What important collection did you start on a whim?

[shirohniichan]

4 or 5 years ago I bought an East Africa shilling from a member of the other side of the street because I like the lion reverse design.

 

After I got the coin I admired the portrait of George V as the most regal looking of all portraits on British and commonwealth coins. I discovered that there were 4 different portraits of George V used between 1911 and 1936 and decided to buy a shilling or equivalent from every commonwealth member from his reign.

 

Along the way I broadened the collection to include any silver coin (3d to crown). I'm getting closer to completion, but I still have about 10 coins to go (some inexpensive but hard to find, and one that is easy to find but expensive).

 

What collection important to you did you start on a whim or chance acquisition?

 

How far are you on it? Any stoppers in your set?

[WaxonWaxov]

Well, I'm still trying to get a 1913 to complete my Liberty Nickel Set.. !

 

Your shillings sound interesting.

[SuperDave]

I was wandering Harlan J. Berk's website one day, and on a whim clicked on a picture of an Australian Sovereign. That was the beginning of the end, and there's no longer any hope for me. I'm attempting to limit my collection to first/last year of each monarch and mint; even then, Canada is a real stopper.

 

*sigh*

[Zoins]

This is modern NCLT *spoon* but I picked up six 1998 Tanzania Serengeti Wildlife 500 Shilingi silver coins when I saw them for bullion prices. There are 11 in the set. I've seen 2 others for sale that I missed and they hardly ever come up on the bay. I'm not sure when I'll get to finish this

 

This set is good times for me because I went to Tanzania a few years back and got to see a lot of the wildlife up close.

 

Feel free to PM me if you have any for sale

[World Colonial]

None of them. There are three specialties within my coin collection and that is all I buy 99% of the time. Within these specialties, I have a few sub-categories. There are also a few type sets that I am trying to complete (5 piece Mexico Cap & Ray in mint state for example) but I do not consider them a collection on their own because they are small. There are other items I would collect, but since I do not even have the funds to buy everything in my specialties, I do not.

[Hoot]

Really, I started three on a whim: (1) an album collection of peace dollars that I may never finish; (2) my large cent collection (but I got serious about all that); (3) my collection of world coins, which is 90% copper coinage. #3 is really the most whimsical, but it's a fun thematic way to collect world coinage, and it doen't break the piggy bank.

 

Hoot

[DC Dawg]

I get quite a few whims:

 

A few years ago I went to a local dealer and found a Peace Dollar year set in a display case. The case was ugly, so I removed the coins and bought an album. Now the set it complete and one of my best sets.

 

Then I learned about the Silver Britannias and picked up the set. I am in the process of doing the same for Silver Maple Leaf coins.

 

Lately, it's been Ike Dollars and 1976 registry sets. I've taken my 1976 coins and sent them to NGC for grading, made some trades and purchases to build the set. I started last November and my goal is to have a top 3 set in something.

 

Scott

[World Colonial]

I know it is hard to believe but there is a reason for it. When I started collecting again in 1998, I made a conscious decision to take this approach. I knew I would never finish anything if I spread my resources too thinly. I have increased the scope as I have increased my budget but the series I collect are essentially unchanged. For example, I am now looking for complete sets instead of just type sets.

 

I also decided to collect only high grade (AU or MS) coins because these are scarcer and I believe the financial side has more potential. The value of my collection is more than most but still less than many individual US coins (hundreds in these high grades probably given today's market). I'm not in this to make money, but I'm not in it to lose it either.

 

My approach is not for everyone, but it works for me. The key for me is having enough variety while remaining a specialist or quasi-specialist so that I have some hope of both completing my collections but also not losing interest through boredom by only collecting the same thing.

 

Eventually, I hope to have one of the best collections in the world for these areas.

[lkenefic]

I started [or rather my daughter started] Peace Dollars after she lost her first tooth and the "tooth fairy" gave her a silver dollar for it.

 

I started a State Quarter collection after my wife started one...

 

I also started my Large Cents quite some time ago as a kid when I first saw the "big pennies"...started as a whim...became a collection...now it's an obsession...

