My coin collection and showing additional information with the coins

Hello fellow numismats,

I would like to show you the result of the project I've been working on for the past 10 months. Ever since I started collecting coins 30 years ago (I'm 36 now), I've had binders with coins in them. The first years, it was just a little black binder, containing a few dozen coins. In the following years, the collection slowly grew to 8 binders containing about 1900 coins. I eventually lost interest in them and they disappeared in a drawer. Three and a half years ago, I came across this community and my interest in collecting was rekindled. Thanks to my fellow numismats, the collection has now grown to 28 binders containing over 5200 coins!

With all those coins in the binders, it always annoyed me that there was nothing available to show more information about them. I found flag cards that I used, but they were outdated and incomplete. The most obscure countries were there, but some other basic countries were absent. Also, for new countries (South Sudan), and countries that changed names (Macedonia -> North Macedonia) there was no card available.



Next to the flag and countryname, I'd like to show a bit more information about the currencies.

So, with nothing available, I decided to take matters into my own hands! I purchased a new labelprinter that could print in color, the Brother VC-500W. The printer has 5 different cartridges available (9mm, 12mm, 19mm, 25mm and 50mm). The 50mm is perfect, as the coin holders I use are also 50mm x 50mm.



I use blind coin holders (without a hole for the coin) to stick the label on. Each country starts with a flag and the name of the country. If a country has issuers that used to be separate countries, I use the flag of the current country (or the last used country when it doesn't exist anymore). The second card is some information about the currency. If the issuer has (or had) its own flag, I show that flag and the name of the issuer.
Furthermore, the currency, the years that the currency was (or is) used and the subunit(s) of the currency. This information card is added for each currency that was used in a country.



Next to currency information cards, I also have card for series of coins, for instance the United States State Quarter Program, or the Russian series about the Patriotic War of 1812.



And now, 10 months after I started my project, I'm finally done! Every country, every currency and every series has it's own card. I created 612 cards for the countries, currencies and series (that's over 30 meters of labels!). Next to that, every binder has a label with the countries that are in that binder.



Although this has been a very expensive project with an estimated cost of around € 450, I really feel that it's a fantastic addition to the coins.

So that's the story, thanks for reading!

Thank you so much for sharing! Well done! I like it!
I will take some takeaways for my collection also. Just need to find time for it:)

smvdbrink - monumental task undertaken by you.
Amazing outcome.

Nice & thorough job! The question of organizing is a neverending one.

I really like it!

I'm not that shocked that people still store their collections inappropriately (in cans or jars/in photo albums or taped on scrapbook paper). I used to stuff my notes in envelopes long ago when I just started (& the few coins I had used to be put into ashtrays). I had no idea about the damage moisture, PVC & other things can do to discolour or ruin a decent coin or note.

But over the years I started to value my collection & moved them into more appropriate PVC-free mylar sleeves & albums. About 4 years ago I went to a great RCNA (Royal Canadian Numismatic Association) workshop on grading & storing one's collection. The caring/storing part was led by a museum curator who looked at us collectors like we were a bunch of chumps (for not taking better care of our valued coins/notes). I didn't feel as guilty as some of my fellow collectors since I had already organized my collection back in 2006. I was also fairly confident that my collection was stored in a dry place.

It's nice the way you've taken it to the next level. You've shown pride in your collection with an eye to details & how to display it advantageously. Keeping your collection well organized, and ready for display, is a big step towards having an topnotch world set of coins. Thanks for sharing your progress!

Mooi initiatief!

Congratulations on fantastic result!

Hi, nice solution, where do you get the blind coin flips from? Can't find any on Google?
Thanks
Stewart

Thank you all for the nice comments and compliments!

@Stewartdiver, this is where I buy the blind coin flips: https://en.hartberger.com/hartberger-coin-holders-not-adhesive-blind-100x.html

Hello smvdbrink

I like the way you organise your coin collection this has inspired me to do a similar thing with my collection when I buy all of the albums and pages. This would be handy when you have a diverse collection such as mine and have a large amount of coins in your collection. My ideal collection would be coins sorted into flips then into albums by country denomination and by year. By the time of the next decade rolls over hopefully I would own 20.000 circulating/non-circulating coins, 2.000 precious metal coins and 999 banknotes in my collection by then so when it turns 2030 I would have this amount of coins in my collection.

very nice project. I love the flags as wordless index of contents on the spine of each volume.

That is really nice. I like it.
Im now keeping all my best coins in Capsules and are stored in coin tubes that hold 20. I can take em out and show friends and family and they like holding the coin, the outside of the can has all the info.

Nice work! You have inspired me to try something a little different than your approach for labeling. I will post my results if successful.

Thanks for the inspiration.

I do it a bit differently. I have around 42.000 different coins in my collection!

