I found this old topic which I thought I would restart due to having more members and just for some enjoyable stories. I also love the feeling of seeing that some one has replied to your comments so that may also be another reason why I have decided to be a more active forum member.
Here is my collection story.
When I was about six I found an Australian 50 cent commemorative album in my brother’s bookcase which I thought would be fun to fill. So with my family's help, especially that of my grandma I managed to get all the circulating 50 cents.
I really enjoyed every time I would find a new coin which I didn’t have, to go in my album. So when I was about 7, I found a $1 circulation commemoratives album and a 10 cent year album for two each in a second hand book store for two dollars each. Let’s just say on that day I lost four dollars and two albums crept into my then small collection. I managed to collect all of those one dollar coins for that album which only went up until 2007. I still have to collect about 7 or 8 more 10 cents.
After finding New Zealand coins in circulation, being given coins from my dad’s missionary trips to Africa and the Philippines and my brother giving me an UNC set of Italian Lire from a trip over to Italy with my mum I had quite a few coins stash away. Then before Christmas last year I decided to display all my coins on a bookshelf and realised that I had several countries (9 or 10 at that time).
Then at Christmas I was given an Australian pre-decimal album along with some other coins. Soon after I discovered my semi-local coin store and Numista along with my grandma’s and grandpa’s old collections,
which my grandma gave me several old pennies half penny’s and three pences from both. Also some 200 odd coins from the UK may have helped. Then without albums I decided to collect 5, 20 and 50 cents by year. And I subscribed to some monthly coin newsletters. Went to some other stores and fairs and now at the age of sixteen I am hooked (and poor), after buying some three pences sixpence and a new decimal album at the last fair.
I am glad that I have discovered this hobby so early in life so that I may have an extensive collection when I am older.
Hope we you have enjoyed reading my story and I would love to hear yours.
It’s really nice to know that you loved collecting coins at such an early age. Like you, even I started collecting coins when I was about 10 years old. My grandfather showed me his collection and I was hooked on to the hobby ever since. Keep collecting coins and encourage others to do the same! Cheers...
My story basically reads like a combination of all the clichéd kickstarters that got everyone else collecting.
My parents and grandparents all had a few old coins and notes from pre-decimal/early decimal times, and pre-Euro coins from French relatives and from trips to Europe (francs, lire, marks, gulden, pesetas). I dug around the house as kids do and found the "treasure", and usually I was allowed to keep them.
Then when I was about 12 a retired relative moving overseas wanted to get rid of his stuff, and included in it were some pre-decimal silvers, and few late colonial coins (British India, Malaya, Hong Kong); this was also around the time I actively began taking an interest in those old coins I'd accumulated from when I was younger, and getting a bunch of older coins boosted my interest in history*. I began actively looking and asking for old coins/notes and the rest (other than a few periods of hiatus when I set my collection aside for other typical teenage stuff) is history!
*I'm actually not sure whether my interest in history got me started collecting coins, or whether researching my collection got me into history.
My answer from that thread still stands, and I did need money, and I did sell my collection, and I did get more than when I sold my coins, and now I'm starting again and already have a decent free silver collection in just 4-5 months.
As a kid from Serbia, I had a ton of old Yugoslavian inflation coins and banknotes. They were useless but I just couldn't throw them away.
Another thing I did, before officially starting to collect coins, is that I kept all of the foreign coins and notes that I did not spend on my trips (mostly Euros, some BGN, CZK and DEM) in a little ceramic dish. I noticed that I had a lot of them, so I started to get some interest in them and well..look where I ended up
My interest in collecting coins was started by 2 separate reasons. Firstly, I always thought it was funny that euro coins had different designs for different countries. I just decided to see how many different ones I could find and keep. So that got me started a bit. The other thing was that my father sometimes travels abroad, and I always asked him for his pocket change he brought back so I could keep it. I remember the first coin I actually kept as my "lucky coin". It was a Danish 50 ore. I liked it because it had a little heart and I thought it was so cute
So, that's why I started. What kept me going was that after I showed some interest, my grandfather gave me all his coins he had (he doesn't collect, he just hoards a lot of stuff) and I absolutely fell in love with the thought of having coins older than myself. Then I decided to collect all Portuguese circulating coins from the start of the republic (1910, and I'm almost done!). Also, I cherished a coin from 1883, since it was from the time of the Kings and it felt so great to hold something so old!
