Welcome to the wonderful world of foreign coin collecting. For the experienced collector, we would suggest that you click on our home page, go to the current list and see if there are any new items of interest.
If you are new to, or just exploring the field of world coins, let me try to make some helpful suggestions.
There is an old saying, "Buy the book before the coin." Let me strongly encourage you to do this. There are four excellent catalogs which cover world coins, century by century from 1600 to the present. The title of these is the Standard Catalog of World Coins by Krause & Mishler. The catalogs are broken down by century: 1601-1700; 1701-1800; 1801-1900; and 1901 to the present. If you are new to the field, let me suggest that you start with just the last two centuries. This will give you a broad range of collecting areas and interests to choose from and you can then expand into earlier centuries, if your collecting interests increase in the future. These catalogs may be obtained directly from the publisher:
Krause Publications
700 E. State Street
Iola, WI 54990-0001
Phone: 715-445-2214
Fax: 715-445-4087
http://www.krause.com/
I would also like to suggest that you subscribe to World Coin News, a monthly newspaper devoted just to the collecting of world coins. In it you will find many interesting features, articles and advertisements from many of the outstanding world coin dealers in the United States. World Coins News can also be ordered from Krause Publications at the above address.
If you pick up two catalogs which depict virtually every coin minted in every country of the world for the last 200 years, there are 2,000 pages in each of these two catalogs. You flip through the catalogs and say, "Where do I begin?" "What do I collect?" Let me make some suggestions that would help you narrow your field of interest as you are beginning.
There are three basic ways to collect coins: by type; by series; or by denomination.
Type collecting consists of collecting one of each type of a denomination minted. For example to collect English crowns by type from 1800 to the present would consist of collecting the 15 different crowns minted between 1804 & 1965.
Series collecting consists of collecting every date and every mint mark for a given denomination. For example if you wanted to collect Swiss 20 franc gold you would collect one of every date minted from 1883 to 1949.
In denomination collecting you might decide to attempt to collect silver-dollar-sized coins of the world, 1/2-dollar-sized coins of the world or penny coins of the world, etc.
Many people, when they first begin collecting coins, often start in the area of their own ethnic background. That means, if your family came from France, you might start by collecting French coins; if from Japan, Japanese coins, etc. This narrows the field of interest and gives you a manageable area to begin collecting.
Other forms of collecting could consist of focusing on a few or many countries but within a given period such as 1900 to date.
Another area in which there is a lot of interest is topical coin collecting. Coins can be collected by many various topics such as: Olympics; sports; animals; birds; boats/sailing; other transportation such as trains and planes; famous people such as authors, composers, statesmen.
Many years ago I determined that I wanted gold to be one of the coins that I would be able to offer you for its beauty, history and tangible value. I definitely like the idea of collecting gold coins by type from many countries. It offers a broad collecting challenge and allows one to accumulate a tangible asset while enjoying the collecting hobby. Gold coins can be collected just like silver or copper. They can be collected by date, type or a single country.
For someone starting in the gold field, I recommend some simple collections such as a type set of British Sovereigns, French 20 Francs. Another interesting form of gold collecting would be an accumulation of the many modern gold issues that have been issued from 1970 to date by a variety of countries. If you desire to collect gold only, Krause also publishes a gold coin catalog.
Copyright © 2003 Robert Reed World Coins