20th Century World Coins with Double Headed Eagle Design

[Mr. Smith Guesser]

I'd like to start a new set of 20th century world coins which feature a double headed eagle design. This:

 

 

The goal is to include one coin from each country that used the design. So far I've found the double headed eagle on coins from:

 

Albania

Austria

Finland

Germany

Greece

Kazakhstan (stylized double headed eagle)

Russia

Serbia

Yugoslavia

 

I was wondering if anyone could add more countries to this list. Thanks.

[michael]

I have done some research and I am almost positive you have a complete listing!!

 

 

[Mr. Smith Guesser]

Cool. Yeah I did go through my World Standard Catalog country-by-country, but figured that I could have easily overlooked one. Thanks

[brg5658]

Yep, I can't seem to find any other either given the restriction to 20th century.

 

I hope your Greece piece is that super cool 30 drachmai piece! I really like that design.

 

If you have a link or pics, I'd love to see your collection of these.

[physics-fan3.14]

The list will probably grow quite a bit if you extend it back to the 19th century (which I highly recommend you do - there is a lot of really interesting coinage that meets your criteria). This is a pretty cool idea for a set; I look forward to seeing it grow!

[Mr. Smith Guesser]

I hope your Greece piece is that super cool 30 drachmai piece! I really like that design.

 

It is.

 

I've just started the collection with a 1914 Russian 20 Kopek:

 

 

The inspiration for this collection is a trip that I took to Albania in 2010. The Albanian flag features a double headed eagle, which I think is a very appropriate image for the country as is has always needed to defend itself by sea to the west and in the mountains to the east.

 

 

It was a very interesting trip. I have never been to another country like Albania. There are some very odd laws to say the least. Here's an example...

 

I believe that the laws have changed on this now, but when I was there, is was illegal to actually steal a car. However, it was not illegal to be in possession of a stolen car. Nor was it illegal to buy or sell a stolen car. Crazy right?

 

So something like 90% of the cars on the road were stolen vehicles from other countries. And since it wasn't illegal to be in possession of a stolen car, they didn't even bother to change the license plates. So you'd see license plates on cars from all over the world; mostly Europe, but I saw one license plate from Kansas and another from California. And there's little to no chance that someone brought these cars over there.

 

Stolen cars are so common that one local resident told me that at one point there were more Mercedes Benz on the road in Albania than in Germany (where the taxis are Benzs). I'm not sure if he was exaggerating or not. But based on the number of foreign license plates I saw, there's no doubt that most of the cars on the road were stolen.

 

Here are a few photos that I took while I was there:

 

And this has nothing to do with coins or the collection...but it's an awesome story...

 

So I'm in Albania, far to the north very near the border with Kosovo, which was about a 4-hour drive from the capital of Tirana where we were staying. I was there with work to write a story about this very large copper mine, which produced hundreds of millions of pounds of copper between the 1960s and 1990s.

 

We see the old mine and a few other sites and are just about to leave to get lunch. The plan was to sneak into Kosovo to grab a bite to eat and then head back Tirana. I was there with a few Canadians and three local Albanians, and the trip across the border was unplanned so no one had a visa for Kosovo...hence the sneaking in part. And let me just say what a bad idea it is to cross international borders without a visa. I wouldn't recommend doing it. In fact, I wouldn't even be talking about it if we actually made it over the border...but we didn't.

 

We were wrapping up, saying goodbye to one of the local Albanians and headed back to our trucks. We were walking up this really steep hill (which is in one of the photos on the flickr stream) and at the top of the hill was this dirty, mangy farm dog barking at us, which was about the size of a black lab...about 75 pounds. The hill was so steep that we had to switch back up it and we were walking in a single file line, where I was the second guy in the line with only one person in front of me.

 

As we get closer to the top of the hill, the dog starts barking at us more, and we have to walk right by it to get to the trucks. The guy in front of me walks about 10 feet in front of this dog and he lunges at him to bite. But the dog didn't get him. At this point, I'm like 30 feet away from this dog thinking, 'If I show any fear, this dog is going to bite the sh*t out of me'. So the only thing I could do was keep heading up the hill and hope of God this filthy mutt doesn't bite me. But then........you guess it.......this stinking beast lunges at me, grabs my left calf, and rips it open.

 

I'm no tough guy. But I still try to play it cool because I don't want put the dog on edge anymore so I let out this growled scream. And right then, the dog starts barking at me again, but here comes who I'm assuming owned the dog with some kind of long stick, like a broom handle or a rake handle. I'm not really sure what he had and I really didn't care as long as he was going to get this dog away from me. So he chases the dog off, but my leg is ripped open and we're in the middle of no where with no real hospital for miles.

 

So we have to drive the 4 hours back to Tirana to get to a proper hospital with my leg bleeding all over the place. At this point, I'm more worried about what this hospital is going to be like than the dog bite. Albania is a very poor country, so my expectations were not very high.

 

We finally get back to Tirana and go right to the hospital. I was surprised that the hospital was actually very nice, relative to the rest of the country. But the name of the hospital actually concerned me. It was called the American Hospital. In fact, here it is: www.spitaliamerikan.com What worried me was the fact that hospital was seemingly trying to legitimize itself by using the word "American"...similar to the way Federal Express or the Federal Reserve use the word "Federal" to make it seem like they are directly operated by the U.S. Federal Government, which neither is. Fortunately, they were able to patch me up without any problems, but since a dog bite is not a clean cut, it couldn't be stitched. So I had to spend the rest of the trip hobbling around Tirana, with no crutches...just a bandage wrapped around my leg.

 

So if you're ever in northern Albania, near a very small town called Kukes, watch out for dogs.

 

The epilogue to the story is, I should have came back to the U.S. as soon as I could. But one of the guys on the trip invited me to come with him to Split, Croatia for a week. And did I go? Of course I did! Mauled leg and everything. But that trip was a whole other adventure with a story for another time. (BTW, if you ever get a chance to go to Split, I'd highly recommend it. It's an absolutely beautiful city and a tourist town for Europeans, so it's very safe...and I didn't run into any dogs there.)

 

Almost 6 years later the scar from that dog bite is still on my leg. Most of the bite healed nicely, but there is a fairly deep gash in my calf still from where that SOB go me with his canine.

 

 

You can just barely see the other canine bite above that large gash. But there are scars from the bite, which have nearly faded at this point, further up my calf.

 

I don't have any tattoos. But this scar is way cooler than any tattoo I've ever considered getting. And even though I was quite scared at the time, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

 

 

 

[michael]

amazing thread thanks and also great story the best post on these boards in a year (thumbs u (thumbs u (thumbs u (thumbs u (thumbs u

 

the ms 64 double headed eagle coin has GREAT!! eye appeal

 

with a great story and history behind it