Also, and maybe most importantly, up until joining numista, I just casually held on to my coins. After discovering this wonderful site, and it becoming possible to catalog my collection and swap my coins, it boomed my interest and my collection so I also have a lot to thank to this site and community so many thanks to all of you for taking my passion for this hobby to a new height (and burning my wallet, meanwhile)
Quote: "bennycunha97"I also have a lot to thank to this site and community so many thanks to all of you for taking my passion for this hobby to a new height (and burning my wallet, meanwhile)
I couldn't have said that any better myself. You summed this site, its members and this hobby up perfectly.
Well my first time I collected coins was state quarters. I was missing a few coins when I went to my uncles farm and he gave me a sack of quarters and basically said "Have fun"
What a great idea for a topic as I am sure everyone would have an interesting story. For me, I began collecting coins only last year. I'm a check out chick and handle money all the time. Being Australian means I do get a lot of coins from places like Malasia and Thailand ending up in my till and so I one day asked my supervisor if I could switch them out for Australian currency and keep them. Then one day I found a coin with a swastika on it in my five cent draw. It dated from the second world war. I was fascinated as I love the history of Germany during that time. That started me actively collecting German coins from 1933 to 1945. Then I found that as I learned and read and followed this site, I began to really appreciate coins even more. i even began looking at my local currency and began a collection of Australian coins. I am loving collecting the low mintage dates but even then a coin has to have that one "thing" about them that attracts me. I have a lovely 1977 10 cents that is an awesome gold tone. A KGV Penny that is a "woody" with lovely striped running through it. And a great looking 1968 2 cents that is a fantastic red. Ohhh... and 2 two cent coins with no SD.
I know that most of these dates and descriptions will be meaningless to someone who does not collect Australian coins, but it's ok (smiles). I just like to every now and then get that collection out to simply look at it.
But I am in my 50s now (I'm an old check out chick) and I do often wonder about what to do with my collections once it's time to pass them on. I have no children of my own and so... just maybe..... I may give them to someone here. At least then I know they would be appreciated. But that is still some time away and I've many a good year of collecting in me yet.
Collector of Third Reich coins (1933 - 1946), and Australian coins.
Not swapping at this time.
I think I would have been 8 or 9, as a cub scout. There was a rank requirement, something like "Start a collection." My mom collects US coins, has many albums and I don't even know how many she has filled. So she gave me the Whitman folder for the current US 1 Cent pieces, and helped me empty out every piggy bank and coin jar in the house to see how many slots we could fill in.
I remember several tips from that early time. Like asking what I do when I find two nice quality coins for the same year, where I only have one slot. And so learning about having to decide which one I want to collect. I also remember younger siblings learning basics about counting, and that weird transition where the physical thing you are counting can "represent" different values.
Over the years, there were several times where she would bring out her collecting list. These would either be sorting sessions to empty out the coin jars again, or trips to the coin shops in town. I kept a penny bucket, but otherwise didn't go beyond my first folder.
In my late teens/early twenties, I had opportunity to travel abroad for a couple years. While living in Europe, I loved the variety of people, places, symbols, etc., that were represented on the foreign currency. My early time with coins drew me strongly, so I collected a copy of each type I came across. As I was preparing to return to the States, I happened to meet up with a European coin collector who was willing to share his passion with me. After we talked for an evening, he offered to give me a bunch of his duplicates from across Europe. I think that sparked my transition from US Cents, into World Coins.