The virtual collection itself is in a excel sheet in the order of countries, denominations, years, mints and variants (my order, my country names as in the km catalogs).

The physical collection is organized in binders (pvc-free pages).

For countries with small amount of coins they are in bundled binders, where the coins are sorted by country only (guinea bissau, cape verde etc.)! The coins here are not ordered in any other way than when the coin came into the page!
For countries with many coins they can be in several binders and sometimes even divided into "old" or "new" like Australia, United kingdom and Brazil. For countries where I really have a lot and missing few, the coins are ordered by denomination, year, variant, which makes it easy to check quality and so on.

Each binder has a number from 001 to 130 (for the moment) and I have a small excel sheet where I link the the country/denomination to the binder. So when I check coins or put new coins aside I pass by the country/binder file and put or check the coins in the proper binder. When I decide a binder is too small or a country too big (in the end it's the same thing, I add a new folder and amend my country/binder file. It's very flexible and I don't have to worry about labels on my binders, a number is enough...

Have fun organizing yourself

where did you buy the "blind coin holders without a hole"?

Quote: "aephi"​where did you buy the "blind coin holders without a hole"?

​The same question is already in this thread (8-Mar-2021, 09:06PM):

Quote: "Stewartdriver"Hi, nice solution, where do you get the blind coin flips from? Can't find any on Google?
Thanks
Stewart

As is the answer (9-Mar-2021, 05:55PM):

Quote: "smvdbrink"@Stewartdiver, this is where I buy the blind coin flips: https://en.hartberger.com/hartberger-coin-holders-not-adhesive-blind-100x.html

Essor prof - I think they mean these ones without hole:



As I zoom it looks like there's just peace of paper above basic 2×2 with hole?

Quote: "Trp"​Essor prof - I think they mean these ones without hole:

​I definitely was talking about those blind cards. But maybe you're mislead by the picture (I think they use the same picture for the whole assortment). Check the description:

Quote: "Trp"As I zoom it looks like there's just peace of paper above basic 2×2 with hole?

No, it's really a blind 5cm x 5cm card (I like to use non-retard units ). As Essor Prof pointed out, the picture on the website is misleading

I was hoping to ask any of you watching this topic about the "flag cards". I have been looking around for these flag cards in the size of the BCW (2"x2") coin page that many of you seem to use to house your flips.


I see them (flag cards) on Amazon and similar in some of the coin collecting sections but they are associated to a larger kit.
Amazon.com : Coin Collection Starter Kit 180 Countries Coins Collection Set 100% Original Genuine World Coin with Leather Collecting Album Taged by Country Name and Flags (180 Collection Starter Kit) : Toys & Games


Is there a source for the "flag cards" that could be shared?
I like the idea of having a Country flag in one of the 2x2 flip holders, and maybe 3 representative coins of that country in the adjoining flip holders.

Where did you get all of those binders? They must have been expensive, same with that label printer!

Are you trying to make me embrace imperial measurements even more be insulting them?

Quote: "Rexwaves"​​Is there a source for the "flag cards" that could be shared?

I made the cards myself using the software for the labelprinter. All the flag images come from Wikipedia.

Quote: "JoeTheLucky"Where did you get all of those binders? They must have been expensive, same with that label printer!

I get them from Hartberger (https://en.hartberger.com/hartberger-gms-standard-ringbinder-blue.html). They are € 12,50 each, but really good!

Quote: "JoeTheLucky"Are you trying to make me embrace imperial measurements even more be insulting them?

Haha, no, but I really don't understand imperial units. To me, there is nothing logical about it.

Ah, they don't seem to be much better quality than your typical school binder, they just look a bit better. Are they worth the price?

I think I'll just go for some black ones, a heck of a lot cheaper! And maybe a heck of lot lower quality, but I think they will last long enough.

smvdbrinkHello fellow numismats,

I would like to show you the result of the project I've been working on for the past 10 months. Ever since I started collecting coins 30 years ago (I'm 36 now), I've had binders with coins in them. The first years, it was just a little black binder, containing a few dozen coins. In the following years, the collection slowly grew to 8 binders containing about 1900 coins. I eventually lost interest in them and they disappeared in a drawer. Three and a half years ago, I came across this community and my interest in collecting was rekindled. Thanks to my fellow numismats, the collection has now grown to 28 binders containing over 5200 coins!

With all those coins in the binders, it always annoyed me that there was nothing available to show more information about them. I found flag cards that I used, but they were outdated and incomplete. The most obscure countries were there, but some other basic countries were absent. Also, for new countries (South Sudan), and countries that changed names (Macedonia -> North Macedonia) there was no card available.



Next to the flag and countryname, I'd like to show a bit more information about the currencies.

