ResearchThe Intrigue of Foreign Coins
There is an unspoken rule of thumb in coin collecting: You collect United States coins for the money, and collect foreign coins for the fun. I was bowled over when I got to my first coin show (also called a "bourse floor") and saw foreign coins sold by the loose handfuls, at prices ranging from four to ten for a buck.
One vendor got me interested when I asked for Yugoslavian coins, and he could reach into a pile and pull out the one Yugoslavian coin there (I happen to be of Slavic decent) with it's four languages written on the surface. I examined one coin and commented that it looked Asian; the vendor pronounced it Japanese, because it had the chrysanthemum. I searched through the pile, thinking "Spot the chrysanthemum! Fun game..." Each coin became a little history lesson, a little emblem of that country's culture, or, when struggling to identify it, a fascinating mystery to solve.
In my first outing, toting the World Coin Guide I'd borrowed from the library, I got to admire the beautiful script on Thailand's 1977 1 baht, learn to count in Hebrew so I could read the dates on my Israeli coins, and marvel at the Great Britain penny which is about the size of a modern dollar coin. The guide isn't always a big help, since at publishing date in only goes 100 years back. Hence, an old copy from the library. You'll need several guides, some good research sites on the Internet, a complete encyclopedia, and a college chum or two to give you the occasional clue.
I had fun puzzling out the stumpers. The Rhodesia-Nyasland 1963 penny had me puzzled, what with there not even being a Rhodesia anymore. The Russian coin had me searching again and again in the book - it had no "CCCP" and hammer and sickle because it was a 1992 20 rouble from the Commonwealth of independent states of Russia! I marveled at the aluminum Pakistan 10-paisa piece, surely the cheapest-looking coin I've ever seen - throw it in with your recycled cans and you'd never know the difference.
I like the Lebanon piastre (1955(a)) just for the history of the country; it seems that every country that could build a tank has invaded that little patch of land at one point or another. The Austria 2-heller had me puzzling for awhile, because all it had was that Scandinavian two-headed eagle on one side and the number "2" and the date "1894"...and nothing else. And finally, there was the Saudi-Arabian 1956 2-ghirsh. This coin is covered with that frilly, swirling script design that is Arabian writing woven into a repeating design, with some characters on the obverse that I could only identify as Middle Eastern. A history teacher acquaintance of mine finally ID'd it for me, she having spent a few years in the Middle East. I now think Arabian and Egyptian coins are some of the most beautiful, for the writing.
All that fun for two bucks! And ever since, there's been a box or two in the corner of my collecting space, one containing coins of the world tagged and bagged, and the other with loose coins waiting for me to Sherlock them. I've certainly gotten used to seeing a lot of George VI and Elizabeth II...because the sun never sets on the British Empire, like they say...that means it and it's colonies literally encircled the globe at one point or another.
I still have much to figure out. Next time I pick up my ancient Chinese coins, for instance (what, they had twenty republics each minting their own design? I can barely tell if I'm looking at Chinese or Korean, much less tell Kiangsi from Tsinghai!). And they're a little hard to ID since ancient China minted their coins by beating them between a couple of rocks, the design is a little inconsistent.
Yes, don't collect them for the money. Collect them because your kids will learn more about world history than they'd ever pick up in school, because you will always have an engaging hobby on a rainy day, and because a person with a pocketful of foreign coins always has a captivating conversation piece.