After that, I think I ended up lightly hunting and gathering as opportunity permitted, but not really going very far at all. A few years later, I had discussions with various grandparents, on both my and my wife's side, about their life travels and business dealings. Several had gathered the foreign currency from the till, or as pocket change from travels, and had just dumped it into a jar. They were more than willing to hand them off, and I felt a stronger connection for having received them from family.
About that point, I found I was hitting various search engines and web pages attempting to identify countries and coins. The more obscure the coins, the harder to figure out what to even search for. That's where I found myself repeatedly landing on this Numista site, as the search feature was more flexible and helped pinpoint many of the coins I couldn't identify anywhere else. And that was before posting to the forum to ask for help! So a very usable set of features.
From there, it was small steps. Deciding to catalog my collection rather than sorting it by hand each time I pulled it out, and putting together binders to hold the coins so they are easier to peruse. After a few finds of bulk coin lots at second hand stores, I made the decision to add my duplicates to the site. It felt like a big step to switch the setting to allow swaps, as I had no idea how to actually send anyone coins in the mail. I'm very grateful for those first few exchange partners, who were patient with me and helped answer questions. I learned from the packages I received, and built up to a few international exchanges. Now I'm hooked, and feel like a part of a larger community!
i'm actually 12 turning 13 this august! now. i know what you're thinking, "what is a 12 year old doing on a website with grown adults??" well it is the 21st century, electronics are becoming more innovative by the year, so personally, learning from many teens and adults, i do well consider myself "mature enough" for these sites, either way to buy the coins i have i do make my own money haha:) (i make videos for the app "instagram" and sell them to friends for 2$ each, 2$ might not seem like a lot but i've sold over 360 of them and have plenty of free time so it works out) the earliest thing i remember was being 7 and watching these cool "metal detecting in old civil war homes" and i absolutely ADORED them, the thrill of watching them and then emptying my piggy bank to see if i had any cool coins was the best thing i knew to do, and i believe i had a "phase" because i completely forgot about it afterwards but still kept my "cool coins" (wheat pennies) i recently stopped using social media as much as i used to and just continuously watched youtube until i had to sleep, so on one of those boring old youtube days i stumbled upon a medal detecting video. i was again extremely fascinated by coin collecting and all the cool coins they dug up from the ground, of course as an instinct and hope to get lucky and find something good, i had remembered i had 2-3 foreign coins from vacations of family trips that i had gathered from bolivia, i had 2 bolivian coins and one thai coin, (i found on the floor of a market in bolivia) and i was so shocked about the thai coin that i did a ton of research until i found out what it was , and woo trust me.. it took a while, especially since the language on the coin was unknown to me, i found it so cool so exactly the next day i took my 3 coins to school to show a friend, she said how cool it was and i felt extremely happy. i continued to take my coins to school and many friends brought me coins from where they and they're family are from, a few teachers also know about my love for coin collecting, one even brought me 6 coins from all over europe! i also found out that one of my teachers also has a foreign coin collection, and she showed me all her coins and gave me some of her duplicates! even my parents know about the joy i find in coin collecting, my dad always gives me all the foreign coins he gets (he always pockets spare change and sometimes cashiers give him foreign coins that were mixed into the american coin circulation and ends up into his hands) my mom also has plenty of friends who travel so sometimes she asks them to bring me coins from their travel destination and they do! i went from 3 to 28 coins at the moment (please remember i am a student who also uses the money she earns for her education) so for now i'm limiting the amount of money i spend on coins haha, i've already spent over 50$ on coins! (most are still shipping to me) and this collection of mine has grown in over two months! and im super excited to see what the future of my coin collection holds, and noo this is not again just a phase! this is what brings me joy and what i can see myself doing in the future! thank you if you actually read all the way through haha, and im super happy to have found this platform where we all share the same passion at many, MANY different ages! -some random 12 year old
I think I was about 5 or 6 when I was visiting with my mother a friend of hers. she had a kid about my age and we were so little we could play under the kitchen table. they had a coin bank which was in the form a giant cardboard tootsie-roll (log shaped chocolate candy of that era). we dumped them out and i was amazed and fascinated by all the different sizes and shapes! In those days a half dollar was a lot of money, there were Ben Franklin halfs, quarters, and so on. yes that was over 60 years ago. This kid let me have one of each! i had a full set! of course when we were going , my mum discovered what was going and wouldnt have it, she made me give it all back! fair enough, lesson learned, i didnt realize it was real money, but I was hooked! before I ever spent a penny of my own, i was a collector.
