The "Countries" Club, a Cautionary Tale

Like many of us, I started collecting coins from my own country. In my case, Canadian Cents by date which I completed but then sold an F 1893. Still trying to improve everything to VF or better.

Shortly thereafter a $2 purchase at the antique market resulted in my 2nd collection, Canadian Colonials.

Neither the seller nor I knew what it was, but I had a hunch.

Numista has been a great companion along the way and to keep active in the community I decided that my 3rd collection would be the "300 Country Club" ( Yes, I've been around that long!!). I eventually decided on only circulating coins from countries from the year I was born (1961) or before. Seemed like a worthy goal.

But, after another (?) weekend of sorting / culling, I've come to realize that my 3rd collection is becoming quite challenging financially. Here's my map of pre-1962 coins with a Value chart beside it .............



Some points of note...

1. 250 Country Club is not possible, in fact, I can't even make 200 countries pre-1962.
2. As you can see, almost 85% of the collection are on the low end of the value chart (< $25). It's the other 15% that really hits the pocket book.
3. I have the U.S.A. covered on this map. I consider Hard Times and Civil War Tokens to be circulating coins (not in the Value chart).

Numismatics is always "a fun ride" and I'm going to continue my focus on these 3 collections. My monthly budget of $100 Cdn will now be saved monthly until I have a "War Chest" for the big boy auctions.

In closing, what's you experience?

I am so honored to meet the target before the 300 countries club became history. I considered I have achieved the target so from now on I no longer focus on countries number (quantity).

Now I am having a great interest in specific coinage, particularly cash coinage, indian and islamic coinages (quality).

Afterall, the 300 countries club indeed gave me a milestone and motivation to coins collecting.

That countries club definitely created a lot of needless grief for quite a few people. Numista didn’t intend for people to latch on to its catalogue and make it a prestige thing, but people did and many went to ridiculous lengths to fight over it.

on the flip side, it gave a lot of people that initial motivation, so for those who pivoted eventually, I’m glad for them!

i see you’ve gone up to $400! My biggest spend on a single coin so far has been 225$ and I just placed it last week for an Indian proof coin that has eluded me for years. I still have to verify that it’s the real thing before I give a rating to the seller

I remember reading somewhere that the Numista catalogue wasn't meant to be a faithful reproduction of the Krause World Coins cataloguing. Yet, there are many areas where this is exactly what happens.

I'll take colonial Canada as a case study. We have here in the catalogue the bizarre category "Canadian Provinces". I suppose that this is because in the KM 1801-1900 the provinces are listed after the decimal coinage (with the 1858-9 coinage wrongly attributed to Canada after Confederation, i.e. the formation of the Dominion).

The following should be separate issuers under Canada (like Newfoundland is already), whatever the number of coins or (bank) tokens they issued officially:

Nova Scotia
New Brunswick
Prince Edward Island
Lower Canada
Upper Canada

PEI has had time to produce a single decimal cent in 1871 before they joined the Dominion of Canada. Whether one or a hundred coins, it's an issuer nevertheless. Meanwhile, why is it that Isles de France et Bonaparte gets its separate, stand-alone entry (not even under French colonial)? Is it because that's how it is in KM?

Numista indeed should not be reproduction of Krause. And I agree on Canadian provinces, they should be separate.

Quote: "Jarcek"​Numista indeed should not be reproduction of Krause. And I agree on Canadian provinces, they should be separate.

​
They were actually British colonies in what is now Canada.

The concept of a Canadian province began in 1867 when Upper & Lower Canada became Ontario & Quebec.

Aidan.

The term "province" was used to mean "colony", but New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI, and Vancouver Island/British Columbia (separate or joined colonies which issued only stamps) were not Canadian until 1867-1871. Manitoba was detached in 1870 from the North-West Territories, as were Saskatchewan and Alberta in 1905. I've seen pre-1905 Canadian stamps used in Calgary and cancelled "CALGARY - NWT).

Newfoundland became a Canadian province only in 1949. Until then, its status is somewhat ambiguous because it was a colony/province until 1907 when it became a Dominion, but then relinquished its autonomy and was ruled again with British overlordship when the economy went down the drain.

I think that's what explains why George VI wears a crown on Newfoundland coinage, while Canada has the bare head portrait.¹

_________________
¹In Canada, George V did, but they simply did not update the portrait after the Ottawa Conference of 1932; they waited for the next ruler to do so, just as they did to modernize the reverse designs.

I think a lot of us don't mind too much how many countries there are, especially people who specialise in only a few countries. I have 142 countries because I have a side collection of world coins, bbut probably 80 of those countries I have 5 or less coins, or coins of 5 types or less (For example, my Namibia coins are 2 x 5c, 21 x 10c, 4 x 50c and 6 x $1 - That is 33 coins, but only 4 types).

And of my nearly 9,000 coins, at least 5,000 of them are from only 4 countries! (NZ, Australia and Britain about 1400 each and 600 from the USA).

I think now its 195 proper countries, but about 209 if you include dependencies and controversial countries like Abkhazia and Taiwan. So these numbers must include obselete countries like the Timurid Caliphate, Prussia and Aragon amongst others.

