I’ve never really collected coins.  I’ve always been a stamp guy.  The most I’ve done with coins is to pull interesting ones from circulation: all the silver ones, for instance, and, over a couple of years, I sorted 35,000 (yes) pennies to look for interesting ones.  I got nearly a full set of Lincoln pennies — no steel ones, and not a couple of other unusual ones — and two Indian Heads: 1906 and 1909!  Woohoo!  In 35,000 coins.  And the grime took a year to fully come out of my hands.

There is a new development, though, that has gotten me interested in a big way: Euro coins.  Euro coins come in a bunch of denominations with the same obverses for each country, but each nation designs the reverse separately.  For every denomination, there are coins from a multitude of countries, all with fascinating designs.

I made a collector friend in Spain who collects US coins.  For Euro coins, he puts all non-Spanish ones he encounters in circulation into a big jar, and then sorts them at the end of the year for those he does not have in his collection.  He uses the rest for a vacation fund.  And he searched through the lot for me, to trade for — get this — U.S. state quarters, which run from $1 – $3 in Europe.  Each.  So I ran a few twenties through a change machine at the coin-op laundry, looking for those he needed (from a list he sent me.)  The rest I, um, used for laundry.  I mailed the others to him.  And he sent me about a kilo of Euro coins.  I’m way behind.  He keeps insisting he’s just sending pocket change.  I keep insisting that that’s exactly what I’m doing.

Anyway, I’m accumulating, and waiting for a little bit more money (or a Subway Stamp gift certificate) to buy albums.  The coins — and concept — are oh-so-neato, and with new countries joining the Euro, neatness abounds.

Hmm.  To create a “coins” category or not?  One post so far.  I’ll probably post about it again, though, so this post is filed:

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:14:25 +0000
Under Uncategorized
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