Jamais l'or n'a perdu la plus petite occasion de se montrer stupide. -Balzac
When I was young, I recieve a change of the 1st series singapore 10 Cents coin. So then I kept it. Along the way I kept more and more different coins. From Alittle of travel to picking up some on the roads.
Until about 3 years back I brought a meiji 1 Yen dragon. I kept it well. Then I had some more coins.
1 fine day the inner me spark enough. I am going to grab all my coins, organize it and arrange it, Brough 1 jnda catalogue, borrow a Singapore brunei Malaysia catalog, brought some coin 2x2 flips, keep it, sleeve it, orginize it. Some of them I encase it in a quadrum. Today I have hundreds of coins. I am still trying to finish collecting the 1st series complete set. But I am missing some years. Not going to pay crazy prices for the missing ones. Ever saw some people selling complete set 1st series coins for like 700 sgd. That is crazy. And it is not worth it.
Be kind to people. Sharing is Caring. Collect what you like and not by the Crowd.
To seek for perfection, it is too painful and there is a very high price to pay. To seek for something comfortable is more easy. To seek for nothing is even more easy.
On the day I turned in my pension papers a coupla years ago when I retired, I got a "Littleton" add/deal in the mail. At the time I didn't know nothing from nothing, but hey ... it said "FREE SHIPPING". It was for a 2017 BU ASE for only $19.95 usd. That's less than a take-out pizza. How could I resist? Since then I've learned a lot of things. I met some cool people, I went very slow, and I got a decent education. In the time since, I haven't gotten really beaten-up price-wise on anything I've bought. I might have paid "craft brew" prices for a coupla things that were common tap-beer items ... but it wasn't all that painful. In the last year I've spread out my collecting to include currencies and common European coins. Generally speaking ... I'm an amoeba among collectors.
I've come to really like polymer currencies and circulated 2€ coins. If anyone is interested ... I've got lots of U.S. quarters of both the "States" and "America The Beautiful" series. They are not really for sale ... but I am happy to honestly swap them with those interested that have something I like. If that's not allowed here, OK then, I understand. I'll just deny that I just said it. I'm from Chicagoland.
I may have mentioned it on a former thread, but having High Functioning Autism, I am naturally attracted more to inanimate objects than people and have always had a predilection for round shiny things.
I have been obsessed with coins since I was a little child and as I got older loved collecting them and finding out as much as I can about them. To me every coin tells a story, why it was made, when it was made and what it was made for.
Now as an adult I am attracted more to completing sets and precious metals and type sets. Probably a bit of healthy greed comes into it too (I read a lot of Scrooge McDuck comics as a kid and kidult!), and the fact they are everywhere and when you think about it, nearly everybody has some, most middle class people have at least a few foreign coins from their travels.
Also coins are portable and much less fragile than say stamps or china. It's easy to destroy a rare stamp, but you have to lose a coin or get it stolen. Very few coins could break in half!
Coins are just an everything hobby and they look beautiful too.
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
Quote: "Moneytane"Very few coins could break in half!
Get yourself an old zinc coin, especially one of the wartime holed issues; I once had one break in half in my hands, crumbs and everything, just like an Oreo.
I started collecting a couple of years ago after my grandmother passed away. She had some metal drink coasters that were large US pennies and Dimes. She left those to me because she knew it was something that I had fond memories of as a child. I started using those in my home, and it made me think about how I have always enjoyed pocket change and history. And, here we are.
