Welcome to the wonderful world of foreign coin and banknote collecting. If
you are new to, or just exploring the field of world coins, let me try to make
some helpful suggestions.
There is an old saying, "Buy the book before the coin."
Let me strongly encourage you to do this. There are four excellent catalogs
which cover world coins, century by century from 1600 to the present. The title
of these is the Standard Catalog of World Coins by Krause & Mishler. The catalogs are broken down by century:
1601-1700; 1701-1800; 1801-1900; and 1901 to the present. These catalogs
may be obtained directly from the publisher:
Krause Publications
700 E. State Street
Iola, WI 54990-0001
Phone: 715-445-2214
Fax: 715-445-4087
http://www.krause.com/
I
would recommend that you pick up many other different books on coins that suit
your specific interests. I have many
different “lightly used” books available for you to gain more insight and depth
of knowledge about your collecting area.
You may want to subscribe to World Coin News, a monthly newspaper
devoted just to the collecting of world coins. In it you will find many
interesting features, articles and advertisements from many of the outstanding
world coin dealers in the
"Where
do I begin?" or "What do I collect?" Let me make some suggestions that would help you
narrow your field of interest as you are beginning. There are three basic ways
to collect coins: by type; by series; or by denomination.
Type
collecting consists of collecting
one of each type of a denomination minted. For example to collect English
crowns by type from 1800 to the present would consist of collecting the 15 different
crowns minted between 1804 & 1965.
Series
collecting consists of collecting
every date and every mint mark for a given denomination. For example, if you
wanted to collect German Reichsmark you would collect
one of every date and mintmark A through J, minted from 1933 to 1939.
In
denomination
collecting you might decide to attempt to collect silver-dollar-sized
coins of the world, 1/2-dollar-sized coins of the world or penny coins of the
world, etc.
Many people, when they first begin collecting coins, often start in the
area of their own ethnic background. That means, if your family came from
Other forms of collecting could consist of focusing on a few or many
countries but within a given period such as 1900 to date. Many beginners like collecting
one coin or banknote from each country.
I even have one customer who has nearly completed collecting one coin of each year
from 1500 to the present!
Another area in which there is a lot of interest is topical coin collecting.
Coins and banknotes can be collected by many various topics such as: Olympics;
sports; animals; birds; boats/sailing; other transportation such as trains and
planes; famous people such as authors, composers, statesmen. Your collecting
choices are essentially up to you.
Collect what you like and enjoy organizing and learning about your
collection.