[MercP]

My main collection is my Peace Dollars and I did give alot of thought to it before I began.

 

However, on a whim I did purchase a 1849-O $1 in XF45. Because I live in New Orleans and it just looked cool. Then I started thinking a New Orleans Gold type set would be cool. Then I realized that 1849 was the first year of production. So, now I'm on a quest to do a first year New Orleans Gold type set.

 

I only have two coin so far but, my main focus is still on my Peace Dollars. I do plan on getting serious about this set later.

[jtryka]

I completed a Peace dollar set in a whitman folder on a whim, as well as a set of silver Mexican Libertads and a set of circulated 2-cent coins (through 1872 only). I also started a set of 3-cent nickes as well, but have been at only 10 or so in the album for like 4 years now.

 

My Saint set was sorta started on a whim, since I originally would have been happy with one as a type coin, but decided what the heck, let's go for it (of course that was about $400 ago in terms of gold prices). There are lots of stoppers, not the least of which is the 33, and I certainly wish I'd bought the key dates in 2001 when they were really cheap. But I still add a coin or two each year and get just a little bit closer.

[shirohniichan]

Here's a bad scan of the coin that started it all:

 

[Zoins]

Nice coin shirohniichan. I've liked that design for a while now. Do you know what mountains are in the background?

 

Many of my existing collections tend to be inexpensive and were started/finished on a whim because I didn't have particular coins/medals I felt very strongly about. My interests have tended to gravitate towards fairly expensive coins but I don't consider myself qualified to own or appreciate them yet. Only recently have I found some mid-range priced coin series that I (think I will) like and can use as a learning experience.

 

Until then, I'm a big history fan. Two areas where I've built up small collections are what I call my "Art of War" collection and relic medals that are composed of "historic metal." The Art of War collection was started with the 1993 WWII Victory Medal which I purchased because I thought it was very cool. The relic medals collection was started in 1986 with my Sears Statue of Liberty medal that arrived glued on the Sears Catalog. Here's one medal from each collection.

 

Paul von Hindenburg was a veteran of the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars. When WWI began, war was still viewed as a glorious way to expand territories controlled by the empire. Germany felt they were a latecomer to the colonization game and was interested in winning a war against Britain to expand their territories. General Hindenburg became a national hero after achieving a few early victories in WWI (that may be better attributed to his assistant according to historians). He went on to become the 2nd President of Germany. I don't know anything about this medal. I just thought it was interesting. The obverse is high relief and looks like it's based on a photo you can see on Wikipedia.

 

 

This is a NASA MFA medal for the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. The two flights launched within 7.5 hrs of each other on July 15 and docked with each other on July 17. Three hours later, the mission commanders, Stafford and Leonov, exchanged the first international space handshake. As stated, it is made of metal from both ships.

 

 

Feel free to be critical and let me know what you think of these.

[gedis3]

Do you know what mountains are in the background?

 

That would be Mount Kilimanjaro.

[Zoins]

Do you know what mountains are in the background?

That would be Mount Kilimanjaro.

Interesting. It doesn't look like any photo of Kilimanjaro I've seen. Do you know what the other mountain is and from what direction the image is from? Modern photos of Kilimanjaro I've seen show a flat top (which is actually the ring around a large summit crater). Could it be that earlier there was enough snow on the mountain to form a pointed top but has since melted away? Or was there a St. Helens type eruption that removed the summit cone? Or is it a different mountain? What reference are you using that says it's Kilimanjaro?

[gedis3]

I wondered the same thing, since I have a few pictures of Kilimanjaro...but I couldn't remember any other mountains in East Africa besides Mt. Kenya, (that would rate placement on a coin...) so I did a Google to confirm.

