Coin Anthology

After taking a break for a couple of decades, I decided to start collecting again (this is my first post and also serves an an intro). I am still trying to figure out what I want to collect, but the other day, a particularly beautiful coin caught my eye: 2 Lire
I admired the miniature work of art and was inspired to look it up and read about the design. Eventually, I got curious about a serious looking dude on the obverse. While reading about Vittorio Emanuele III, I learned about his reign, March on Rome, ascension to power and eventual deposition of Mussolini, and much more. It also explained why I saw the same guy on some Albanian coin when browsing the Numista catalog. Apparently, the "Little Saber/Soldier King" was also the ruler of Albania and Ethiopia. That inspired me to add an Albanian and an Ethiopian coin of that time period to my collection. Perhaps, I will also get an older coin with his farther (Umberto I) on it. Together, this trio (or quartet) would tell a story about a person, a time period, and events relating a few coins that only a few days ago would seem unrelated to me. I know a lot of us collect by a theme or subject. This is somewhat similar, but allows me to satisfy my fascination with beautiful coins, while also expanding on them and learning something in the process. I am not a history buff, but in a small way, learning about this coin enriched my life and inspired me to do more of that. It also turns a collection into a compilation of short stories with often unrelated characters - an Anthology. I wonder if anyone else does something similar, or maybe, I just coined a new term

First, welcome to Numista
that's a perfect line of inquiry, directed by coin collecting!
Of course one interesting thing leads to another!
collecting all the monarchs of a particular dynasty is an interesting direction that many people go in.
One of my pet projects is to find all the different coins that were minted on the same planchets at the same time. Besides Albania, for example, the mint of Rome also struck coins for San Marino and Vatican City of the same denomination.

An interesting thing about Vittorio Emanuele III: He was a coin collector himself. He even wrote a lot of catalogs of Italian coins. That's probably why he took special care that the coins minted during his reign were particularly beautiful.

Quote: "zakaye"​An interesting thing about Vittorio Emanuele III: He was a coin collector himself. He even wrote a lot of catalogs of Italian coins. That's probably why he took special care that the coins minted during his reign were particularly beautiful.

​It explains a lot. I did notice how beautiful some of the other coins are. Numismatics truly is a hobby of kings and arguably the king of hobbies

Vittorio Emanuele III's favorite collection was the coins minted by his family, the House of Savoy. But to complete it, he had the problem that some coins were near impossible to get, like these coins:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces17590.html
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces17738.html

The Spanish government decided to mint several copies for him and gifts for others. They are the red years of both coins. The originals of 1871 are the yellow years.

I love that coin. It's one of my favourite italian coins. Here's mine:



Also, you're spot on about numismatics enriching one's knowledge about history! Welcome and best of luck here in Numista!