Quote: "Camerinvs"Meanwhile, why is it that Isles de France et Bonaparte gets its separate, stand-alone entry (not even under French colonial)? Is it because that's how it is in KM?

​Yeah, I've been bothered by that one for a while. As far as I can tell they get a stand-alone entry because they're a combination of Mauritius (now independent) and Reunion (now French), so they don't really belong under anywhere in particular; a better question is why Isles de France et Bourbon, the exact same area under a different name, is not under the same entry.

Issuer distribution is overall weird, though. German states get their own issuer entry after each change of which exact subtype of state they are, while Timor-Leste and Portuguese Timor are lumped together in the same issuer.


Unrelatedly, being completely unable to do 200 (or even 250) pre-1962 countries sounds unlikely; I'll check the Numista list, but offhand I suspect there's more than 250 countries that have pre-1962 coins listed. (More if we include circulating tokens.)
[EDIT: oh, right, didn't notice the "only circulating" part. That would get rid of a bunch, though probably still not enough to get below 200.]

OTOH, some of those pre-1962 coins are probably highly scarce medieval (and/or ancient) types, and a few don't really have much connection with the modern country they're listed under...

[EDIT 2: turns out there are, give or take some edge cases, 239 countries with pre-1962 circulating coinage. This includes all the ancients and medievals. In a few more of those 239 the only pre-1962 circulating coinage consists of obscure local tokens and/or counterstamped colonial issues. But generally it sounds like a 200 country pre-1962 quest will be comparable to getting ca. 280 countries overall; extremely hard but probably doable with enough work and money.]

Quote: "Camerinvs"​I remember reading somewhere that the Numista catalogue wasn't meant to be a faithful reproduction of the Krause World Coins cataloguing. Yet, there are many areas where this is exactly what happens.

​Numista started off rather Krause-based, in regards to the country list, but when the levelled country list was implemented, it was easier to move away from that format. So... many of those place which are still very Krause-based would be remanences of our old system, which still need time to be modified to fit our current system.
​

Quote: "Camerinvs"I'll take colonial Canada as a case study. We have here in the catalogue the bizarre category "Canadian Provinces". I suppose that this is because in the KM 1801-1900 the provinces are listed after the decimal coinage (with the 1858-9 coinage wrongly attributed to Canada after Confederation, i.e. the formation of the Dominion).
​
​The following should be separate issuers under Canada (like Newfoundland is already), whatever the number of coins or (bank) tokens they issued officially:
​
​Nova Scotia
​New Brunswick
​Prince Edward Island
​Lower Canada
​Upper Canada

​I made a thread about splitting the Canadian Provinces a while ago (in the referee forum). If you are interested in the "official" list:

• Alberta, Province of (banknotes only)
  
• Canada, Province of
  
• Lower Canada
  
• Magdalen Islands (see here)
  
• New Brunswick
  
• Nova Scotia
  
• Prince Edward Island
  
• Upper Canada
  
• Canada, Colonial (for coins of an uncertain attribution)
  
• British colonies (for this coin; to be moved out of Canada)
  

I say "offical" because, while the above has obviously not been implemented yet, the referee for the Canadian Provinces is in agreement with that list.

Quote: "Sulfur"​​​I made a thread about splitting the Canadian Provinces a while ago (in the referee forum). If you are interested in the "official" list:
​

• Alberta, Province of (banknotes only)
  ​
  
• Canada, Province of
  ​
  
• Lower Canada
  ​
  
• Magdalen Islands (see here)
  ​
  
• New Brunswick
  ​
  
• Nova Scotia
  ​
  
• Prince Edward Island
  ​
  
• Upper Canada
  ​
  
• Canada, Colonial (for coins of an uncertain attribution)
  ​
  
• British colonies (for this coin; to be moved out of Canada)
  ​
  

​
​I say "official" because, while the above has obviously not been implemented yet, the referee for the Canadian Provinces is in agreement with that list.

​Hi Sulfur and all,

Very interesting, but let me comment...

Alberta: I agree, even though there is (if I'm not mistaken) only a single banknote, but actually also trade tokens especially from the 1920s-1940s, i.e. "good for" tokens for general stores, bakeries, milk, etc. I have quite a few that I have not yet entered into the catalogue. And this is true for every province post-confederation (1867-...) and for the Dominion of Newfoundland. Here is for example the hundreds of Saskatchewan tokens on the Saskatoon Coin Club page. There are thousands for Ontario and Quebec. In many provinces and Newfoundland, too, there are companies tokens to be used by their employees in the company's stores, especially lumber companies in remote areas.

Magdalen Islands: They were part of Lower Canada and the Charlton and Haxby & Willey catalogues recognize this fact.

Canada, Colonial: "British North America in General" would be a better denomination. Now look at this:



I take the definition of BNA as in the last two Google results, not Wikipedia, though this is possible as well. If under Canada, here in Numista, then the definition is obviously the one found in The Canadian Encyclopedia (second Google result).

By the way, Numista cannot reasonably be expected to rewrite the history of colonial coinages in British North America, but many attributions to one or another specific colony over the past century are pointless because private for-profit issues were mostly intended for the colonies in general.

