with the constant renewing of the stock.

 

Even if I never paid much for a single note (rarely over 10 dollars), my collection is made of many thousands of banknotes. It is still a thrill to get a new lot of banknotes, but I will always remember the first 20 banknotes I got from the vending machines in Expo67: Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Korea, Brazil, Laos... I spent a lot of time wondering what Thomas de la Rue or Gesieke und Devrient meant...

 

Jacques

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For myself, I casually started when my grandfather left me with those Chinese copper coins. In fact, he used to have those rarer big size coins which were made into belts. Somehow, he did not left them for his grandchildren. I wonder where are they now.

 

As for banknotes, he stapled those Straits Settlements 1935 $1 together with some other $1 notes used in Singapore on a piece of plywood. It was nicely wrapped up in plastic sheet. The rust from the staples started to develop. Rusts stain were on the notes. The notes were in rather bad condition with additional bookworm holes etc. On a 1941 $1 King George VI (Straits Settlements), there were some acid stain. Somehow, the note was badly deface by the liquid. The design of the note was missing with the outline of the liquid stain. That was the only valuable banknotes left for his grandchildren which I inherited. There are also other not-so-good condition China notes with Dr. Sun Yat-San. These were 1930s and early 1940s common circulated notes before China was taken by the Communist party in 1949.

 

I seriously started my coin and banknote collecting in 1986 when I completed my National Service. I started with those lousy, low grade condition Straits Settlements notes. Most collectors concentrate on their own countries' past banknotes and coins. Slowly, I improve on my collection of the notes. In 1987, Singapore had the First International Coin Convention. It was a real push for Singapore collectors. I expanded my collection into Singapore solid numbers banknotes. During the convention, foreign dealers were selling many foreign coins and banknotes. It was a huge event. There were alot of notes to buy. At that time, I did not know what foreign notes to buy. I followed and watch a local banknote dealer who bought many notes from the foreign dealer. I bought a piece of the same Scottish 1 Pound note (1949) that the local dealer purchase, at only US$10. In 2004, when I revisited my banknote hobby, I sold it for US$120. I regret not buying the whole stack of the same note in running number as I do not have the information of the notes. I believe that was really a good investment for large quantitiy purchase if I have done that. After 1987, I bought notes in bulk for purchases. Only those notes that I am familiar with such as the Malaya and British Borneo QEII $1. I bought in stack of a few hundred pieces and some most of them later sold to foreign dealers at twice the price. It was good money then.

 

In 2004, I started collecting world solid numbers for my collection. Some are for resales while others are for my own personal collection. Today, I am still collecting and still learning and enjoying it as a lifetime hobby. :ninja:

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I would have to say that I got into collecting banknotes with difficulty. I started collecting coins when I was a child, just what I would come across here and there, and then my father gave me a French banknote when I was about 14 - my father had brought this and some coins back from his time in Europe during the 1950’s. I liked the coins a lot, but the banknote was a strange and wonderful thing and something that no-one else was collecting at the time – well, at least no one I knew of. I was always amazed at how strange and colorful the note was. A little later, a friend of my family went back to visit her family in Malta, and she brought me some coins and a 1 Lira banknote when she returned. This was the second banknote I had ever had from a different country and I remember scouring the note for the tiniest details I could detect. I thought it neat that there would be a watermark of a lady with a city on top of her head and the wonderful strangeness of it was enough, with my father’s note, to start my addiction of collecting world notes.

 

But it wasn’t so easy.

 

Back then (1970’s) I would occasionally get silver certificates in 20’s or 10’s and occasionally 5’s, but when I took them to a dealer to get a value on them, they told me they were too common and that I would be better off to spend them than to save them. So I spent them. Ugh! I can only imagine if I had kept them - I would have quite a few of them.

 

I tried going to the local coin shops and getting some notes from them, but they never had any. None. Ever. Not even US notes. I tried looking through the phone book for a monetary exchange, but at the time there weren’t any that I could use in the area. So for a long while, I stuck with coins. I had a lot of decent US silver, but I always wanted to get the paper. It was so elusive and I couldn’t understand why. This elusive aspect, almost like a secret was being kept from me, was undoubtedly a lure that kept me going.

 

During one trip with my parents to visit family in California, an uncle asked me how my coin collection was going. After a short talk, he went into a back room and brought out a piece of paper - scrip actually. It was from the US Army and as I recall it was well circulated, but it was blue and tan and perhaps had some red on it. The date was from the 1870’s and I remember my father and uncle saying that it was from some old cavalry unit. I do remember it was for 25 cents. My uncle said he had it for many years and that someday he’d look into how much it was worth, but I never heard about or saw it again. Once more, paper was elusive.

