What lured you to the Darkside?

Sylvestius

Well after posting this on the liteside and upsetting the liteside sense of order and decency;

Warning this leads into the liteside, we are not responsible for any of the comments you might encounter there. If you're sensible you'll turn back or failing that keep reading to the bottom of this thread...


Then a comment over There made me think of how many people here are ex-liteside converts, or perhaps you do both dark and lite. So what made you dip your toes into the Dark pool? Or made you jump in and throw away all lifelines cast towards as you swam away from the shores as fast as you could?

Danegeld

As a kid we used to get a lot of Mexican Silver come into my dad's hardware store. It was located in South Central Texas and even then we had some (local oldtimers) folks come in with big 'Cinco Peso' silver pieces and want to buy bread, milk, or gas. Dad figured in 1966-68 a Cinco Pesos = 1 dollar. He'd give those to my little brother and I when he got them. I think that's what got me initally interested. The fact there were a lot of illegle migrant workers at the chicken farms and cattle ranches made trading in Mexican currency on occasion a necessary part of business. Heck, I think I could speak quite a bit of spanish as a kid

Take Care
Ben

ajaan

<< <i>What lured you to the Darkside? >>


The high price of liteside coins.

spinaker2000

The babes and beer!!

mojoman

For me it was a GIRL LOL Her Dad was in the ARMY and traveled the world ,GOLD and SILVER is what he collected the most ,he had over 20 books and thousands of coins , my Girlfreind at the time would show me these AWESOME COINS (with her dad explaining all of them) I got the bug when he gave me a 1939 Gb half crown , a 1939 WWII German 10 pfennig w/ swastika ,and a 1863 Mexican silver coin, that was in 1975 I still have them , But I am a bi-sider But the darkside has the most interesting coins, DETAIL&DESIGN, is what I like ,Thats my story and I am sticking to it ,MoJoMaN
P.S I do have more darkside coins than light , some listed on ebay

NOW ON EBAY 1730 1/2 PENNY GB GEORGE II
1970 CANADIAN DOLLAR AWESOME TONES (THE PICTURE DOES NOT SHOW THE TRUE COLORS)
PURPLES,PINKS,BLUES TAKE A LOOK

SOON TO BE ADDED OR MAKE OFFERS? I CAN SEND PICS
1888 (dbbling on the 2nd and 3rd 8 ) canadian large cent,
1901 GB 1/2 PENNY RED/BROWN
1908 1/10 PENNY NIGERIA BRITTISH WEST AFRICA UNC


++++++++MORE
WORLD COINS

SORRY FOR THE PROMO

Man

Those dang Canadian pennies.

gxseries

Never was on the lightside because of the ridicious prices. All I have is some corroded pennies to comfort me.

DorkGirl

It was all your fault, every last one of you that post those pics of those wonderful round shiny things The designs, the prices, the history, it's all so amazing. I still collect Liteside, I love VAMs, and I'm trying to complete a type set, but some of the Darkside designs just make my heart skip a beat.

Bailathacl

After discovering the liteside forum, I came in here to ask for help attributing a couple of pieces that were in my grandfather's collection before he died. Everyone was so helpful that I hung around lurking and reading and learing for a while. Slowly I started buying English and Canadian type coins, then lots of one-per-country coins, then indescriminate buying of anything that I just liked. I've had so much more fun with darkside coins because there's more to learn, more to enjoy, and more bang to your buck (generally). Pretty typical seduction into the darkside story....

DJC

Mostly the BS attitude of the US 'Coin Industry'. Slabbing, which company is currently setting the industry standard, gradeflation, crossovers, crackouts, 3rd world TPG's, coin doctoring, totally unoriginal originality, the massive amount of messed with stuff, the beyond ludicrous jumps in price over one point grade spreads, the 'Kool-Aid' drinkers, the Anti Kool-Aid drinkers, the 'wannabe' crap, the commodity trader type attitude of most dealers, the 'widget' bashing....

What's not to love about liteside? That's why I'm here. Hasn't been but a few weeks, and I'm actually already thinking about dumping out of my US collection altogether... I've rediscovered an amazing thing, having fun with my hobby!!! No more 'surviving the sharks, to acquire another choice portfolio quality piece', I'm back to 'buyin' cool coins that I like.' Just imagine that...

AuldFartte

<< <i>

<< <i>What lured you to the Darkside? >>


The high price of liteside coins. >>



Same here. I was formerly 100% liteside (please ... I beg your forgineness ). Then I found this place, and these incredibly helpful people, and Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and Canadian Dollars, and British coppers, and hammered things, and coins with ships on them, and ... etc., etc., etc.

Now, I rarely look at anything "liteside" ...

wybrit

The only US coinage I collect is junk grade for Whitman folders, which I do with my daughter.

Otherwise, it's British and the occasional true darkside piece for me (to me, British = "liteside").

FilamCoins

Great post!

Well, for me, it was a given, having lived in 6 different countries over past 20 years.

And is it just me ... or do you find U.S. stuff as mundane and uninspiring as I do???

And the paper money is even worse!

By the way, from where and when did the terms "lightside" and "darkside" originate?

