When I was younger I really enjoyed traveling to other countries. Most of the pocket change from those travels went into a box upon my return.

I've been neglecting my journal and my certified coins for the last few months. I do have a good excuse as the addition to this site of the world coins guide awakened a desire to catalog my foreign coins.

Which brings up the question 'Is a foreign country really that foreign?' I've stayed at Hilton hotels and Holiday Inns. I've eaten at Burger King and McDonald's. How can that be considered a foreign experience? Back to coins....

Now some of these coins are well circulated examples accumulated during my travels, but five or six years ago I made a trade for a collection. The last two months have been spent trying to organize this accumulation into something that resembles a collection.

Along the way, I've spent time trying to assign a rough grade to each coin and put a value on it. It's been interesting to look at coins made of zinc, aluminum, brass and all the other metals used. Trying to decide if that really is a mark made during minting or was this coin circulated has been a challenge.

Now I'm nearing the end of the project with only a few dozen left to enter into my custom sets. Surprisingly, that trade I mentions cost me around 25 cents per coin, but included a number of silver and high grade mint state coins. This turned an investment of a hundred dollars into a total value of several thousand.

Now that this project is finished, I need to get back to my certified sets.

Happy Collecting,

Phil

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