Coin Collecting

It's said that coin collecting is the hobby of the kings. I don't know too much about that, but coin collecting is my oldest hobby. Ever since I was a kid, something about coins really fascinated me. I live less than 20 miles away from Canada (I looked it up) and Canadian change is always ending up in our change. Unless it's a huge amount, Canadian change has always been a one-to-one conversion here because it's so common. So I would run across lots of Canadian coins in my own change and it fascinated me. I remember when I really got started in the hobby was when I got my first paper route. I'd find tons of cool coins every week. I started that back in 88 or 89, and I would run across wheat pennies, Susan B. Anthony dollars, silver quarters and dimes, mercury dimes, Canadian coins and I even found silver certificates. I found Irish coins, and pennies from Bermuda and The Bahamas. Since I got so much change, it was interesting just what would turn up.

Since then I've kept collecting coins, and I'm mostly interested in world coins because they are interesting. I don't go for the whole state quarters or presidential dollar coins because it's just so kitsch; to me they are just change and I'm not ready to be told what coins to collect. However give me a worthless low value coin from some eastern European country, and I'll hang onto that for ever. I used to hit coin shows, but now I'm kinda into eBay or stores.

On a similar note (preemptive groan) I also like collecting currency, and really like finding something unique like Notgeld or Occupation money. I also collect just about anything with Queen Victoria on it for some reason. I've got one of the coins in the picture.