Most beautiful world coins ever?

Crackout

Pistrucci's St George slaying a dragon in a silver Crown or gold Sovereign.

I agree!!

oakcoin

bump! this thread is cool

Weiss

Some really beautiful pieces in this mix. The Italian pieces are beautiful. Love some of the French and Swiss pieces as well.

Here is my box of 20, inspired by SmEagle1795's amazing collage of ancients as posted in the US coin forum yesterday (hoping he'll post his here as well, it's amazing)

Though I'm an American and my collection includes many official American pieces, it also includes American commemoratives, patterns, tokens, and medals, as well as Polish, English, Mexican, Icelandic, and ancient pieces. I'll eventually add American colonial, a representative 8 Reale, and a few other foreign pieces to round out the mix...

Tookybandit

PeaceBD

Here are a couple I like.

India: Gangas of Talakad. Anonymous. 1100-1327 AD. Gold Gajapati Pagoda (3.82 gm; 15 mm). Elephant / Floral scroll. Mitch 702; FR 288.



India:Gwalior, Sunface Pav Anna, KM# 168.1. I just love the sun face on this coin. The coin has a very elegant and an attention grabbing design for most of the people. On the reverse around the inner circle the nagari script on the top reads " Shrimanta Madhav Maharaj" and on the bottom reads " Shinde Sarkar". Inside the circle from top " Pav (Quarter) Anna/ Samat 1946/ Gwalior". The obverse displays a sunface with 16 pointed star surrounded by two serpents and a wreath.
This particular specimen display some signs of circulation but still I believe is very pleasing on the eyes. The obverse of this coin appears on the front cover of the new " South Asian Coin and Paper Money" by Krause.

SaorAlba

Nice coins Bhushan - I want to collect INS coins sometime - particularly those late dates.

PeaceBD

<< <i>Nice coins Bhushan - I want to collect INS coins sometime - particularly those late dates. >>


Thanks a lot. Indian princely states have some of the most fascinating as well as intriguing variety of coins minted in the history of the country. Do you have any particular states in mind?

WillieBoyd2

Italy 20 Centesimi 1921


South Africa 5 Shillings 1948

SaorAlba

<< <i>

<< <i>Nice coins Bhushan - I want to collect INS coins sometime - particularly those late dates. >>


Thanks a lot. Indian princely states have some of the most fascinating as well as intriguing variety of coins minted in the history of the country. Do you have any particular states in mind? >>



The INS states like Gwalior, Hyderabad, Kutch and Jodhpur that were issuing coins up until and even slightly after 1947-8.

FilthyBroke

<< <i>French design appears to be winning here

One of my favourites that is very affordable

[URL=http://s593.photobucket.com/user/microtome/media/Fr1362710Centimes1916-1.jpg.html][/URL]

David >>



That one caught my eye a while back but I forgot about it. I really like the French and Italian designs I've seen so far.

Cocoinut

The Portuguese and French coins of the early 20th century are among my favorites, as are the 2 shown below, which I sent to PCGS last year. I also like the British florins of Edward VII.

FilthyBroke posted a link to one of these in an earlier post. This one was graded MS65, currently a pop 1/0



This British trade dollar is a 64+, a pop 2/1



Jim

brg5658

The Italian quadriga designs are two of my favorites. For the record, there are two slightly different designs. The one posted so far has the 3rd horses head facing downward. There is a similar design of that era where all 4 horses are facing forward also. Below is my coin of that type:




Another coin design I am fond of is Kruger-Gray's portrayal of "Hope" on the reverse of the shillings from South Africa. Lovely flowing garmet, along with the anchor, sunburst, and water...quite attractive IMO. Kruger-Gray was a true genius of the art-form. Below is my type example of that design:

lordmarcovan

<< <i> >>



I have always loved this type and used to find them in bulk bags. They're very beautiful, obviously, and therefore very popular, but they also fit the "affordable" bit quite nicely.

Early 20th century Italian coins have some lovely designs. Really, pre-WW1 Western Europe had a lot of classically inspired stuff that was gorgeous. The French, the Swiss, the German States, and many others. It was a golden age for artistry on coins, if you ask me.

Then the darker realities of the 20th century set in, and that no doubt had an impact on artistic taste.

Proverbs

Resurrecting this thread - I was going to ask this question. For me it's the gothic florin but I'd be interested in seeing other contenders.

bidask

Well I would nonimbate all the colorful
modern silver crowns

Literally colorful

atom

Beautiful design adorns the Ottoman Egypt coinage

dcarr

The details and relief on the original production was a bit lacking - but still a nice design. I fixed it for them :

designscomputed.com/coin_pics/caballito_1915_mt.jpg

Sapyx

Great necro.

+1 for the PIstrucci dragon on the crown and sovereign.

Some other candidates:

• British halfcrown, 1887-1892. Beats the Gothic and Godless florins any day.
• German States "City View" thalers (eg. Regensburg, Nurmeberg, etc), 1700s - the fractional s are probably more in the price range though.
• Rhodes didrachm, c.320 BC (my avatar coin)
• Italian Eritrea tallero 1918. Throw in the Venetian thaler of 1789-97 that it imitates.
• Central American Republic 8 reales 1824-47
• East Africa 25 cents, 50 cents, shilling and florin, 1906-1963.
• India 1/4, 1/2 and 1 rupee 1946-7
• New Zealand $5 1990

WingedLiberty1957

The 5 Mark German Dragon is interesting, at least it's different.

WCC

1839 Una and the Lion. I prefer the three graces reverse on the pattern crown but not the portrait of George III over Victoria.