I may have a cool idea on swapping coins

I've been collection coins for about 7 years I think and something really bothers me. Whenever I buy a bulk lot of coins, I always end up getting a lot of common coins (French Francs, Spanish Pesetas, D-Marks, etc.) that I have completed the series of and since most people have these coins too, they just end up in jars collecting dust since almost nobody wants to swap them. However, there are still some series left uncompleted that I stil would like to complete. Also, I'm not a huge fan of small 10-coin swaps because usually they don't cover the shipping costs.

So I was thinking of this:

What about, I send all my double coins (226 at the moment) to another Numista member. He can pick all the coins he needs from my pile and in exchange he adds all his unwanted swap coins to the pile remainging. Next, he sends the pile to another Numista member, that also picks and adds coins to the pile and the circle continues... Members part of this trading circle aren't obliged to anything, they can also just pick coins and send what remains to the next member for all I care.

In avoidance of getting everybody upset I thought of the following rules to keep these kind of networks stable:

- Numista members that want to be part of a network must live on the same continent (to keep it affordable for everyone)
- The package (pile of coins+packaging) must weigh no more than 2 KGS (again, to keep it affordable, but if participants are willing to pay more shipping than that's up to them)
- A network must consist of a maximum of 10 participants (to keep things simple)
- There should be some sort of continuous order (person A sends to B, sends to C and back to A for example) to give everybody the oppurtunity to pick coins
- Every participant should have at least received 10 times a 5-star feedback

It's just in idea that crossed my mind, if anybody has something to say about it, please leave it in the comments! :D

As I understood you are talking about low price coins so I expect the shipping fees to be more expensive for 2 kilos of coins than coins itself.

I like the idea, but I agree with Andy. Too expensive for me for shipping.

The idea is great but I also worry about shipping costs. Perhaps we can come up with a variation such as lay the coins flat on a flatbed scanner and post a scan or something like that, and only ship the ones someone wants?

Perhaps we could pick a day (call it "coin day" or something) and start a sign up list. Someone could volunteer to pick a park or library in their area, and state the times that they want to be there. Everyone else who wants to participate can check the list to see if someone has listed their area and if so, meet and swap. If not, they could designate a place/time and start a swap-meet. We would only have piles of common coins, so there would be not too much chance of someone robbing someone else.

Actually that sounds pretty cool! Swap meets are a great idea :)

Also, I like the first idea too, maybe it is indeed more convenient to just send coins that you can directly put in your collection, otherwise there would be lots of piles of unwanted coins floating around....