 

I had then joined the military, and though I was never sent oversees, I had many friends who did. They all gave me coins. No paper. During my military enlistment I was stationed in Phoenix, Arizona, and I went on a trip one weekend to Mexico with a friend. We went over the border at night, and the first thing I remember seeing as I crossed the border in Nogales, Mexico was a man paying a fist-load of very colorful cash to a policeman. At that time, and likely still, the use of US currency by tourists was preferred, and though I saw a money exchange, we were warned beforehand not to use anything but US money as there was a looming re-monetization. I was afraid that I would lose money if I would buy some pesos, and I thought that I had better wait – Once again it was elusive.

 

Since then, I have visited Canada (a wonderful country, by the way) and was able to get a note or two from there, but I was not able to get banknotes from anywhere else. The borders I went across at first were the smaller ones and they didn’t have monetary exchanges there.

 

Not until the advent of EBAY (well into my 30’s) was I able to find someone who would sell me a foreign banknote. I started off by getting some fairly common notes, but they were all uncommon to me. I gobbled up a lot of stuff, and I saw the evolution of buying and selling take place and the cost of the notes go up and up. I have since gone to primarily using dealers that have online stores, but I can credit the Internet and Ebay with making my once elusive passion fulfilled. I have since gone across larger border crossings into Canada, and have been able to visit the exchanges there, but never able to get UNC notes; and I wasn’t able to ‘shop’ while there. Really, I cannot imagine that I would be collecting yet without the Internet. The online community has enabled me to bring pieces of the world to me, since I can’t seem to get to it.

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My father got me into coin and banknote collecting. When I was a kid, my father was into amatuer radios. He would talk to people from all over the world on the radio. he became freinds with alot of the people he talked to. He would tell them that he has 2 sons, one who collected currency and coins, and one who collected stamps. He would have them send currency and coins from their country, and he would send them a few things they wanted.

 

 

I would get the coins and currency, my brother would get the stamps. My favorite banknote to this day is one my dad got for me from Brazil. Its a 5 cruzerio note from 1962.

 

 

I kind of lost interest in collecting banknotes and coins when I got into my teen years, and just recently got back into it about a year and a half ago, when my brother came across a polymer banknote from Romania (2000 lei, commemerating the solar eclipse). I thought it was extremely cool, and I bought one. Once I got it, I was hooked to collecting again. lol.....

 

I love it because its a way for me to remember my dad who has since passed away. It was something both of us enjoyed.

 

 

 

 

KFC :ninja:

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My father got me into coin and banknote collecting. When I was a kid, my father was into amatuer radios. He would talk to people from all over the world on the radio. he became freinds with alot of the people he talked to. He would tell them that he has 2 sons, one who collected currency and coins, and one who collected stamps. He would have them send currency and coins from their country, and he would send them a few things they wanted.

I would get the coins and currency, my brother would get the stamps. My favorite banknote to this day is one my dad got for me from Brazil. Its a 5 cruzerio note from 1962.

I kind of lost interest in collecting banknotes and coins when I got into my teen years, and just recently got back into it about a year and a half ago, when my brother came across a polymer banknote from Romania (2000 lei, commemerating the solar eclipse). I thought it was extremely cool, and I bought one. Once I got it, I was hooked to collecting again. lol.....

 

I love it because its a way for me to remember my dad who has since passed away. It was something both of us enjoyed.

KFC :ninja:

 

:lol: I believe everyone has a nice and interesting story on how they got started in this hobby. Banknotes or any other hobbies or items does remind us of our love ones ( parents, grandparents ) who have passed down their collection. In my case, my grandfather passed me some of the old notes. They are in very bad condition but still it remind me of my grandfather and his effort.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Hello all :ninja:

 

When I was small 4-years old boy, I have used to play with color buttons my grandma had stored in small wooden box. I have lined them up by color, size, shape etc. And once I spotted something unusual, not like button... guess what :-)

Yes, a coin... Austrian-Hungarian 4-heller dated 1849. Little bit rusty, scratched, but it fascinated me so much that I started collect everything which at least looked like a coin :lol:

 

Now I collect world coins (only "base currency unit" e.g. 1 peso, 1 euro, 1 yuan...), all Slovak & Czechoslovak coins and now also 1-€uro coins. But the small tiny ugly coin I have found in my grandma's box is the most valuable piece in my collection :cry:

 

Absik

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Cool story. It seems that alot of people start collecting by accident. :lol:

 

 

They see money from around the world, and it fascinates them. It becomes a thing of onterest to them, so they look for more.

 

Pretty cool is you ask me..... :cry:

 

 

 

 

KFC :ninja:

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With exposure to Internet, more people have better access to world coins and banknotes through world forums, individual websites etc. They become ware and interested in both collecting and trading. With more and better information available on this hobby, more people started this hobby not by accident but develop an interest in them. I think this is what is happening today.

