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A Good Reason to Collect Coins from Cuba, North Korea, and other Politically Unpopular Countries

Going against the grain on this one...

I've recently seen several posts here and ATS condemning the collection of coins from communist countries like Cuba and North Korea. I can only assume that those who are vehemently opposed to collecting coins from these countries wish not to support these political regimes. And that's fine. Believe whatever you want. However, in the spirit of contrarianism, isn't that a good reason to collect coins from these countries?

If Cuban and North Korean coins have a slim collector base due to their politics, wouldn't this mean that less will be preserved in high grades? And really, let's face it, in 50 years, are collectors really going to care about the politics of today? Or are they going to care more about grade rarities?

Sure, there are countless 20th century world coins with very low mintages and grade rarities that no one cares about today. The 1974 Cambodian 5000 riel piece had a mintage of 500. The 1980 (U) Maltese 5 cent piece had a mintage of 385. The 1976FM (U) Guyanan 25 cent piece had a mintage of 50; and so on. No one cares about these coins. The lack of collector interest of these coins sort of ruins my point. But do you see what I'm saying about Cuban and North Korean coins? If collectors today are avoiding them at all costs, won't that leave less preserved in high grades?
"Man will never be perfect until he learns to create and destroy; he does know how to destroy, and that is half the battle.”
- Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

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Comments

  • NapNap Posts: 1,702 ✭✭✭✭✭
    If there are 100 known coins and 50 collectors, well there just won't be much interest.

    Rare coins are a demand driven market. Coins of countries where numismatics is well entrenched as a hobby (USA, UK, France, Russia, etc) will always have a degree of demand.

    Coins of countries where there is no history of collecting will always have a soft market. Rarity is of lesser importance.

    Don't get me wrong, I appreciate rare coins, and am more likely to take pride in something I own that is very rare than something in high grade, or a popular (but not rare) issue. But if you're looking at it from a value standpoint, you need to have a generation or two of collectors who want these things to make them desirable. Without that, they are just esoteric items.

    Another thing to consider, is that the places you mentioned (North Korea and Cuba), by their own wishes, have very secretive cultures and history. My knowledge of Cuban history disappears after Che Guevara, and of North Korea disappears after the Korean war. It's not even legal for me to travel to these places. So it's difficult to want to collect coins from a country I have no connection to, with a culture about which I know very little.
  • I personally regard collecting coins from currently existing despotic regimes as bad as collecting current kiddie porn. In both cases the money you are providing them helps them perpetuate new victims. Collecting coins from failed regimes however (Nazi Germany, USSR) does no more harm to anyone.
    I can remember as a child back in the '70s all the pretty stamps from Eastern Europe that flooded the market. The Warsaw Pact nations derived millions in hard currency every year from selling those stamps. Running a police state cost money and we stupidly provided it from our innocent purchases. You can hardly be innocent today if you knowingly collect NK currency.
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