My new approach to the 300 country club

I have been recently reorganizing my world coin collection. In the past, I often would just take any coin to fill in a country. It could be a common coin worth .25 cents and in fine condition. But now I am removing any coins from my collection I consider uncollectable. I am not even going to try to swap them; I plan on just giving them away to a local school or library. The rest of the coins I am removing from my collection, which are still collectable, I am putting on my swap list. This should take about a week. I want nice coins, at least half being silver, to be in my world coin collection.

I recently added a silver 1945L 1/2 Rupee for British India, a silver 1952 50 Piastres for Lebanon, and a 1930 5 Drachmai for Greece, and a 1 piastre emergency WWII coin for Syria. All vf or better. So my goal is get as many countries as I can, but with quality coins that worth at a couple of dollars or more. No cheap fillers.

This could take some time, perhaps years. But it will give something to work toward.

I have been mulling over a similar idea.

A single "quality" coin from 300 different countries pre-dating 1961, my birth year. Perhaps somewhat less expensive than your "silver lining" but, not necessarily.

I tend to be a minimalist and this hobby is quickly becoming an exercise in hoarding. I now have 10 albums of my "primo" coins, countless containers of coins, and a work desk covered in more coins. Did I mention I jingle everywhere I go?

Of course the problem being, as a member of Numista, I keep seeing beautiful coins I just gotta have

Nice selection on the Syria and Lebanon ones...

I might be able to help you with a silver one from venezuela in XF condition!

300 countries silver club is a step in the right direction ;)

Quote: "druzhynets"​300 countries silver club is a step in the right direction ;)

I've gone backwards; from 148 countries to 118. I would like to do that, but there are a lot countries that are very hard or very expensive to get silver coins. But I plan I getting as many as I can, for a reasonable price. It is a good ideal though. I am open for swaps now. ​

I made a nice long post, but it got randomly deleted when I hit Send

TL/DR - I love old coins, and I love silver coins, and I definitely love old silver coins, but I don't have that kind of money.
I currently have 50 silver coins, in 43 types (the other 7 are extra US war nickels), from 21 countries (for comparison, I have 216 countries in my full collection). I expect all of those numbers to increase, however, now that I actually have a job that pays money.

Also, a few countries legitimately didn't make any silver coins (Saar, Siberia, Spitsbergen, Tonkin, among others), a few don't have any non-cheap coins at all, silver or otherwise (Bohemia and Moravia, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon - though both of those made expensive patterns), many only made NCLT in silver (most countries that didn't come into existence until the 1960s or later, e.g. most places of decolonization origin, would be in this category), and in a few cases (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina...) your choice of silver is either very rare historical coins (that might not even really belong in the same country) - or (also uncommon) random modern NCLT. (And in many cases I didn't mention, any non-cheap coins are NCLT.)
[Actually, I won't be surprised if some places didn't make any NCLT silver either. And I could swear there was some country that only made gold, but I might just be misremembering, unfortunately.]

Quote: "frankhammer"​

Quote: "druzhynets"​300 countries silver club is a step in the right direction ;)

​I've gone backwards; from 148 countries to 118. I would like to do that, but there are a lot countries that are very hard or very expensive to get silver coins. But I plan I getting as many as I can, for a reasonably price. It is a good ideal though. I am open for swaps now. ​

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I had '100 countries club' silver circulating coins with the limitations of weight not less than 25 g. The collection was nice and consistent. :)

Quote: "druzhynets"​

Quote: "frankhammer"​
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Quote: "druzhynets"​300 countries silver club is a step in the right direction ;)

​​I've gone backwards; from 148 countries to 118. I would like to do that, but there are a lot countries that are very hard or very expensive to get silver coins. But I plan I getting as many as I can, for a reasonably price. It is a good ideal though. I am open for swaps now. ​

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​I had '100 countries club' silver circulating coins with the limitations of weight not less than 25 g. The collection was nice and consistent. :)

That's a lot

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Quality should always trump quantity but having said that there are a lot of really beautiful coins with little to no value. Some of the larger Yugoslavia issues are quite nice and many of the South American countries produce really nicely designed coins by the million.

I've always liked the condor issues from Chile and the ones with a female representing Liberty breaking her chains. They can be found all day long in junk bins for 10c each. I'd be just as happy to have such coins filling a gap in my countries list than a less attractive coin with a higher value.

I like the idea of gifting the culled coins, well done. You may be seeding a few great numismatists in the next generation, isn't that a great thought? Well worth a few dollars I'd say. I'm toying with the idea of doing something similar at Abby's school.

Quote: "druzhynets"​300 countries silver club is a step in the right direction ;)

​Problem is there are plenty of countries that do not have any silver coins unless you go for the awful made-for-collectors commemoratives. Most of the Pacific islands for one.

Quote: "neilithic"​

Quote: "druzhynets"​300 countries silver club is a step in the right direction ;)

​​Problem is there are plenty of countries that do not have any silver coins unless you go for the awful made-for-collectors commemoratives. Most of the Pacific islands for one.

​Just about anything that became independent after 1960 or so, really. (And many that got there earlier.)
There are even a few countries (as I have already mentioned) that do not have any silver coins at all (commemorative or otherwise) - though since the 1960s just about everyone made at least some stuff for collectors, so most of those are countries that stopped existing before the 1960s and just didn't happen to make circulation silver.
Then again, IIRC, in some cases, some of the silver commemoratives are not awful (or not even really made for collectors).

And, IIRC, for a few countries (think European and 1990s independence), you can go for the awful made-for-collectors commemoratives - or for a really rare (and often tiny) medieval silver coin of a distant predecessor of said country, which Numista groups in the same "country".

Quote: "neilithic"​

Quote: "druzhynets"​300 countries silver club is a step in the right direction ;)

​​Problem is there are plenty of countries that do not have any silver coins unless you go for the awful made-for-collectors commemoratives. Most of the Pacific islands for one.

​In my personal case, once I start upgrading my world collection I will like to have one only the ones with the best design, material (not limited to silver) and perhaps go for a whole set in case the design repeats at the 1,5,25,50 cents and 1 whatever currency... some of them looks pretty neat once they are together!!!

Quote: "neilithic"​

Quote: "druzhynets"​300 countries silver club is a step in the right direction ;)

​​Problem is there are plenty of countries that do not have any silver coins unless you go for the awful made-for-collectors commemoratives. Most of the Pacific islands for one.

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You just don't need to stick to Numista's country list. Take German States, Italian States and you will have even more than 300 countries.

A state is not a country. Do you collect the US state quarters series then claim to have coins from 50 different countries?

So, you are trying to say that the kingdom of Sardinia, kingdom of Sicily, duchy of Milan and so on were one state altogether? I just can't get that. They were all independent countries. This is how I see it.

The 50 States don't consider themselves to be countries, although there is a very real possibility that Texas and possibly Alaska might file articles of secession in the event of a Clinton Presidency. At that point we would regard them as a separate numismatic entity, just like we do with the few coins issued by the CSA.