 

I found this @ http://www.wbcc.fsnet.co.uk/af-sol.htm :

 

"All three East African 1 Shilling types will have seen use in British Somaliland. All three types had in common their reverse design, which was the work of George William De Saulles (Source - "Catalogue of Coin Designers and Engravers" 1984, by Zdenek Vesely). This design has, as one of its main features, a rather life-like lion. About every other lion to appear on world coinage at the time was at least a little heraldic, appearing in a shield or coat of arms. Behind the lion and adding to the realism of the design, there is the distant view of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak. Arching over the lion/mountain scene is a stylised flower and above this the words “EAST AFRICA”. Below the central scene is the denomination numeral “1”, below that the word “SHILLING” and below that the date. Pieces made by mints other than the Royal Mint, London include a mint mark located in the ground at the lion’s feet, directly above the denomination numeral “1”. The mint marks are any one of the following four:- “H” (The Mint, Birmingham Ltd., Birmingham, England), “I” (the Bombay Branch of the Royal Mint, Bombay, India), “KN” (The mint of ICI Metals Division, Witton, near Birmingham, England) and “SA” (The South African Mint, Pretoria, South Africa). The mountain/lion design also appeared on the papermoney of the EACB from the 1933 series to the 1955 series inclusive."

[Zoins]

Maybe the left subpeak is supposed to be Shira, the prominent peak Kibo and the peak to the right Mawensi (three peaks of Kili)? It's possible but doesn't seem right. Or is the peak to the right supposed to be Mount Meru? If it's supposed to be Kilimanjaro, could the artist have taken enough artistic license that it no longer looks like the real mountain? Kind of like how some eagles on US coins don't look like real eagles. Maybe this is an allegorical Kili?

[gedis3]

Hmmm... George William De Saulles apparantly died in 1903.

 

So, assuming that he designed the scene before his death, () I'm guessing he never actually laid eyes on Kili -- maybe not even a photograph -- so he probably used a great deal of artistic license, or based it on a painting that was.

 

I don't think Kili has erupted in modern history -- but they found magma about 400m down, so there is fear that one day it will do a Mt. St. Helens type "collapse-ruption" kinda thing... which would TOTALLY blow the scene on the reverse of that coin.

[Zoins]

Hmmm... George William De Saulles apparantly died in 1903.

 

So, assuming that he designed the scene before his death, () I'm guessing he never actually laid eyes on Kili -- maybe not even a photograph -- so he probably used a great deal of artistic license, or based it on a painting that was.

Thanks George. The way mountains are depicted is very important to me because I do a lot of hiking and some mountaineering, including hiking up Kili and Meru. Often times a mountain is recognized first by it's profile which may be misleading here. I've thought about starting a mountains on coins/medals collection but for that kind of collection, I may classify this as a mythical or fantasy Kilimanjaro. I still think it's a great coin design and it probably looks better than the real thing would on a coin

[just carl]

I was wandering Harlan J. Berk's website one day, and on a whim clicked on a picture of an Australian Sovereign. That was the beginning of the end, and there's no longer any hope for me. I'm attempting to limit my collection to first/last year of each monarch and mint; even then, Canada is a real stopper.

 

*sigh*

Every time I hear that name of that coin dealer I get irritated. Living in the area I used to go there almost as much as grocery stores. Even way, way back when it was a different name. Then a few years ago they started getting nutty with cleaned coins, over priced stuff and very rude employees. After many, many years of going there I ended up being treated like a vacrant or something. Get things like "do you know what you want? Let me know if you do." And then just walk away. So many cleaned coins. Did that place go down lately.

As to starting a collection on a whim. I've been collecting coins for well over 60 years and haven't the slightest idea how, when or why I started collecting any of the stuff.

[Houston Investor]

$2.50 Indian Gold in MS 63 and up

[SLQS-migration]

SLQS AT 6 YRS OLD OFF A BID BOARD!!! j.

[TJ'S Coins]

Undipped, circulated Peace Dollars with a target grade of EF40 or so. I like 'em with toning and dirt

[SkyMan]

$2.50 Indian Gold in MS 63 and up

 

Bingo! I wanted to get a 1929 $2.50 in MS63 because it was the largest dollar denomination of the year that I could afford, and the year 1929 has always held a fascination for me. Once I got it, I started to buy some of the other $2.50 Indian coins because the series is so short.