Coin collecting in communist countries

As we have here many members from former socialist/communist countries, it would be interesting to read memories from that time from the view of numismatics.

As far as I know in Soviet Union coin collecting was restricted in some periods and normal citizen couldn't hold foreign currency. During the WW2 there were even restrictions to hold normal coins due to lack of metals. Do you have more detailed information about the communist era and coin collecting?

Quote: "Trp"​
​As far as I know in Soviet Union coin collecting was restricted in some periods

​I don't know about coin collecting for sure, but in the early decades of the People's Republic of China (1949 to roughly the late 1970s), stamp collecting (of foreign and pre-1949 Chinese stamps) was absolutely verboten in Maoist China.

If you read Red Scarf Girl, a personal memoir of a Chinese girl who lived through the height of the anti-foreign paranoia in the Cultural Revolution (around 1966), her stamp collection is confiscated by the Red Guards because it's considered "bourgeois". I'm guessing the rationale behind that has something to do about suspicion of espionage links to foreign countries, but not 100% sure.

I imagine similar restrictions existed for foreign and pre-1949 coin collecting; most communist countries during the Cold War had restrictions on how much foreign currency the average person was allowed to keep (if any at all), hence the issues of Foreign Exchange Certificate banknotes in many of them in the 1970s and 80s.

Quote: "CassTaylor"​

Quote: "Trp"​​
​​As far as I know in Soviet Union coin collecting was restricted in some periods

​​I don't know about coin collecting for sure, but in the early decades of the People's Republic of China (1949 to roughly the late 1970s), stamp collecting (of foreign and pre-1949 Chinese stamps) was absolutely verboten in Maoist China.
​
​If you read Red Scarf Girl, a personal memoir of a Chinese girl who lived through the height of the anti-foreign paranoia in the Cultural Revolution (around 1966), her stamp collection is confiscated by the Red Guards because it's considered "bourgeois". I'm guessing the rationale behind that has something to do about suspicion of espionage links to foreign countries, but not 100% sure.
​
​I imagine similar restrictions existed for foreign and pre-1949 coin collecting; most communist countries during the Cold War had restrictions on how much foreign currency the average person was allowed to keep (if any at all), hence the issues of Foreign Exchange Certificate banknotes in many of them in the 1970s and 80s.

​Hello,
friends ,,Czechoslovakia,,
Yes, the consent is "Cass ,,
Terrible memories, empty shops, and everywhere the food and clothes of the queue, the lack of everything,, bad memories,,
Foreign currency currencies were strictly controlled by the state. It involved all the Western world currencies.
At the age of 50, the death penalty, in the 70-80 years 20th century prison sentence.
The state issued vouchers for foreign currency through the National Bank, in Czechoslovakia, it was possible to buy better goods in special stores
,, TUZEX,,
Vouchers for foreign currency for use in special stores:
for people,, bonn ,,


But many numismatics still had their hobby. It was impossible to travel and there was limited movement outside of the state.
Anyone who looks at the traditions of numismatics and the association of numismatics has deep tadic even in socialism. One of the most powerful numismatic clubs in the world and many great personalities.
,,please excuse bad English,,

https://www.google.com/search?q=socialistick%C3%A9+bony&rlz=1C1NHXL_csCZ684CZ685&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwixsvnUpLXfAhUMPFAKHYyaD9YQsAR6BAgFEAE&biw=1366&bih=626#imgdii=cdhnbn7k4Q-IXM:&imgrc=17EDM9Mz3_HZQM:


christmas nice holidays all over the world.
Ivan

Thank you Cass and Mimael. Czechoslovakia was one of my favorite country when I was child. Of course I didn't know the reality of the country back then, but I have always loved your culture, art, architecture, TV series and very kind people. And our Skodas were the best cars on the planet:)




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Not strictly coin-collecting related, but I think this is still relevant to the topic; after the Soviet Union annexed Latvia in July 1940, coins of the Latvian lat were demonetised and many were turned in to the authorities in exchange for roubles, but the famous 1929-32 crownsize 5 Lati coins, nicknamed "Milda", became symbols of Latvian independence in both the Latvian SSR and in Latvian emigrant communities abroad, and became popular for use in jewellery.

This may also be relevant; I'm not sure if it's just because of inflation or government control of the precious metals supply, but no communist country issued circulating silver coins during the Cold War (correct me if otherwise). The only communist countries to ever mint circulating silver coins (IIRC) were the USSR and Mongolia*, and those were in the 1920s; in 1931 silver hoarders were blamed for shortage of coins and coin production switched to copper-nickel.

*And also the Chinese Soviet Republic if you consider them a country, in 1931-32.

