How about one with Rolf Harris?

He's not a real Aussie. He left Australia many years ago and made his home in England, and only pays lip service to us back home.

We don't want him back.

I've metal detected for 26 years now so I have a bunch of them tho I don't considere myself the typical collector, just fill a coffee can and move to the next one.

Quite understandable :)

I found out something interesting about coins today: I always wondered why some old ones have a hole in the middle, so I googled and it turns out that these are usually from countries like France and Germany who had "foreign possessions" (also some Arab countries), where many of the natives did not have trousers to wear, so had no pockets to put their spare change in

Hence the hole... which allowed them to string all their coins together and carry them around their neck. What a stupid idea, huh? If you shoved your hand into a guy's trouser pocket you might be lucky enough to grab hold of a few centimes (hopefully nothing else)... but on a string?

A Danish Coin have also hole in the middle. It's their 5 Kroner coins.

Markus

Yeah, but you guys all walk around naked in the snow, right?

Collecting coins from the years of economic turmoil in Germany between the wars has also thrown up another aspect I'd not known about, namely the great number of different metals used in their manufacture at the time... and later during WW2 because of the need for good metals for the war effort

Aluminium, zinc, nickel, brass, bronze as well as alloys of these were used, with some coins having their metal content changed mid stream (like the early 50 pfennig which switched from aluminium to nickel... then back again once the war started)

When I was a kid, in the 1950s and early 1960s, it was not unusual to still see the occasional steel US penny in one's change; the steel penny was started to save copper, the usual metal for pennies, for use in the war effort...





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As a 'casual' collector (of many kinds of things) most of the coins that have come my way have been 'modern' (i.e. 1970s and later). A friend who skipped the country to escape his creditors gave me his pile (he was a bi-polar hoarder) but it didn't contain anything that might have helped him pay off his debts... just modern stuff, some of them pretty though

However, if you look at what's offered by numismatists on ebay, you soon come to realise that in the old world there were some beautiful coins that you would never be likely to come across casually like this, or in the average thrift shop... like this old 10 centisimi coin from Italy

https://i.imgur.com/u8h5Gq7.jpg not valuable, just nice

English Half Crown
 

https://i.imgur.com/jcqK15r.jpg

This was the coin I got for my weekly pocket money as a kid... it was either one of these or two shillings and a silver sixpence, since that was what the half crown was: 2/6d

I liked to get the half crown though as it seemed huge (I have one in my collection and it still looks huge)

I got two half crowns one from 1911 and the other from 1916 in my "War" collection, which is my collection of coins and notes from the US Civil War up to the Suez Crisis.

My half-crown would get me a Ladybird Book, a Matchbox car or a 1st series Airfix kit:

https://i.imgur.com/C7Aq7Uy.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/TmQkwgV.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/OVkAqpu.jpg I always bought one of these... and I still have some of them

1944 French 2 franc minted in the US
 

This is my brass 2 franc coin, introduced by the allies following D-Day

https://i.imgur.com/upydWqu.jpg https://i.imgur.com/ZJXqU3W.jpg

I found a quote giving more info on a numismatic forum, which I'm going to go back and explore since it looks very interesting:

"In preparation of the Liberation of France during World War II, the Allies decided to create "French" temporary money, which would be introduced by the American soldiers, during the progress of their Army through the country. This coin was struck by the Philadelphia Mint and circulated in the South of France and in Algeria, then still part of the French "Empire". This is the only metallic coinage struck for that purpose. But several banknotes were printed simultaneously, and circulated widely in France."

Further discussion on the forum reveals how this 2 franc coin was carried in the pockets of the US forces of Operation Dragoon invading in the South, and this accounts for why they are to this day more commonly found in coin shops in the South of France than in the North

And there was trouble with De Gaulle over this allied currency, which he saw as an offence to French sovereignty, so it was discontinued

It's not the most attractive French coin, it has to be said, looking more like a brass token from a slot machine to me... but then it isn't really a 'French' coin. It remains historically interesting and important, nonetheless

Back in the 1950s, my father came back from a voyage to China and brought back a big cardboard box full of Chinese paper money; it seems, in the chaos following the fall of Japan, several factions tried to exert control over China and form a legitimate government, the two largest headed by Mao and Chiang Kai-Shek, there were all manner of currencies issued by regional regional/political entities trying to legitimize their claims to power, in a situation similar to the US Continental Dollars and the Confederate Dollars issued by the various states at the time; the paper money my father brought home was absolutely worthless, so he was able to get that big box for just a couple of dollars or so; my sister and I, and the neighborhood kids, did not lack for play money for a long time...




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https://i.imgur.com/TRW06vu.jpg https://i.imgur.com/didP55p.jpg


As a casual coin collector on a budget I usually stick to just a few themes, but every once in a while a coin comes along with what numismatists call "eye appeal" and I just have to have it

I've still not managed to obtain an authentic Fez to complete my Sidney Greenstreet outfit, but I did find this silver 5 Piastre coin showing King Fuad I of Egypt wearing his. The coin looks great, but what clinched it was the fact that it was minted in 1923... the year Howard Carter entered King Tut's tomb for the first time

He'd got into the ante-chamber in November the previous year (the tomb had been discovered in 1922) but he had to wait until the following February before breaking through to the burial chamber proper. How he got to sleep on Christmas Eve 1922 I'll never know

The second photo shows the king posing with Carter in front of the tomb


Edit:

https://i.imgur.com/dwz35ZV.jpg I got the fez lol

One of the most interesting part of my collection isn't a coin at all but a loan from the CSA. https://i.postimg.cc/Fzf3dGZM/IMG-20201007-232937-1.jpg






And these are the 5 Peso Notes from the Philippines I mentioned before.

https://i.postimg.cc/VNDCK2Hy/IMG-20201007-233202.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/mDkFJV0P/IMG-20201007-233334.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/zBQRrKr0/IMG-20201007-233306.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/L5Zg654R/IMG-20201007-233352.jpg

Historical Banknotes 1750-1949
 

This is a great Instagram account to visit for those interested in banknotes... the guy gives a potted history next to every item and his photos are 1st class. He shows a lot of German "Notgeld" notes, which often featured the most amazing artwork

https://www.instagram.com/historical_banknotes/?hl=en

I save modern day British coins and bank notes, does that count?

Affection value for your grandchildren!