Looks like a bunch of standard European currency … but they are all the same size … 13mm to be exact. Two years ago, I got a bunch of Belgian imitation play coins from around the turn of the last century and produced by the German Lauer company. Apparently the company also produced similar play sets for other countries (UK, France, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Sweden, Switzerland) so now I'm also looking for those. In Germany also Balmberger made similar tiny replica's and in Switzerland at a later date Huguenin produced modern 13 mm miniatures.
More recently reduced size coins (not all coins of the same size, just shrunk down from original size) have been produced in Portugal by the Casa da Moeda, in the US as a novelty and in the Netherlands by the Dutch Royal Mint (both for Guilders and Euro).
There are still very many missing and the placement is not always clear. The old ones are probably all play money (for the kids of the higher class and therefore quite wel made), while the more recent ones are more like souvenirs (should we place them under replica if identical, but undersized?). Some of the older ones had been marked as counter tokers, but they are too recent for that, and some of the newer sets as Fantasy currency … though I'd stick with Replica or Tourist souvenir.
I'll try to get some better pictures of mine to improve the listings and try to complete some series. If any of you out there have any information on these miniatures, like local catalogues listing them, I'd love to hear from you. I've already found an online Portuguese catalog by one of our members, but I'm sure the German toy money catalog also contains some interesting pages on these coins if anyone has it available.
Having an incomplete listing in our catalogue probably also means not everyone has them listed on their swaplist, so if anyone has some lying around, please reach out for a swap! Postage is very cheap as they are tiny and weigh nothing … all donations are welcome 😉
And here two pieces with their life size counterparts (as Latin silver goes)
Welcome to the Miniature Replica Coin Fan Club !
I have also been hunting after some toy replica banknotes from early 20th century, but cannot find any links anymore. They a definitely scarcer than the coins. Leads are welcome :-)
