How did the former light siders become dark?

cladking

Sure, lots of us are both in the light and the dark but those who started strictly US coins, what
caused you to become interested in world coins?

It was two flod for me. I was always looking for cheap or underrated coins and good US coins were
getting few and far between. Most importantly there was not much new in US coins. I hadn't much
interest in varieties at the time so it just seemed I had seen them all before and anything nice was
way too expensive. I figured it would take a lifetime to learn world coins and they could keep me out
of trouble and provide lots of entertainment for little cost. It was also the mid '70's and there was lots
of silver still in poundage and one had to know what to look for to get it.

ajaan

Living so close to the Canadian border, I've always seen Canadian coins in change. I started to put together a set of Canadian Large Cents, from there I went to all 'darkside' coins and totally abandoned my US collecting. The key to the switch was PRICE. Can't beat the cost of truely rare World coins when compared to US coins. I have a British coin that only 5-15 were minted and paid less than $400 for it. Try that with a US coin.

cosmicdebris

Cladking basically the same as you. You get so more bang for your buck on the darkside and there is so much more to choose from.

WhiteTornado

Similar story for me. Variety and especially price are why I included darkside coins. Plus, I can collect coins of my national origin (Greece, Ireland, and France). I still enjoy Liteside too, but not exclusively.

wybrit

My parents bought me some Whitman albums for pennies and halfpennies when we first moved to the UK. I've shown little interest in collecting anything else ever since.

oldshep

I was asked to inventory a large collection of US coins so I was using the US forum to try to learn something about the coins - I clicked on the World Forum and there was Cosmic's Yemen Lion he used to use as a sig coin - I was hooked from that moment!!!! The beauty and variety for reasonable prices, can't beat that.
Shep

MSD61

I just love all coinage!!! A lot has of how I feel came from my Mum. She was the coin collector in our family and taught me to appreciate all coinage. When my parents moved state side from Donegal in the late 50's it gave my Mum the chance to collect American classics. Her favorites were Merc dimes, buffalo nickels, Franklin halves and Morgan dollars. Later it included Kennedy halves, Roosies and Ike dollars. She always enjoyed world coins and many struck her fancy. While Irish and Scottish/English coinage was always in our family, she liked other world coins as well. She was very upset when Ireland went to the Euro. She said it was just another nail in the coffin of Irish history. She said, " first it was the language and now the coinage. It's a wonder the Irish people have any Identity at all!"

She enjoyed the SBA dollars because they pictured an important woman in American history. The last coins she had collected before her death in March of 2003 were Sac dollars. She thought they were beautiful because of what they represented. You see my great, great grandfather, on my mother's side, left Scotland to trap fur in Canada. There he took and Indian woman as his wife. The only native trait you could see in my mother was her raven black hair. Anyway...sorry I got of topic. It was my mum influence that gave me my love for coins today.

a2labmom

for me it was the money. US coins are part of my country's history, but they are so expensive. I really wanted to collect and enjoy more coins, but didn't really have too much money to play with. I started off with a cheap lot of mixed world coins and got hooked from there. The rest is history.

trozau

There was never a time where I exclusively collected lightside or darkside. I just went for coins that I liked and intrigued me.

cacheman

There is a whole world history on the darkside...the U.S. history, at least in my mind as a trained Anthropologist, is boring, mundane, and short. For me, Darkside coin and medal collecting is not the ownership of a piece as much as the history or story that surrounds it. Reference literature in my ever growing library is more intellectually valuable to me than most of financial value of my actual collection.

The actual realization that slapped me in the face though was going to ebay to look at Morgan dollars, which I collected for a brief period when starting, and seeing that there were no fewer than 11,000 Morgan auctions up at that current moment. I immediately "switched" to world crowns and talers...same size and metal but much more history, variety, beauty, rarity, and quality for little cost. I have never turned back and have since migrated to the medallic collection world too which embraces the true intent of historic story-telling and commemoration.

boiler78

I got some cosmicdebris in my eye!

oldshep

I got some cosmicdebris in my eye!

JamminJ

My US collecting consisted of not much more than saving money and waiting for the the next coin to come along. Not much fun in that so I began dabbling in the darkside with inexpensive first world war coins. Lo and behold I took a shine to the Austrian ones and became a full fledged thaler collector!

-JamminJ

GDJMSP

Like most others I started out on US coinage as a child. My grandfather was a collector, but he collected what he called foriegn coins as US coins did not interest him. Strangely - the foriegn coins he collected did not interest me. So it was pure US for many years.

