Why don't you collect foriegn coins?

[Bruceswar]

I am sure just about everybody has a few, either from a trip or picked one up here or there, but why not more? What is it that keep you from buying more? Personally I finding more and more I like them. This coin cost me a fraction of what its US counterpart would cost. Say a 50 cent piece from 1962.Here is a recent pick up. Have a look and enjoy...

 

[ant]

(thumbs u

[physics-fan3.14]

Wowzer, that is a nice one. As for the foreign stuff, I have about the same amount dollarwise in foreign and US stuff, but far more volumewise of the foreign. By collecting a few very different things, if I get tired of one set for a while, I just move to a different set. Then I move back again. I find it very refreshing to come back to Franklins after taking a couple of months off to focus on my French Colonial, or something like that.

[Revenant]

I prefer American. Besides, coin collecting is diverse enough as it is. I don't want it to get overwhelming.

[stinkycheese1]

That mexican coin is beautiful! I love mexican coins, I have an old silver mexican coin that is 720 fine I bought, one of my favorite (and inexpensive) coins.

 

[Bruceswar]

That mexican coin is beautiful! I love mexican coins, I have an old silver mexican coin that is 720 fine I bought, one of my favorite (and inexpensive) coins.

 

I happen to agree here. Old Mexican coins are great and they can be found pretty for cheap! The coin in the photos cost less than most meals at a restraunt. Under $25.00 I would buy 100 that looked like that at that price.

 

As to Rev it can be overwehlming...

[James_OldeTowne]

Mexican coins aren't "foreign" anymore !

 

Just kidding - I have a few neat-o darkside coins set aside.

[jgrinz]

The World is too large for my small mind to be able to collect imports too

 

[BillJones]

Many Mexican coins are quite attractive, and they have some very interesting history surrounding them, BUT you can't collect everything.

 

If you don't have some direction and goals your collection becomes a hodge-podge.

[MBA101]

I still have 320 Bustie die pairings to obtain, another couple hundred die varieties, and I am going to start collecting foreign stuff?

[JKK]

It's hard enough to be really good with one nationality's coins, and my main interest is 1800s and early 1900s US coinage. (I don't have the budget for late 1700s, or I'd get into those too.) I do, however, collect Canadian coins and any coin with interesting historical significance to me.

[Conder101]

I do. I've got about two thousand US coins, nineteen thousand different non-US coins and over 750 different 18th century English Provincial tokens. Plus about 350 - 400 different slab varieties.

[cpm9ball]

At one time, I had about 11 lbs. of foreign coins that I picked up at a garage sale along with about $30 face value in circulated U.S. coins. I paid $200 for the whole shebang. The foreign coins represented 40-50 different countries. Except for one coin, I sold all of them for $88 ($8 per pound). The one coin I kept was a 1916Mo Mexico 1c which is now in an NGC XF40BN holder.

 

I have picked up a few other Mexican and Phillipine coins that I will keep because I like the designs.

 

Chris

[Oldtrader3]

I have some English Florins and Crowns. I am collecting different British Florin designs with various royals and Colonies, starting with the 1849 "Godless" Victoria, Florin.

[jtryka]

I like Mexican coins, primarily the types with allegorical figures, rather than people like Morelos. That said, I have a complete set of Libertads and a complete set of pesos from 1920-45, and I collect any Latin American coins that were in any way pegged to the dollar (Panama, Columbia, Venezuela, Cuba, etc.).

[Houston Investor]

I like buying world coins by the pound and then selling them for 1000% markup.

[World Colonial]

I would explain why I do not collect world coins, but since that is all I collect, I cannot. (I essentially own zero US coins, having sold what I had two years ago to buy material at the June Heritage Long Beach auction. And I no longer buy any.)

 

I believe that there are several reasons why others do not, including two mentioned in this thread.

 

The first is limited budgets. None of can collect everything and as another post stated well, those who try to do so may find that they do not complete anything.

 

The second reason is that people collect what they know (mainly because this is what they come to like) and the collorary to this is that no one can collect what they do not know exists. There are so many options of non-US material to choose from.

 

When I started collecting again in 1998, I did so by chance when I decided to look at coin web sites. (I started with PCGS affiliated Coin Universe which had auctions at the time.) I also bought a copy of the Krause Manuals and looked through them to see what "looked nice", what existed and what it cost. (Little did I know at the time the prices were wrong.)

 

First, I ended up selecting coins from countries that I had lived in, such as South Africa (ZAR and Union) and Bolivia (1864-1909). South Africa is still my primary series today and accounts for about 175 of the 260 (mostly) NGC and PCGS coins I own plus a large number of raw ones.

 

Later I added a few others such as Spanish colonial pillars and "Lion & Castle" quarter real, 1790 Austrian Netherlands Insurrection issues, Mexico "Cap & Ray" and Spanish Cross. Except for pillars, I do not have that many of these items, but that is because I have stuck with high grade issues (mostly AU to mint state) and for most of these (Mexico 8 reales excepted), there are few to be found.

 

The other reason I chose world coins is because they were (and still are) so much cheaper for what I would consider comporably scarce material. I've been fortunate to have my coin budget increase since 1998, but it was and still is a factor to me.

[Revenant]

I should probably qualify my earlier post. I do have a number of mostly circulated foreign coins from about 17 different countries, some from as long ago as 1943 or 1924. They are from what my Grandfather brought back with him after his business trips. I keep these and will not part with them. I'm also going to be collecting various non-US modern silver bullion issues. but that's likely to remain the extent of it.

[michael]

I am sure just about everybody has a few, either from a trip or picked one up here or there, but why not more? What is it that keep you from buying more? Personally I finding more and more I like them. This coin cost me a fraction of what its US counterpart would cost. Say a 50 cent piece from 1962.Here is a recent pick up. Have a look and enjoy...

 

 

 

superb (thumbs u

[coinsarefun]

World coins are very cool!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Stefanie

 

 

 

 

[jackson64]

I think the answer to your question Bruce is a resounding--we do collect world coins..I don't find it overwhelming since I have no interest in dead president US coinage..so my larger $ purchases are usually MS Walkers, Mercs, and buffs....and I buy about 75% of great $30-40 World Coins...some of the crests and national seals are very nice by themselves..

[astrostu]

I don't actively collect foreign coins because there are WAY too many (too many US, too, but that's beside the point). I collect them as I come across them, like when I was in Australia I bought $40AU worth of current coins, but that's about it.

[cmerlo1-migration]

There are just too many. I only have room in my brain for US Coins.