1970 Iceland 1 Krona!

Hello everyone, sorry for the extended absence. I've been very busy with life, school, and video games over the past few months and while I definitely could have done some posting, I decided to use my time in other ways.

Anyway, I decided long ago when I took these pictures that this coin would follow my 1940 Icelandic Krona when I posted it. So, here it is! This was the last version of this coin used before Iceland downgraded to a much smaller aluminum coin with the same design. It has since been demonetized and the Krona was replaced with a new Krona 1980. The new Krona is valued at 1KR=$0.0085 USD which means Iceland is probably due for another revaluation. This coin as it sits is worth about $0.10 in numismatic value making it worth more than an actual modern Icelandic Krona.

1940 Iceland 1 Krona!

My oldest, most rare, and probably most valuable Icelandic coin. I bought it for $0.50 and knew when I saw it that it had to be mine. I'm not a big fan of modern Icelandic coins, but the older ones are much harder to find so the newer ones are pretty much all I have. That's why I was excited to see this coin for such a small price. Only 209,000 were minted which, by American standards, is a very small number and if this was an American coin, I would not have one. Since it is from a smaller, not as collected country, it is more readily available. This coin is worth about $2.00

1947 French Indo-China 1 Piastre!

In my quest to acquire a coin from every country as well as my quest to get a coin from French Indo-China, I picked up this coin. French Indo-China is no longer around and is now known as Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. This coin is almost the same size as a Ike, Peace, or Morgan Dollar; just a tad smaller. It's a monster compared to the French 10 Franc coin issued at the same time which is odd since colonizing countries' money was usually more valuable than the colonies' money. This coin is worth $4.00, which in 1947 would have been $0.39.

1922 French "Bon Pour" 1 Franc!

Here's an interesting coin. Why? Because it marks the period when France (and most of Europe) went off the gold and silver standard (at least temporarily) because of WWI, and later the Great Depression. France didn't recover until after WWII when a new Franc was introduced at 100 times the value of the old franc. This was issued before the Franc was in need of such a serious revaluation, although it was a major step down from the silver 1 Franc coin they produced just two years earlier. As such, it isn't worth much, just around $0.25.

1914-A German Mark!

Look at those biceps! Who couldn't love Germany with an eagle like that? Well, apparently lots of people. This coin was minted the same year The Great War, or WWI, started. It was also the year Germany suspended the Gold Standard to finance the war. This suspension caused the hyperinflation Germany was notorious for in the early 1920's. Then Germany stabilized, Hitler came into power, Germany became poor again, Germany re-stabilized, and now they use the Euro, though some want the Mark back. Back to the coin. It was minted in Berlin as can be seen from the A mint mark, or should I say mint marks. The eagle has a smaller eagle on it and on the more worn coins it can leave the unfamiliar mind wondering how many eagles are on other eagles. In Mint State like this coin, we can see that there are just two eagles. And now that I've use the word eagle way too many times, I'll finish by saying that this coin is worth about $18.00.

Also, sorry for the late post. I've been sick as of late and have mostly been on my phone which is almost impossible to post from.

1969 Iran 1 Rial!

Ooooh very official looking. So official, in fact, that it made its way here with me forcefully nudging it along. This coin is from one of the thirty-thousand countries that currently wants to blow us up and has been demonetized since it was minted 44 years ago. It features a starving lion carrying a sword in the hot sun on the obverse and a 1 on the reverse. I got it pretty cheap and it's worth about $1.00 in this condition. Not too shabby!

1340 (1961) Afghanistan 1 Afghani!

Another example of an old non-silver dollar coin. The Afghani was divided into 100 Pul and even in the 1960's it was worth relatively little. This coin is nickel clad steel and quarter sized which means back in the day, if we had been issuing a dollar coin, our dollar would have crushed theirs. It features the denomination and wheat a its main designs along with the date and some other words. It's worth about $0.10 for the wear, the black stuff, and the corrosion of sorts under the 1 on the obverse.

1964 Luxembourg 1 Franc!

Mmmm grease. We love it on bacon, fries, and coins. Before they're struck, that is. Afterwards it's just kind of gross. This coin obviously isn't in it's prime and it likely never was. Normally I would just pass this off as normal wear, but since it lacks the normal qualities of wear, I doubt it is.

These normal qualities include, but are not limited to; even wear, grime, tarnish, contact marks, etc. Sure there is some black-ish stuff on the obverse but it is not even. The wear is not even either as can be seen on the reverse with the flowers. I'm guessing there was some grease on the die when the coin was struck which caused it to look this way.

Now this may have just been a worn die which is possible or circulation wear which is less likely. These "errors" are pretty common and usually don't give any extra value than face value. Since this coin is demonetized It is worth around $0.10.

Happy New Year!

