So if you want to collect Newfoundland you must be able to accept what some call problem coins. Because there just are so few examples out there for any price.

Over this past weekend I completed two of the Newfoundland sets. The Newfoundland 1913-1936 Cents and the Newfoundland 1865-96 Ten Cents are now complete and can be found in the Canada - Maritime Provinces section of the NGC World coin registry. I've been working on this for over forty years. I only know of a few complete Newfoundland sets and none in the NGC registry.

Many might ask why Newfoundland. My Grandfather Ray Elliott was born in 1908 and raised on the rock that is known as Newfoundland. Way up north on Newfoundland there is a town called Twillingate. If you go north from Twillingate you will find a small village called Crow Head. In Crow Head is where my Grandfather was born into an immigrant family of fisherman. His father and mother had immigrated to Newfoundland from England in the mid 1870's and set down roots in Crow Head. As a boy and through his teenage years he followed in the family tradition and was an active fisherman and seal hunter. Much of his youth was filled with cleaning and drying Cod and learning how to hunt seals for their meat, skin, and oils. After he finished school and while not working with the family fishing he became an apprentice carpenter. Ray loved working with his hands and wanted to work as a carpenter full time. The economy in the early 1930's was hard times to say the least and finding work became difficult. A newspaper article about the booming buildings trade in New York City prompted Ray to scrap together enough money for a boat ticket to New York. Ray found work as a carpenter almost from the first day here in the United States but made frequent trips home to his beloved Newfoundland. At some point in the early 30's, Ray met the woman of his dreams and decided to make New York his new home. In 1936 Ray received US citizenship and became a full time member in the Carpenters union. They had two children and my mother was one of those children.

When I was a young boy in the 60's my Grandfather would tell me stories about fishing and seal hunting and life in Newfoundland. When he found out that I was collecting coins with my father, he gave me a handful of Newfoundland coins that he brought with him from one of his trips back home. I was enamored with these coins and every time I would hold them I would think of my Grandfather and his stories of what seemed like such a far away land.

My father was always an avid coin collector and when I was young I would tag along with him to the White Plains coin shows and every once in a while I would find another Newfoundland coin to add to my collection. I've always collected US coins and the Newfoundland coins were just a side sort of personal extension of my collection.

With the advent of the internet, coin research and shopping now became an international obsession of mine. For the past 20 years I've been what I would term a serious collector. I decided to get serious with organizing and cataloging my hoard of Newfoundland coins. With a very limited budget and only able to send in a small number of coins a year, I have been slowly but surely building my now certified Newfoundland collection. If you include the raw coin with my certified coins I have an almost complete date set of Newfoundland coins. I am missing 4 silver and 4 gold Newfoundland coins.

So now you know why I collect Newfoundland coins. It gives me a connection to my family and my heritage.

If you're interested in collecting this little followed series there are a few things you should know about the series. There is little stock to pick from. What you will find in the wild are coins that have been used and abused. Almost every Newfoundland coin you will find has been circulated. The thought of collecting coins would probably never pass through a real Newfies mind because few were ever wealthy enough to be able to save money, it was needed to survive in the rough economy of Newfoundland.

Most Newfoundland coin issues having relatively low mintages in the 300,000 or less. Most examples we see are either very worn, damaged, or both. Finding nice attractive circulated specimens is often difficult, and mint state examples very difficult (nearly impossible for some dates). One of the reasons Newfoundland coins experienced such extensive circulation was Newfoundlanders preferred hard coinage over paper money due to multiple bank failures over the years.

So if you want to collect Newfoundland you must be able to accept what some call problem coins. Because there just are so few examples out there for any price. In fact one of the things that keep my interest in this series going is the fact that one can not just assemble a set of Newfoundland coins. It does not matter how deep your pockets are. You have to hunt and search for days, weeks, months, and in some cases years before finding some of these coins. If you happen to look at some of my coins be sure to check out the NGC census of the coins in my set. An example is the 1898 50 cents which had a mintage of 76,600. The NGC census has only 22 being certified and most being in the VF grade. This makes the collection of Newfoundland coins a challenge to say the least. Forget about finding mint state examples, the goal for me is to just complete the date set. In my life time I just may do that.

To end I'll attach pictures of one of the coins that I added this past weekend. This one just blows me away. In my time I've seen so many Newfoundland coins but this has to be one of best Newfoundland Victoria's I've ever seen. I've tried to take photos of the coin but can not seem to capture the beauty of this one. I may try again when I get a new camera..... Enjoy!

-Jim Combs

P.S. If you have or find any Newfoundland coins message me I might be interested in adding them to my hoard.... Oppps I mean my collection.