As a kid, I always had a stash of old and foreign coins, mostly from relatives bringing them back from holidays overseas. After the changeover in 2006, I hoarded as many old coins as I could, possibly hoping they'd get expensive in a few years! What really pushed me down the rabbit hole was moving to Australia and discovering commemorative coins. I made it my mission to get all of them, and I still remember finally finding the last $1 I needed, because it was on my last day in Australia, at the top of the Sydney sky tower, in change for an icecream! When I started travelling for real, I collected 50 states quarters and euros coins, and my uncle in France showed me his huge collection, which included date sets of British and French coins. I didn't know date sets were a thing, so when I got back home, I had a new mission: A complete date set of New Zealand coins. Around then I found Numista, and here we are.
Expanding further as some of you have some great stories.
I have no idea where my first collections came from, my guess is around 8 or 9 I got a handful of change from one of my Mum's friends and when I was 9 I gave my mother a homemade Christmas card which mentioned it was from me, various chickens we owned, the cat and "Grandma the 87 year old penny" and remembered this was a 1898 penny (Britannia) that a friend of Mum's gave me (Don't ask me where it is now, 99% of my kiddie collection was stolen in 2001 and this was 1985!)
By 1991 I remember I had about 200 coins and mostly change (Old Pennies, American quarters and dimes, NZ old, Australian etc) and was storing them in a wooden box I made in workshop. It was that year I started seriously collecting and by May of 1991 I had a complete set of NZ silver 3ds and through 1991 with pocket money and money earned from berry picking jobs (I was 14/15) and some birthday money I managed to complete New Zealand Predecimal (Except 3d 1935 and Waitangi Crown and major varieties). Then I moved on to British silver coins and remember adding piece after piece through high school.
I got told off by a teacher in 1993 as I spent more timing examining a 1931 Half Crown of the UK I bought than actually concentrating on algebra. I also remember copping the 1935 3D of New Zealand and an 1889 Double Florin of the UK that year (Most of these coins were cheap costing only $10 or $20 for F/VF pieces - Silver was $3 an ounce then)
By 1995 I had a nice collection of 500 or so coins and was putting them in flips. As University came on - so did student loans and unlimited piles of cash were piled into coins up to 1997. There were still plenty of shops and by 1998 I had some 1000 coins and many silver ones. In 1997 I also owned a gold half sovereign briefly. Through the later 1990s, I was still collecting Commonwealth but started on USA and had many silver coins including an 1830 Bust Half and 1876S Seated half, at least 15 Morgan Dollars and many other nice late 19th century and 20th century American coins. Naturally I was upset when they were stolen
Through 1999 and 2000 I was working and the collection continued to grow, however at the end of 2000 I was made redundant and then moved back in with my folks for a few weeks and had my collection stolen when I hopped out of my car for a bushwalk in early 2001. The coins were never recovered, but thanks to a Ledger I kept I got an insurance pay out.
Part 2 coming up.
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
Hi everyone.
Was first a hoarder as African born ,living far from any city,+-300km,which today sounds like a Sunday drive!Well 300km thru bush those days took min. 1 day ? If car /truck didn't break down ?
So from very young learned from elders value gold! Another topic would be how you could barter with southern African tribes ,that had no contact with European civilization with some metals pre 1960.
No TV/ psp/ internet ? So birthday/Xmas presents were gold or guns? when finances allowed it.
Sorry if hurt any puritan hearts
Hoarding carried on till was +- 50 years old and lived happily, FULL life
Then I got VERY sick?? as started suffering from collectors/numismatic disease which by NOW so advanced that's incurable!
Good thing about this disease is ,I keep pushing finances as MUST have THAT specific coin due to eye appeal/ live at first sight / rarity etc, meaning I do lots Ramadan ? which keeps body/ mind healthy ?
That was my 2 cents
Merry Xmas everyone and happy COIN hunting ?
When I was 11 years old, which is a long time ago now, I received an American 1/2 dollar in my change, instead of a 2 shilling (2/-) coin.
