Less popular countries?

Joe26 · April 28, 2008 9:32AM

It seems the majority of world coins are doing very well but are there any widely known countries that are lagging behind?

gecko109 · April 28, 2008 9:46AM

Germany perhaps? I got this 1863 1 Kreuzer in NGC MS67 for just over a hundred bucks this past weekend. Can you imagine how much a 3cs or 1/2 dime as a U.S. counterpart would cost in 67???

percyb · April 28, 2008 10:26AM

Gecko,
Good example of the demand factor here in the good old USA. We tend to inflate everything because of our demand...good or bad as it is.

harasha · April 28, 2008 7:02PM

You never hear much about the Benelux nations. I wonder what sort of premium they command.

Planchet · April 28, 2008 9:58PM

Is there a significant collector market for coins from any of the Middle East Countries such as Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia etc?

Planchet

MSD61 · April 28, 2008 11:28PM

<< <i>Is there a significant collector market for coins from any of the Middle East Countries such as Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia etc?

Planchet >>

I collect from these areas Israel especially but I think this is more a specialized area and has a very small market and following.
There are many collectors that place these coins in with ancient coins but little realize how scarce some of these coins are even
some modern pieces from a few of these nations are scarce.

JoesMaName · April 28, 2008 11:42PM

I've always been a big history buff and the historic Bang for the Buck is what got me collecting Darkside in the first place. I'd been a US collector as a kid but kind of forgot about collecting as everything "cool" (Seated liberty and earlier) was out of my price reach.

Then round 1990 I happened to walk into a convenience store that was owned buy a part-time coin dealer. Darkside was dead (pre internet craze) and he was selling some of the most amazing foreign coins for maybe 2xMelt or so, and melt was cheep, under $5. Game over I was hooked. For the next 5 years I spent every spare cent I had on his foreign junk... I’d stopped buy his store 2-3 times a week to buy milk or gas anything, just to see what had "Walked in"

Ah those were the days...

Bjorn · April 30, 2008 4:26AM

<< <i>I've always been a big history buff and the historic Bang for the Buck is what got me collecting Darkside in the first place. I'd been a US collector as a kid but kind of forgot about collecting as everything "cool" (Seated liberty and earlier) was out of my price reach.

Then round 1990 I happened to walk into a convenience store that was owned buy a part-time coin dealer. Darkside was dead (pre internet craze) and he was selling some of the most amazing foreign coins for maybe 2xMelt or so, and melt was cheep, under $5. Game over I was hooked. For the next 5 years I spent every spare cent I had on his foreign junk... I’d stopped buy his store 2-3 times a week to buy milk or gas anything, just to see what had "Walked in"

Ah those were the days... >>

Ah, that sounds excellent... any highlights of what you pulled out?

I think World Coins have been a great bang for the buck in the past but this is now unfortunately changing, with the coins of many countries beginning to rival those of the US in terms of pricing. Examples would include Greece, Poland, Russia and some ancients. Beautiful designs are finally receiving the recognition they deserve, and I have seen French medals from the nineteenth century receiving more attention - bad for me as I still need to collect quite a few! It seems a few countries, particularly Great Britain, Germany and Japan had a much drive up in prices some time ago, although they are still rising as well. German stuff from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries seems particularly flat except in really high grade or for scarce issues.

It makes me sad that the days of the bargain buckets may someday disappear, but I'll still stick with World Coins.

<Edited to clarify content>

MrEureka · April 30, 2008 10:21AM

Try the Republic of Bolivia, especially the early issues. There are many common coins and many rarities, but they're all under-collected, under-priced and under-researched.

coinkat · April 30, 2008 11:05AM

I agree that Bolivia is under appreciated.

JoesMaName · May 1, 2008 6:13AM

<< <i>
...
Ah, that sounds excellent... any highlights of what you pulled out?
...

<< <i>

Oh yes! I'll see if I can pair it down to a short list.

JoesMaName · May 1, 2008 7:51AM

Ok - Here's the short list

Best Junk & Melt Box finds from the early 90s

By far the best find was the 1841 Russian Ruble I paid $15!

To be fair to the rest, just about each of the items I included made my heart
skip a beat when I first caught a glimpse of them milling about in the junk or Melt+ boxes.

It always felt like a treasure hunt.

They actually came from three main sources, but the best were from the convenience store.

I still find good stuff now and then, but all the local dealers are now online and
no-longer offhand consider their foreign coins as not worth their time.

Oh well, very glad I caught the tail end of it. What really breaks my heart are the coins I
passed on because they wanted better then 3xMelt!

Edit: Forgot to mention, of all the copper, copper/Nickel coins shown only 10 or so were in premium boxes
of $1.00 or $1.50 each! The rest were .20 or .25 cents - I forget...

Less popular countries?

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