So, with nothing available, I decided to take matters into my own hands! I purchased a new labelprinter that could print in color, the Brother VC-500W. The printer has 5 different cartridges available (9mm, 12mm, 19mm, 25mm and 50mm). The 50mm is perfect, as the coin holders I use are also 50mm x 50mm. 



I use blind coin holders (without a hole for the coin) to stick the label on. Each country starts with a flag and the name of the country. If a country has issuers that used to be separate countries, I use the flag of the current country (or the last used country when it doesn't exist anymore). The second card is some information about the currency. If the issuer has (or had) its own flag, I show that flag and the name of the issuer.
Furthermore, the currency, the years that the currency was (or is) used and the subunit(s) of the currency. This information card is added for each currency that was used in a country. 



Next to currency information cards, I also have card for series of coins, for instance the United States State Quarter Program, or the Russian series about the Patriotic War of 1812.



And now, 10 months after I started my project, I'm finally done! Every country, every currency and every series has it's own card. I created 612 cards for the countries, currencies and series (that's over 30 meters of labels!). Next to that, every binder has a label with the countries that are in that binder. 



Although this has been a very expensive project with an estimated cost of around € 450, I really feel that it's a fantastic addition to the coins.

So that's the story, thanks for reading!

Hey smvdbrink (and others who can help maybe?)

It looks really good! I'm doing a similar project (very slowly) but will like one lebel per country as much as possibly. I ran into the trouble of what to do with flags and countrynames on labels, when it's a currency union, like Central African States, Qatar & Dubai or East Carribian States? Basicly when there is not a single flag to represent the union. 

Even more where I would like to specify which countries are in the union? So not to write “Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo” with really small text.

 

Hope someone can help me with it :D

- Jacob

I'm with lighthouse (Leuchtturm) and the numis size of pages and albums since 40 years, and still going on with my next binder; #140. I don't care about ,label, banners etc, so everything is a long slowly running river for me !

Jamtrup

Hey smvdbrink (and others who can help maybe?)

It looks really good! I'm doing a similar project (very slowly) but will like one lebel per country as much as possibly. I ran into the trouble of what to do with flags and countrynames on labels, when it's a currency union, like Central African States, Qatar & Dubai or East Carribian States? Basicly when there is not a single flag to represent the union. 

Even more where I would like to specify which countries are in the union? So not to write “Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo” with really small text.

 

Hope someone can help me with it :D

- Jacob

Hi Jacob,

 

Finding the right flag sometimes is a puzzle. For the currency unions, I try to find a logo that is used by that union, for instance:

For Central African States, I just picked a flag, which is that of the Central African Republic. Regarding showing more than one country on a label, I do that only for the cards on the back of the albums. There are albums with coins from one country, but in some cases also the countries that ‘belonged’ to that country. For the other albums, it's just by alphabet. How many countries are in an album depends on how large the collection of coins for a country is 🙂

 

 

Why have you used the Weimar Republic/Federal Eagle and not the HRE one for German States?

Idolenz

Why have you used the Weimar Republic/Federal Eagle and not the HRE one for German States?

Because I wasn't aware of the existence of that flag (or the fact that the German States were part of the Holy Roman Empire 😄). Thanks, I'll change it in my collection 🙂

JoeTheLuckyAh, they don't seem to be much better quality than your typical school binder, they just look a bit better. Are they worth the price?

I think I'll just go for some black ones, a heck of a lot cheaper! And maybe a heck of lot lower quality, but I think they will last long enough.

Yeah, but be sure that your coin pages are compatible to the number and distance of the rings in your albums:

smvdbrink

Jamtrup

Hey smvdbrink (and others who can help maybe?)

It looks really good! I'm doing a similar project (very slowly) but will like one lebel per country as much as possibly. I ran into the trouble of what to do with flags and countrynames on labels, when it's a currency union, like Central African States, Qatar & Dubai or East Carribian States? Basicly when there is not a single flag to represent the union. 

Even more where I would like to specify which countries are in the union? So not to write “Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo” with really small text.

 

Hope someone can help me with it :D

- Jacob

Hi Jacob,

 

Finding the right flag sometimes is a puzzle. For the currency unions, I try to find a logo that is used by that union, for instance:

For Central African States, I just picked a flag, which is that of the Central African Republic. Regarding showing more than one country on a label, I do that only for the cards on the back of the albums. There are albums with coins from one country, but in some cases also the countries that ‘belonged’ to that country. For the other albums, it's just by alphabet. How many countries are in an album depends on how large the collection of coins for a country is 🙂

 

 

Hey Smvdbrink

Thanks for your input!

 

In my quest to find a flag for the Central African States, I found this:

https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/int-emca.html

 

Maybe that's better than the Central African Republic's flag? :D