Living as I still do in the UK, it was the first 'foreign' coin I had ever seen.
It was also the first time that I realized that all countries did not use UK coinage. This coin became the route of which I have followed for 56 years, and like many of you collectors out there, this incurable bug is one I am very happy to have.
Merry Christmas to everyone
SO?seeing grandparent /parents running
safari? hunting lodge?
we talking 1950?
I became hoarder! Battering was done tribes!gold!
NO electronic scales?
Simply put coin mouth and bit coin?
Sovereign. Would get cow+ plus calf!
Half sovereign would get 30 goats/ 350 chickens
So any hunt? Gold we packed to barter!
Was full life!!
Question? How tribes knew worth coins?
Merry Xmas ?
Hi everyone
i don't post much!Guess my PR not best!
Collector/ hoarder ? African savage?
Both same!So will try explain!
Why? Seen hardest best coin collectors HAD to decide what part collection to leave behind ? Congo/ Angola/ Zambia etc!
All they wanted was gold? Ms66/67 got left behind ?
Moral story? I split my collection!
Best coins are by children!
Have ice-cream container 1kg?
So if I need to run? Only extra weight I carry?I have best coins only 1 kg!
Hope helped members!
It was mid-80s in a small Soviet town. I was probably 8 when we moved to a new place and I became friends with a kid who collected coins. He was one of several in the neighborhood so we could swap and discuss our common hobby. We were not selective. Any foreign or an old Russian coin was interesting. It was an artifact form another world or another epoch. I also enjoyed modern commemorative rubles. Even though I had to leave my collection behind when I moved to the US at 16, I still remember most of my coins, who gave them to me, or a story associated with them.
When I came to the US, collecting was the last thing on my mind. Money was tight and all my time was consumed by school, learning English, college, work, etc. When I could finally relax, I lost interest in coins. I didn't know anyone who collected so the social aspect was gone. The challenge also seemed absent. I could go to any local coin shop and get world coins by the pound. Occasionally, I would see a beautiful coin and remember the excitement of holding a miniature work of art and a piece of history, but for years, I resisted the urge.
Recently, I was reminiscing with my parents about my childhood and brought up the time when my father took me to a coin show and bought me two silver coins: 15 and 20 kopeks from early 1900s. They were among my most prized possessions. I looked them up on eBay and found some nice examples. I bought them for the sentimental value. Then I remembered a 1924 50 kopek coin (Poltinnik) that I got from a friend and decided to get that one as well. Then I remembered some of the coins that my friends had, but were out of reach for me at the time so I added those to my collection. Before I knew it, I was back
After 2001 when the collection was stolen, I stayed away from anything collectable for years. The period 2001 - 2005 was the most unstable of my life, one bad relationship ending, run of bad jobs and the beginning of another awful relationship.
One bright spot was getting a job at a Stamp Dealers in Auckland in late 2003 and I was good at it. This dealer was not a collector and did not want his employees to collect, yet I had got the bug through the stamps I handled and people I met in the job. Finally in mid 2005 he bought in a huge collection of stamps and a barrel full of old coins, which he sold for like $20 a kg, mostly NZ Cupronickel Predecimal coins (1947 - 1965) and mentioned how worthless they were. In mid 2005 I had not collected a coin since 2001, or a stamp since 1993!
I left that job in late 2005 for another job and started a tiny collection of stamps which grew and grew to the 200,000 plus stamps I have today. My second relationship fell apart and I was working at a $2 shop at the time they changed over the old coins to new ones. This bought in a flood of old change as they made them illegal and being the manager I could go through the piles and pull out anything interesting. In the piles were 6d, 1/- and 2/- coins as they were the same size and shape as old 5c, 10c and 20c bits and I pulled out as many as I could (Of course paying for them with my own money). There was also some low mintages of late 2000s coins issued just before the changeover and I got a nice pair each of the 2005 20c and 50c, both very scarce.