Aethelred

<< <i>What lured you to the Darkside? >>



The long and interesting history of your country Simon.

goossen

Well, I'm living on the "darkside"... So how should be cosidered the U.S. coins I have ?

Btw, I agree 100% with the friends saying that U.S. coins have very high prices, I only have a few, inexpensive ones. Almost all of the "nice" pieces are out of my range.

Cladiator

<< <i>What lured you to the Darkside? >>



Pre Castro Cuba

Fairlaneman

<------
<------

Good looking coins can lure me anywhere. Light, Dark, Grey it makes no difference at all. Picking just one side lowered the odds.

Ken

Udo

I don't know the liteside, in fact what you call the liteside, is the darkside for me.
So after all what I've heard, I'd better don't go to your liteside or my darkside.

Bailathacl

Hey Filam, welcome to the Forum. Sorry about your icon though!

Wish I could tell you the origin of the lightside/darkside term distinction, perhaps an elder statesman could help out....

Kurt4

While at a show I was looking at liteside coins and asking some questions. Nobody talked about the coins themselves, just the price, the slab, and when they found out I wasn't going to spend big bucks they quickly lost inerest in me. Stumbled to a table with some foreign material and ask a few questions and could not get the guy to shut up about the coins. Talked about the history,what was going on in the world when certain coins were made etc.. Told the dealer (I wish I could remember his name) I had about $50 to spend. He set me up with 15 coins and made me promise to look into the history of them. I was hooked. What keeps me Darkside is the variety and beauty of the coins. And the people I meet. They are actually interested in coins. Imagine that.

BS

I think I started looking because of an interest in US colonial coins. Then I saw my first Henry VI groat and
really fell for the look of English hammered coins.

Udo

<< <i>By the way, from where and when did the terms "lightside" and "darkside" originate? >>



Hi, FilamCoins

I've asked the same question when I was new here and I'll cite what the sourcerer of the dark answered to me:



<< <i>Well, Udo, as the guilty party who created the Dark Side-vs-Liteside terminology, I guess I better clue you in. Back in the late 1990s when this forum was quite new, practically everybody on it was a US collector who collected US coins and only US coins -- not even US paper currency or tokens or medals. They were basically clueless that there was more to numismatics than US coins. (Why? I don't know, but it's probably related to the geographical illiteracy of most Americans.) Most of them here still collect only US coins ... but they're no longer clueless to at least the existence of a much wider realm of numismatics than what they collect.

This handful of folks who collected ancients, world coins, paper money, etc., found ourselves answering questions and then started showing off what we collected and slowly grew a family of folks who became known as Darksiders. That term came out of a joke I made once about how for most of the US collectors, everything else numismatic was essentially terra incognita and we were just the "deepest, darkest side" of numismatics to them. The term Dark Side stuck and later on we added "Greyside" for collectors of Canadian coins and toy with others as you've noticed above. It's even migrated to other coin sites like NGC's forums and Coin Talk and elsewhere. Essentially, though, the Dark Side is all of numismatics other than US coin collectors collecting only US coins. I've resurrected a thread on the colorful "lore" of the Dark Side, much of which, unfortunately, has been archived.

Oh, and as for myself, my main collecting area is German Imperial era coins and banknotes. In particular, my special focus is German East African coinage, which I collect in vz-st or, preferably, st. As adding new examples have grown much harder, I've been taking a sabbatical and exploring the medallic art of the art nouveau and art deco movements which produced some of the finest works in coinage in modern times. >>



This was written by Askari, the sourcerer of the dark, he is MIA at the moment

GDJMSP

Columnarios - the disease struck in the mid '70s. At first the disease progressed slowly and wormed its way in over the years. Then a few years ago it hit a growth spurt - and overwhelmed me. Reducing me to my present state of helplessness

cacheman

the history....

U.S. history is so flaccid....

MSD61

My Ma she was responsible for my darkside interest

hyperizer

For me, it was this Irish uncirculated set I inherited from my aunt. (The coins were in tissue paper but I moved 'em to AirTites.)

bosox

I agree with the Cacheman. The history. I collect Canadian large cents. On every one, I wonder who from the Hudson Bay Company, or what other Canadian pioneer, or fledgling bank (for the mint state ones) held this coin 150 years ago. I grew up in Maine and, as a kid, I used to get Canadian coins in change for my ice cream. It was so much more interesting than my US change, and nobody else was collecting it. Forty years later I am spending more than my parents made in a year to buy outstanding examples. I luv' em.

Sylvestius

<< <i>I don't know the liteside, in fact what you call the liteside, is the darkside for me.
So after all what I've heard, I'd better don't go to your liteside or my darkside. >>




Just to further confuse things, what you call the Darkside is also the Darkside to me in theory because i'm not an American. However, i stick to the US-viewpoint to keep things a) simple and b) because i kinda like the feel of the dark...