British Colonies: Yes, I agree. It has been recognized some time ago that the BRITISH COLONIES / TO FACILITATE TRADE 1825 token doesn't belong to Canada. Robert Wiley in 1982 pointed out that Canadian collectors until about 1914 would eagerly include all sorts of coppers whose attribution to Canada was doubtful at best. That token he attributes to Jamaica. It it NOT listed as such by Pridmore in his 1965 catalogue for the West Indies, but he actually doesn't include it at all; it maybe that he still accepted the Canadian attribution at that time.

Regarding Alberta: this list originally started for coins only, then moved to include banknotes when banknotes were added to the site. I have done nothing regarding the Exonumia section of the Canadian Provinces yet (I would only attempt to do that after the Coins/Banknotes sections are dealt with, as those two sections are much more simple).

Regarding the Magdalen Islands: the list I made was actually before we had fourth-level issuers. The list would more accurately look like this (although I have not yet updated my request, so I will do that later):

Canada
----- Canadian Provinces
---------- Lower Canada (for a header)
--------------- Magdalen Islands
--------------- Lower Canada

Regarding Canada, Colonial: the biggest problem with "British North America" is that this term encompasses more areas than just Canada. With that being said, those last two results you showed are specifically talking about the history of Canada, so while they are correct to mention that Canada was part of British North America, they can also understandably omit those places outside Canada that were also part of British North America. And so "Canada, Colonial" is generic enough to encompass the specific parts of British North America we are talking about, in my opinion.

Quote: "Sulfur"Canada, Colonial: the biggest problem with "British North America" is that this term encompasses more areas than just Canada. With that being said, those last two results you showed are specifically talking about the history of Canada, so while they are correct to mention that Canada was part of British North America, they can also understandably omit those places outside Canada that were also part of British North America. And so "Canada, Colonial" is generic enough to encompass the specific parts of British North America we are talking about, in my opinion.

​Altogether it doesn't matter a huge lot what it's called in Numista, but let me take this opportunity to say a couple of things with my historian's hat on (which I am ─ well ... not a hat but a historian). If we try to imagine ourselves in 1839, for example, we would have never considered New Brunswick as a Canadian colony. But it was a BNA colony. What's more, as said in Wikipedia, "the term British North America came to be used more consistently in connection with the provinces that would eventually form the Dominion of Canada, following the Report on the Affairs of British North America (1839), called the Durham Report". This is the very definition that explains why British lawyers themselves called "British North America Act, 1867" the legislation that provided for the creation of the Dominion of Canada.

If you decide to go with BNA (again, it's entirely up to you), as it would be under Canada, it would be clear what definition is being used and it could be pointed out in the intro to that section what definition is being used (I could write it up, though the Wikipedia text is all that we would need).

As you know I'm sure, anachronism is a problem for the historian. Not long ago, I submitted a number of corrections to the French pages where Louis-Joseph-Napoléon Bonaparte was just called "Napoléon" while he was President, not Emperor, i.e. for coins struck between December 2nd 1851 and December 2nd 1852, when he was crowned Emperor. Only from this later date can he be called "Napoléon". Likewise, Napoléon I was Napoléon Bonaparte, or just Bonaparte, before December 2nd 1804 when he was crowned (or rather crowned himself) Emperor.

I hope all this doesn't sound too much like a lecture! I know many Numista users are aware of anachronism, but it looks to me like many more don't. I should point out that sometimes, even scholars commit (usually minor) anachronisms, so I wouldn't hold coin collectors to higher standards.

Quote: "Camerinvs"If we try to imagine ourselves in 1839, for example, we would have never considered New Brunswick as a Canadian colony. But it was a BNA colony. What's more, as said in Wikipedia, "the term British North America came to be used more consistently in connection with the provinces that would eventually form the Dominion of Canada, following the Report on the Affairs of British North America (1839), called the Durham Report". This is the very definition that explains why British lawyers themselves called "British North America Act, 1867" the legislation that provided for the creation of the Dominion of Canada.

​It does not sound like a lecture, but it still sounds debatable.

By saying "Colonial Canada", we would not be claiming that New Brunswick was a Canadian colony--that would be for an issuer called "Canadian colonies" (like British colonies or French colonies--both of which should be first-level issuers, by the by). Saying "Colonial Canada" would refer to the period when Canada was colonized (in this case, colonized by the British).

And when it comes to naming issuers, we tend to use names contemporary to the coins. I believe the coins that would occupy this issuer are all from before 1839 (mostly just the blacksmith tokens), so British North America would have still included Bermuda back then.

Quote: "January First-of-May"​​Yeah, I've been bothered by that one for a while. As far as I can tell they get a stand-alone entry because they're a combination of Mauritius (now independent) and Reunion (now French), so they don't really belong under anywhere in particular; a better question is why Isles de France et Bourbon, the exact same area under a different name, is not under the same entry.

​You are correct as to why Isles de France and Bonaparte is a first-level issuer.

And that is a very good point about Isles de France and Bourbon--I never even knew their coins were listed under Réunion. I will make a request to change that.