That started a small collection of sorts, but until 2016 I merely bought and sold coins and sold them online. I bought coins off two old ladies who ran a church/thrift store, which got piles of coins they ahd no idea what to do with. I bought and sold them soley to make money, while just keeping bits and pieces of change for myself. Stamps were the #1 then and they are.
Part 3 coming.
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
By 2014 I started to hold back the occasional coin that interested me and then these were added to the pile of change coins. Also a stamp club had a red dot sale and there would occasional be a coin lot that came up. I only really kept base metal change and cheap coins, anything old, rarer or precious was sold on.
Another boost came from my European trip and which I bought back a swag of Euro coins, British coins and Hong Kong coins, however in the spirit of the age, 99% of them ended up being sold. I was still feeling a bit burnt by the 2001 theft and never having enough money to support 2 hobbies, and coins lost out. It was also that time I joined NUMISTA.
Finally in 2018 with the arrival of a new job that paid regular money (But not very much of it), I started collecting coins for myself rather than selling. I still sell every now and then, but keep a lot back. the other difference being I collect early New Zealand silver and pennies and I also buy in world silver, crowns and change. 2019 has seen a non stop accumulation of coins from about 500 keepers at the start of the year to 3,000+ now. You can all see this by my regular contributions to the Additions to your collection month pages.
Plus I have bought 3 major collections of US proof sets, NZ 1963 coins (About 50 sixpences!!), and have joined the local coin club and made a splash there.
I am pretty much back to the pre 2001 level and consider my coin obsessed again.
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
When I was about 5-7 years old, I always would gather up every denomination of the US Dollar and display them like a museum, I once found my dad's wallet and stole a 20 and 50 dollar bill for my currency museum (He later found but wasn't mad at me because he understand that I was making a mini museum), after that I stopped making mini currency museums.
Fast forward to 2017 at my Middle School 6th Grade Year, There was a friend of mine that had a bag of coins her grandfather had passed on to her, I traded my Papermate Pen for a 5 Fil coin from the UAE and a 2012 Canadian Penny, she gave them to me because in 8th Grade she was going to move to Wyoming, this inspired me to collect, if it wasn't for my friend, I wouldn't be posting this!
My post 3 ended in late 2019 just before the grim spectre of Covid loomed and caused the biggest mistakes and ruptions in human history from the subsequent over reactions and lockdowns, which can be blamed on all the political polarisation and wars of the 2020s.
That post from December 2019, was the last hurrah from my stamp days and my coin collection was in its infancy. Just one month later in Jan 2020 I decided to collect British halfcrowns and from that singular obsession kept up through the Covid tyranny along with regular income, I continued on. Covid lockdowns saw the stamp clubs all shut down and until 2022, it was disrupted. The wonders of Zoom kept coins alive, so that by late 2020, I had around 100 different halfcrowns that went back to 1635, and then I added in succession Floirns, Shillings, Crowns and sixpences. Large collections of all the Bronze was bought in.
In 2021 my partner got sick and we had another major lockdown and I had saved several thousands of dollars, so I started collecting more countries like South Africa, Australia and Canada and the coins kept coming in. The NZ collection got upgraded from average to VF and then in October, my partner spent the first of 5 visits over 6 months in hospital and thus I ahd much more free time and space to myself in amongst his home visits which saw psychotic episodes. The stamp clubs reopened, but I lost my enthusiasm for stamps.
In March 2022, the partner was sent to a rest home and seldom came home for day visits, I visited him a lot and still worked. I had more money and free time, the collections grew and grew. I started collecting Fijian and Pacific banknotes and expanded back to Elizabethan (1500s) sixpences and shillings. By the start of 2023 I had 10k coins, but no gold or really rare stuff yet.
In March 2023, my partner died and I stopped working in May, the money started rolling in from the estate and the coin collection went into overdrive, since then I would say I have sunk some $50 - 80k into it. In June 2023 the germ of a complete collection of NZ notes was begun and global banknotes. In December my NZ collection was 90% UNC or AU and I now had tokens, British 3ds and 6ds along with Maundy oddments and World silver including Ottoman, Egypt, Indian and European silver pieces.