I haven't lived in a communist country but the below I heard by speaking to various people who have.

In communism money had a different purpose. The idea was to eventually abolish all money but as that was unworkable there was a strictly controlled money system where money was only used to buy necessities at state-controlled prices. In international trade that money was factually useless and therefore worthless.

Because of shortage of traditional money (a store of value that allows you to purchase anything) many people used barter as an alternative. So for example the doctor gave some medicine to the construction worker who fixed his house.

I would guess that coin collecting in the more relaxed communists state was allowed in some form as long as you weren't hoarding precious metals or valid foreign hard currencies. In general there wouldn't be so much to collect as international contact was very limited, and older domestic coins were often made of precious metal.

Very interesting topic, indeed. When I was a kid (mid-70th), I was always wondering why collecting post stamps in the USSR was sort of encouraged, but numismatics… well, it was not really forbidden, but it was something you would not talk to your school teachers about. They said that stamps help kids to learn about people in other countries, and this is good, but coins… and then they started some flimsy lecturing about worshipping money and other western values. The irony was that the only coins a 10-years old Soviet kid could get that time were from East European (so-called “socialist”) countries. My own collection started with Bulgarian 2 stotinki coin (erroneously given to me as change instead of 2 kopecks), 5 GDR pfennig (donated by my grandfather) and Polish 10 groszy (found on the street). This reach variety was already enough to push me to the idea to start collecting coins. I bought them on semi-illegal numismatic flee market and soon, when my collection grew up to about 50 items (almost everything – aluminium coins from Poland, Czechoslovakia, GDR, Hungary, etc.) I did not hesitate to show it to my friends. My passion, however, has not gone unnoticed by school authorities and when things did not go smoothly they said: “He did this and that and also he collects coins”.

Incredible topic for an American kid of the 70’s-80’s who grew up fascinated with the Communist east. Currency was my first real love and i still have the GDR 20 Mark note I found at a local shop. I practically worshiped it for a week. I had stamps from the East, but coins were difficult and currency unheard of from the Eastern bloc. I love to hear the stories of collectors in the East from that time period.

Luckily I was born after the downfall of communism in my country (Hungary), but I hear stories from older collectors. Generally speaking, from the 1970's no one cared if someon collected coins as far as it was not the hoarding of foreign currencies. In the 1980's there were a lot of illegal currency traders too, but the government didn't care if they did their business discreetly. There were no restrictions on silvers or gold coins from the 1970's.

It's important to note that communism in Hungary had 2 different faces: from 1949-1956 there were really cruel and hard communism with all the the horrible things that were present in other countries of the Eastern Block as well. After the revolution of 1956 and a 6-year consolidation period, the Communist Party (lead by János Kádár) introduced a new type of "soft" communism which was later called Goulash Communism (name is derived from the popular Hungarian dish).: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goulash_Communism

Interestingly, while in another post-communist states communist leaders are not liked by the people, according to recent surveys in Hungary 55% thinks that János Kádár was a rather positive than negative historical figure, and 40% thinks that Goulash Communism was the "golden age" from the 1900-2000 period. Goulash Communism is not the only explanation of this results: a lot of Hungarians were disappointed after the change of regime because everyone thought that Hungary will look like Austria or West Germany in a few years. The sad truth was that due to the bad decisions of the different governments Hungary started to slowly fall behind another ex-communist states of the region, and people are nostalgic about being "the happiest barracks".

Well, my parents gave me some coins as a start. They did not really explained how Swedish 10 Ore happened to be there among Eastern Bloc countries coinage.

Quote: "Jarcek"​Well, my parents gave me some coins as a start. They did not really explained how Swedish 10 Ore happened to be there among Eastern Bloc countries coinage.

​Sweden was a neutral state so Swedish tourists could quite easily visit socialist states.

Same goes for Finland btw. But Finns were relatively poor compared to Swedish during the Cold War so they didn't travel as much.

Very interesting inputs everyone, keep them coming​​​

Would be interesting to know how collecting/selling/owning coins from the period before communism was perceived in the Eastern Bloc, such as the ownership of Imperial/Weimar/Nazi era coins in the GDR, or ownership of Regency coins in Hungary, and so on. I don't think collecting coins from that country (and possibly from other socialist states) was banned; given the sometimes excessive amounts of commemoratives that came out in those times, like for the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Reportedly the pre-Soviet silver coins that were turned into the government (like the Latvian 5 Lati coins I mentioned earlier) were sometimes sold to Western numismatists and collectors at the price of 28 Deutsche Mark per coin (for the Latvian one).

Any new thoughts?

I found an old article from Coinsweekly.com which gives some interesting information too:

https://coinsweekly.com/numismatics-in-russia/