Then when in my 20's I was living in the Florida Keys - on a boat actually. The Capt. of this boat had been in the Keys for 30 yrs. and he had many wrecks, Spanish galleons, charted. Mel Fischer had not found the Atocha yet - or at least confirmed it was the Atocha. But the Capt. whose boat I was on was the one who showed him where to look.

We primarily were a fishing charter boat, which was the initial attraction for me. But on the days when we did not have a charter we'd go diving on Spanish wrecks. The Captain's home was like a museum. It was filled with artifacts gathered over the years and his collection of Spanish coins both gold & silver far surpassed any collection I have ever heard of before or since. But for the time period I was with him - only a bit over a yr. in all - he had not found anything of any real consequence. But there came the day when I was riding on the bowspirit on the way back to the marina when I sited something on the bottom. It was a pile of ballast stones that had recently been uncovered by a storm. I knew what they were immeadiately and I dove over the side so as not to lose the location. The Capt. circled the boat and came back to me yelling furiously. Of course when he found why - everything changed.

He and I spent 10 days, 10 hrs a day, working that location with an airlift before we managed to locate our first find - the ships anchor. In the days that followed some of her cannon and various other artifacts came to the surface. And then came the day when I was running the airlift and I saw there under the sand and coral the blackish lump that indicated silver. It was our first clump of Pillar dollars and I got to keep my pick. That was it - I was hooked.

It was winter then and the next day a storm came in. I never dove on that wreck again and shortly after that I left the Keys. I was young and in love with a woman who hated the Keys - so I never went back. Never heard from the Capt. again either. On the day I left - his wife came to me and told me he was devastated that I was leaving - he wouldn't come say goodbye himself. He was a cranky old ba%$#&* and no one had ever lasted with him as long as I did. So while I don't know if he ever went back to that wreck after I left - what I do know is is what the area is known as - Coffins Patch.

But today I still collect US coinage when I find something that strikes my eye and is reasonably priced. But that is the problem with US coinage right now - most of the stuff I would want is outrageously priced. So I concentrate my efforts on world coinage for the most part - gold in particular. But I am ever watchful for the coins that first sparked my interest in this area - columnarios - better known as Pillar dollars

NJMark1

Variety,Price,Value. Of course the general lack of Bullcrap on the darkside helps!


Mark

theboz11

what he said, only longer ago

cosmicdebris

<< <i>I got some cosmicdebris in my eye >>



Seams that stuff has tunred a few heads this way

spinaker2000

It was all Mongoose's fault. I was happy collecting US large cents and slabbing State Quarters, reselling them on ebay. Then I met Joe at a show in Raleigh. He gave me a few British coins and said they were some of his extras. I now know he placed a spell on them that would cause them to multiply. My orginal attraction to copper has still won out though.

SYRACUSIAN

Nice and unusual story GDJMSP.

edit: sorry spinnaker ,I didn't mean to interrupt your copper-nostalgia

Fairlaneman

Just because some of the coins are knock out georgous and pretty items of any type are nice to have around. Pretty brightens up the day on most occasions.

Ken

1jester

Some beautiful stories, folks. Thanks!

For me, I got caught living in a foreign country...a few different times...and so had no choice but to collect Darkside. The rest is history.

Myriads

The Darkside is the last place that I expected to be collecting in '04.

I've always been a very serious US collector. Concentrating on my Liberty Nickels. :-) My history as a collector came from my early experiences with my father who mentored me and gave me a love for coins, and as he was a US collector at heart I followed in those footsteps. He did collect Darkside in the 40' and 50's (a legacy of his time in Europe with the Armed forces at the end of WWII) But he never taleked with me about them much and he didn't really do more then keep a book of coins in sealed flips that he'd gathered over the years.

Anyhow with the average coin in my Nickel and Indian Quarter Eagle sets costing me $200+ and some unexpected expenses taking a big bite out of my cash reserve I was faced with having to suspend my collecting for a while.

So I scouted about to find some inexpensive ways to keep collecting. Modern US coins do little for me. And I have those I like already. I like high grades so there was little in the US past I could play with.

Then I bumped into the Euros. Yah they are modern and not all that popular. But to me they presented just the challenge that I wanted. A lot of complexity to the series. Some coins that were only mintset sorts, lots of nations, cool designs, and not at all expensive in my eyes. So I started, and have been happily gathering the coins for a month and a half. I've gotten about 75% of the set to date done, and have had a blast doing it, and have opened myself to new ways of collecting and shopping.

They represent a major step towards a united Europe in my eyes, and the history in the designs is interesting to me. I've found a new way to have fun with my hobby, and here I am on the Darkside.