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I moved to London when I was almost 3, then Rio de Janeiro at 5-6 then Maracaibo, Venezuela at 8, so by the age of Ten I had a decent collection going just from what my parents had saved, not to mention all of my fathers travels at that time. Then all my travels in college got me saving more and more world currency, along with working in a coin shop from the age of 12-14--that got me hooked on US Nationals! I sold about 200 notes in college, and the early 2000s for some extra cash (sad about it now I guess), so I am in a rebuilding stage also, not to mention the stuff I had stolen during a burglary in 1999 :ninja:

Now all of my traveling keeps me collecting, though not as much as I used to. The passion isn't gone but the time is :lol:

 

I like all the stories. Good stuff!

 

 

Ciao, and Hook 'em Horns,

Capt-AWACS, Sarcasm, Just another service I offer

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There is a similar thread over in another forum and this is my response in it. So, I'm too lazy to type it again...

 

Warning! Prepare for a long trip down memory lane...

 

I started with an H.E. Harris stamp album and a bag of stamps in 1956. Switched over to coins in late 1958 with the announcement that the Lincoln cent would have a new reverse. Really became interested in coins in 1959 when I found out our family's heirloom coin, an 1889-CC dollar in Good condition, was worth 'way more than a buck. Joined a coin club in 1960 or so in my hometown where I was shown a $10 2nd charter on the First National Bank of Mount Pleasant, Texas [my hometown]. Started subscribing to Coin World around then. Numismatic News, World Coin News and BNR all came later.

 

During all this I gave up on stamps and became firmly entrenched in Numismatics. I remember seeing lots of paper articles in Coin World, especially when the price of silver started to rise and folks would pay over face for Silver Certs in order to buy silver [either dollar coins or bullion] from the US Treasury. I remember the switch from Silver Cert $1 notes to FedRes $1 notes. What I mainly recall is that the FR notes had different corner emblems than the Silver Certs.

 

My first 'real' paper purchase was a $10 Gold Cert in 1967. It was a VG note for whitch I paid $13. That was also my first big numismatic mistake with the 'other gender.' My soon-to-be ex-girlfriend was appalled that I'd spend $13 for a $10...and not spend it on her. She was soon history...no great loss. WOW! It only took me 39 years to get over her enough to say that!! HA! HA!

 

I spent the '70's attending local coin shows, going to law school, starting a family and keeping the numismatic dream alive. I joined ANA, SPMC and IBNS but I've let my memberships lapse...too many demands on my income and not enough income to keep my memberships alive. I started attending Memphis shows in 1979 and went to 14 or 15 of them over the next 20 years; however, I haven't been back since 1998.

 

I really like Philippine under the US issues, Cuban Silver Certs from 1934 to 1949, the 1955 Israeli issues, MPC and related issues, Souvenir Cards, weird Treasury documents [Opium order forms, Prescription forms for Medicinal Liquor, etc.], emergency issues, and on and on.

 

But most of all, I like all the good people I've met through the years. It has never ceased to amaze me how the biggest names in our hobby have almost always been approachable and willing to share their knowledge and joy related to this hobby. Yes, there have been a few 'south-ends-of-a-horse-headed-north' but they are either out of the hobby now or dead and not missed. The good guys'n'gals 'w-a-a-a-a-ay outnumber the bad'uns.

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I started collecting stamps in young years (The collection is blown of hoist)... :cry: coins... (german empire)... and last but not least... in the year 2001 banknotes ;):lol:;)

 

I love banknotes :ninja:

 

first I collect german banknotes (only empire)... and now all ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...
I started with those lousy, low grade condition Straits Settlements notes. Most collectors concentrate on their own countries' past banknotes and coins. Slowly, I improve on my collection of the notes.

 

This statement clearly define where my position is.........anyway, I started collecting Banknotes from my habit of collecting a lot of thing.....quite a weird habit......toothpaste boxes, chocolate wrappers, coins, banknotes.......I collect those thing for no reason.......

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  • 2 months later...

My first papermoney was from Arab Saudi, it's belong to my father....he brought back those notes as a rememberance from Saudi (work place). My father work there for 2 years. He kept those notes in an album....When he return from Saudi Arab, he bought a lot alot of gift for all his relation..but only those papermoney and Yashica camera are left for my father as rememberance....the camera my father gave it to me when i was 15 years old.....the papermoney i only got it hmm...i took it for my self when i was 22 years old. That's when my father passed away of heart attack.....now i have papermoney from 66 countries. My collect is a tribute to my father. :ninja:

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Dad found a 1957 $1 Silver Certificate in change we were about to use to buy dinner.

 

He showed me the significance of it. It was the first time I realized that Federal Reserve Notes weren't alone in the US. Note world.

 

Of course my uncle giving me a gorgeous 1923 $1 helped add momentum :ninja:

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