FilamCoins

FilamCoins

Thanks all for the warm welcome and to Udo for the great history of the origin of the darkside. Too many Boston fans, but otherwise a great forum

I'm honored to be a new member. You can tell I'm a newbie from the blank post I just posted above

Need to work on those skillz!!

theboz11

There were not enough coins with lions on them, or cars, or many BBL's. Rather boring after awhile

Burks

#1. High prices of U.S. coins. So hard to buy early coins on a college student budget.
#2. Many of their designs are much more beautiful and interesting than U.S.
#3. Foreign coins are CHEAP!
#4. I like holding a coin for the 16th century and wondering where it has been. How many times has it circled the world? Who knows!
#5. German coins are near and dear to me. Both sides of my family come from Germany. Very proud of my heritage.

Just the wide variety of coins makes it very interesting to me.

cosmicdebris

DJC

Yeah, cosmic, that'll do it for just about anyone... (and if it doesn't, you can just keep your Morgans. I'll take the coin above please.)

Sylvestius

I find myself indifferent to the Britannias. Too modern and the obverse, eugh.


A Gothic Crown is what you'd be needing!

MacCrimmon

Messrs. Wyon and Pistricci

skingspan

Started collecting liteside as a kid, mostly filling whitmans from circulation, This was in the late 70s early 80s. A friend of the family who traveled alot found out that I collected coins and would bring me his spare change from his travels. Still have all of these darkside coins that he brought me. Nothing valuable but a lot of fun to look through. Then came my teen years and other things took my interest away from coins. Fast forward to 8 - 10 years ago new college grad, bought a condo and while moving rediscovered my old coin collection. Started buying proof sets from the US mint. Discovered ebay and started working on a type set. Pretty much finished the type set and started to lose interest in liteside. My new interest is darkside crown sized silver. Big coins, beautiful designs, many can be purchased UNC for $10 or less. Also working on a little darkside gold collection.

ROBERTB

Hot Euro-trash chicks!

ccrdragon

easy and short answer:
1. Price
2. Value
3. Selection
4. History

MadMuffin

I was born on the dark side (in Denmark ) - but what fascinates me about world coins is the creativity and craftmanship that is being put into many of them. After all, they are just little flat pieces of metal, yet there is always something new to discover in them.

Besides that I like the history that they tell. If only they could speak! Any coin is a mirror of the point in time that it was created, the people who created it and their cultural beliefs. Without thinking about it you get to know a lot about world history and culture by collecting coins.

Marcel

Berg

Same as the honorable MadMuffin above, I was born, raised and live on the dark side It was/is a general interest for history that led me to collecting coins.

secondrepublic

Part of it is my family background, which is Polish. But a bigger part of it is the history and the beauty of the coins. Polish coins from my period of interest (1920s and 1930s) have some great designs, some of them with Art Deco motifs and designed by leading Polish artists and sculptors from that period.

Also, in my particular area of interest, there are a lot of pattern coins that were issued in very small mintages of 100 or less. Finding them, particularly in top condition, is an incredible challenge. It's nice to own a piece which is incredibly scarce and which I could probably never afford to buy if it were American... and yet the coins are from a country with a population of close to 40 million, so only one in every half-million people over there (or less) could ever own one. In that sense, I think they're also a good investment, with Poland now in the EU and with standards of living rising over there.

(Sorry to use the "i" word here... that's not why I collect, it's really more a justification to the wife and others.)

SYRACUSIAN

To my eyes, people who were born, raised and live in a Darkside country, must also collect coins other than their country of origin to become true Darksiders at heart. The pioneering spirit is the same, go against popular collecting habits and beliefs in any country. One of the strongest arguments by oldtimers for not doing this, used to be the very low interest and therefore low resale prices for whoever wanted to try his luck with foreign coins, but ebay and the internet in general have radically changed this forever.

secondrepublic

I actually tend to agree with you about branching out beyond your own country of origin (though I was born in the USA and like a lot of folks on this board, I used to collect liteside coins). Still, there is a finite limit to the amount of money anyone can spend on a hobby and at this point I am sticking to Poland - whose nice coinage is not cheap, by the way.

At some point I may branch into collecting the coinage of the Baltic countries (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia) from the early 20th century, which is also interesting.

nicholasz219

It is sad to me about the current state of affairs with US coins, because I find there is a lot of beauty and history to be enjoyed there. Unfortunately, as much as I would not enjoy paying a month's salary for one slabbed coin and not eat, I can not justify the expense to collect quality liteside.

I love my darkside stuff, and I find myself at work telling people about 18th century Russian copper. Yes, I get a lot of strange looks.

Refrema

I grew up in the middle of the United States (Iowa), and started collecting US coins as a kid. But I was fascinated by money from other countries that I thought I would never get to visit. Since then, I have lived in three other countries, and worked all around the world.

I still have lots of US coins that I never even look at, but I really love the Dark Side. The history behind why the coins were minted, as well as the history that took place in the country where they were minted makes them interesting to me.

Add to that the beauty and quality of the coins, and it makes an irresistible combination for me.

Bob

lordmarcovan

I like the possibility of buying OLD stuff for a fraction of what one could buy a much more modern US coin for.

I don't necessarily mean ancients, though those are certainly awesome. For me, it is the early-dated stuff that really tweaks me.