My father would be amused.

Myriads

lordmarcovan

I mostly became "Dark" as a result of seeking really OLD coins. Even the earliest U.S. coins are practically modern by European standards.

The one that did it for me was a rather low grade 1774 Spanish colonial half real from Mexico City, struck on a heavily laminated, slightly cracked planchet.

It was given to me sometime around 1977, by my first numismatic mentor, Dr. John Britton, when I lived in Fernandina, Florida, and it was my first coin from the 1700's. At the time, when I was not quite twelve, that was a big deal for me.

Dr. Britton made house calls to some of his elderly patients, and he occasionally got barter items or gifts from his homebound patients. One lady he had visited had apparently found the 1774 half real while digging in her flower bed, as I heard it.

You probably were familiar with Dr. Britton and didn't know it. He became nationally known, but unfortunately, it was in a tragic way.

(Link to news article).

Doctor Britton and his security escort were killed by Paul Hill outside an abortion clinic in 1994. Hill "got the needle" for his crime late last year.
Good riddance, I say. Two wrongs definitely did not make a right in this case.

All politics aside, I knew Doctor Britton both as my family's physician and as a friend. He was a great man, and I vaguely recall him bringing me to some coin club meetings.

In this picture, taken some years after I knew him, he looks quite a bit like my grandfather, who was also a doctor.



Sadly, I no longer have that coin to remember him by.

BurritoGrande

I have always been interested in US coins. But I have also always collected stamps, US and British, and have always been a bit of an Anglophile. Before I had a computer, I never really had the access to foreign coins that I do now; I believe that the primary reason I did not collect foreign was a lack of access to quality coins. As soon as a got a computer, and began checking out ebay, it was full steam ahead.

Donovan

My true hobby is historical studies, coins being the tangible link. After a trip to Rome, I became interested in Roman coins, then ancients in general. I started reading a great deal about ancient coinage until I felt I had a good grasp of the big picture, then I bridged the gap between ancient and modern by studying medieval coinage, primarily English, which is where my current interests are for the most part. At some point, I'd like to get a firm grasp on the entire history of coinage worldwide. My weak areas are Far Eastern and Islamic, and I'd like to have a better grasp of Continental European medieval coinage. Right now my main interest is medieval English coinage from the reform of Eadgar in 973 to the recoinage of Edward I in 1279. This was the period when moneyer and town names appeared on the coinage. There are well over 100 English towns that minted coins during that period. I'm currently in the process of gathering more information on the history of the minting operations in the various towns. I just started and I'm not sure how in-depth I'll research this yet but for now, it's my main interest.

cladking

Lots of interesting stories here. I'm glad I asked.



<< <i>.

Then when in my 20's I was living in the Florida Keys - on a boat actually. The Capt. of this boat had been in the Keys for 30 yrs. and he had many wrecks, Spanish galleons, charted. Mel Fischer had not found the Atocha yet - or at least confirmed it was the Atocha. But the Capt. whose boat I was on was the one who showed him where to look.

But today I still collect US coinage when I find something that strikes my eye and is reasonably priced. But that is the problem with US coinage right now - most of the stuff I would want is outrageously priced. So I concentrate my efforts on world coinage for the most part - gold in particular. But I am ever watchful for the coins that first sparked my interest in this area - columnarios - better known as Pillar dollars >>



Mel Fischer was from around this neck of the woods and I met him at about the time I
started collecting dark side. It was 1975 or '76 and I was in a coin shop picking through
a junk box when we started talking. He was a very interesting guy and struck me as be-
ing extremely capable and competent. He was even kind enough to offer me a share of
stock in Treasure Salvors for $1,000. I declined because that was a great deal of money
to me in those days, and even though I really expected him to find something, it just didn't
seem the payoff was likely to be worth not having the use of my money for several years.
The stock was worth nearly a million dollars a share shortly after the Atocha was discovered.

One of these days...

laurentyvan

When I started on US coins it didn't take me long to realize that I would be bored to death doing date/mint collecting of the few US issues that interested me. I compared a Lincoln penny with a large British penny and was lost to the Dark without knowing what it was.

Moving from the US forum to the World forum was the doorway to a world of history and art and precious metals whose depths are almost unknowable in a mortal span, one I will never regret entering.

LovelyDarkAngel

wybrit who I like to call PVC Free invited me over to the Darkside and I was never able to leave. Everyone was so warm and helpful over here. And I saw many things I'd never seen before. Got a little tired of looking at the same us coins. I still collect them at times. But right now I'm working on my world collection.