December saw the biggest change as my assets which were in the negatives in 2021, were now in the mid 6 figures, reached into GOLD and my first 20 sovereigns and a huge gold coin were bought.
By now, my collection is 15k pieces, some 1000 banknotes including $100 notes of NZ, Australia Fiji and some 400 grams of gold worth around $63,000 along with 16.5kg of silver, means my collection is way way way beyond my wildest dreams. My pre 2001 collection would be around 1/100 of the massive behemoth it is today, and its now I have chosen to slow down.
If one reads all 4 parts together (This one and the 3 written back in 2019) you see a 40 year story of what was a cabin in fields to a city with gleaming Burj al Khalifas as far as coins go.
And to top of 2024, my newest gold coin and rarest coin will soon arrive, a Tudor era gold coin (1505 - 1509) that cost $3k and a Waitangi Crown worth around $10k.
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
My post 3 ended in late 2019 just before the grim spectre of Covid loomed and caused the biggest mistakes and ruptions in human history from the subsequent over reactions and lockdowns, which can be blamed on all the political polarisation and wars of the 2020s.
That post from December 2019, was the last hurrah from my stamp days and my coin collection was in its infancy. Just one month later in Jan 2020 I decided to collect British halfcrowns and from that singular obsession kept up through the Covid tyranny along with regular income, I continued on. Covid lockdowns saw the stamp clubs all shut down and until 2022, it was disrupted. The wonders of Zoom kept coins alive, so that by late 2020, I had around 100 different halfcrowns that went back to 1635, and then I added in succession Floirns, Shillings, Crowns and sixpences. Large collections of all the Bronze was bought in.
In 2021 my partner got sick and we had another major lockdown and I had saved several thousands of dollars, so I started collecting more countries like South Africa, Australia and Canada and the coins kept coming in. The NZ collection got upgraded from average to VF and then in October, my partner spent the first of 5 visits over 6 months in hospital and thus I ahd much more free time and space to myself in amongst his home visits which saw psychotic episodes. The stamp clubs reopened, but I lost my enthusiasm for stamps.
In March 2022, the partner was sent to a rest home and seldom came home for day visits, I visited him a lot and still worked. I had more money and free time, the collections grew and grew. I started collecting Fijian and Pacific banknotes and expanded back to Elizabethan (1500s) sixpences and shillings. By the start of 2023 I had 10k coins, but no gold or really rare stuff yet.
In March 2023, my partner died and I stopped working in May, the money started rolling in from the estate and the coin collection went into overdrive, since then I would say I have sunk some $50 - 80k into it. In June 2023 the germ of a complete collection of NZ notes was begun and global banknotes. In December my NZ collection was 90% UNC or AU and I now had tokens, British 3ds and 6ds along with Maundy oddments and World silver including Ottoman, Egypt, Indian and European silver pieces.
December saw the biggest change as my assets which were in the negatives in 2021, were now in the mid 6 figures, reached into GOLD and my first 20 sovereigns and a huge gold coin were bought.
By now, my collection is 15k pieces, some 1000 banknotes including $100 notes of NZ, Australia Fiji and some 400 grams of gold worth around $63,000 along with 16.5kg of silver, means my collection is way way way beyond my wildest dreams. My pre 2001 collection would be around 1/100 of the massive behemoth it is today, and its now I have chosen to slow down.
If one reads all 4 parts together (This one and the 3 written back in 2019) you see a 40 year story of what was a cabin in fields to a city with gleaming Burj al Khalifas as far as coins go.
And to top of 2024, my newest gold coin and rarest coin will soon arrive, a Tudor era gold coin (1505 - 1509) that cost $3k and a Waitangi Crown worth around $10k.
Interesting.
I cannot believe my collection has over 2000 pieces now lmao