To celebrate we've got a sort of Chinese-ish coin! Technically it's from Taiwan but Taiwan is part of China. Anyway it would take 29 of these to make 1 USD in exchange and it would take about 20 of them to make 1 USD in numismatic value. It features Chiang-Kai Shek on the obverse and the value on the reverse, in Chinese and Arabic Numerals. The date is 1981 as you can see here.

 

Happy New Year! Here's to hoping this one is as good as the last!

 

1993 Ceska Republika 1 Koruna!

This is the Czech Republic's equivalent of the dollar and is worth $0.05 in exchange value. It's almost 20 years old and in awesome condition for being so old. It was struck in Canada, as can be seen from the Maple Leaf mint mark by the lion's feet. It is worth 10x it's exchange value at about $0.50.

1961 Republik Osterreich 1 Schilling!

It's a golden Christmas Eve! Well, sort of. I bought this aluminum-bronze coin at the flea market for $0.10-$0.20 and though it is is demonetized it is worth about $1.00. That's the power of being an old coin from a poor (at that time) country. At least they weren't as poor as Italy. Anyway the schilling was the Austrian dollar equvalent being comprised of 100 Groschen. On the obverse "REPUBLIK OSTERREICH" means Austrian Republic and on the reverse "EIN SCHILLING" means One Shilling. Also on the reverse are three edelweiss flowers which you can read all about in that link.

If I get any coins tomorrow morning I'll be sure to post them and if not I may do a present post or something. MERRY (almost) CHRISTMAS!


By the way the answer to last week's trivia question was 6. One person answered the poll this week with the answer 4. There will not be a poll this week as I have something special planned for next Monday so the next poll will start next Tuesday and last to the Monday after it as usual.

1966 Thailand Baht (Fifth Asian Games Bangkok)!

If I'm not mistaken this is the first Thai coin to be featured on my blog. It was issued as a commemorative of the Fifth Asian Games which are held every 4 years like the Olympics. That thing that looks like a sun on the reverse is the logo of the Asian Games. Thailand hosted the games twice in a row in 1966 and 1970 which you can read about in the link above. The mintage for this coin is 9 Million and I'm guessing many were saved for the occasion which is why this coin is worth $0.25.

1993 Romanian Leu!

Simple. That's the only word I can think of to describe this coin and yet it is so beautiful. I bought this coin about a week ago at the flea market after fishing it out of the junk/world coin box. Since I didn't have any Romanian coins I decided to get it. It's simplicty and beauty work hand in hand to produce a modern yet attractive coin. Sadly it has been demonitized and replaced by the Fourth Leu and is worth about $0.25.

1992 Russian Rouble! Commemorative: 1 Year of Democracy

Here's that commemorative rouble I promised last week. This coin is pretty big in comparison with the regular rouble coins of its day. It's around half dollar sized and the regular roubles are penny sized. It is also made of copper and nickel whereas the other roubles were brass plated steel. Though it has a mintage of only 700,000 it did not see circulation therefore it is more abundant and worth about $2.50.

1936 Venezuelan Bolivar!

This is probably my second most worn coin. It's quarter sized and almost 90% silver which is a nice coincidence since Simon Bolivar was the George Washington of many South American countries. since it's so worn it's worth silver value or $4.52.

1979 Belgian Franc (French Text)!

Another flea market buy, in fact I probably got it with that other Belgian Franc I posted. This one's a bit bigger in diameter less thick. As you may have noticed this coin and the other one have different designs, this one with a woman on the fron and a plant, and crown and the other featuring the king. Not sure why they decided to use his image then since he'd been the king since before this coin was issued. Anyway it's worth about $0.10.

1998 Japanese Yen!

Got about 20 (actually it's 6) of these when I got all those other aluminum coins. It's pretty scratched and worn for being so new, the again this happens very easily with aluminum coins so it's probably not that bad. Kind of funny how this coin and yesterday's coin are from the same year and I didn't even plan it. This coin is practically worthless as most aluminum coins are at exchange value or $0.01.

1998 United Arab Emirates 1 Dirham!

Got this waaaaaaay back in May at the flea market. Well not exactly May, in fact it was probably more like August or September I just wanted to include that link. The obverse features the value and country name and the reverse has a "jug above dates". It's worth about $0.65.

2002 Greek Euro!

What a nice idea: a coin within a coin within a coin. There are two layers of metal in this coin, thus the coin within a coin. The third "within a coin" comes from the reverse. The owl and sprig design was used on this coin from ancient Greece. Of course it didn't say 1 Euro on it, but you get the picture. Too bad it isn't that nice ancient silver Greek coin and is only worth face value or $1.30.
 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

1977-BP Hungarian Forint!

Here's a nice coin. The rim is mostly worn off (not like there was one there in the first place) and there's some gunk between the shield and the wheat. This aluminum coin did well in its years in circulation, which were probably not many. However, there were enough years to almost completely wear off the mint mark which is under the 1. The BP stands for Budapest, the place where this coin was minted, and from the looks of the Wikipedia article, it's a pretty nice place. This coin is worth about $0.10.