Monday, November 30, 2015

My Coin Collection

I finally got my currency collection sorted out thanks to the coin collection starter kit that I got from Amazon.com.

My coin collection album

Every time I would travel to another country, I would keep some of my small change (or low value bills) as part of my currency collection. I also realized my mom had a collection of coins, not only from her international trips but also a lot of local currency over the decades, a lot of which are no longer in circulation. However, up until recently, I didn't have a good way to present what I had (everything I had was kept in small containers or unused wallets). That is, until I checked Amazon to see if they had anything that I could use and I saw the coin collection starter kit. You can use it to store and display coins and bills and the great thing about it is that you can see both front and back of all the currency in the album. Cool!


A spread that shows some Philippine pesos (on the left) and Scandinavian currency (on the right)

One cool thing about my collection is that it also includes European currency that have not been in circulation since the Euro was established. My first trip to Europe - specifically, to Belgium - came before the Euro went into circulation. As such, I still have some Belgian francs.

Belgian franc

My mom also went around Europe in the 90s and she was able to keep some French francs, Italian Lira, Austrian schillings, and Deutsche Marks. I decided to display these coins that have already been discontinued on the same page. I also threw in the Luxembourgish francs that I had.

French francs, Luxembourgish franc, and Italian lira

While my collection includes a lot of cool coins and even a couple of MRT tokens from St. Petersburg, the most interesting item I have is a 25-cent coin from the State of Eritrea. I have never been to Africa and I'm sure no one I know gave me this coin so I am guessing it was given to my mom by someone. The great thing about this is that up until I saw this coin, I wasn't even familiar with the State of Eritrea.

25 cents from the State of Eritrea

I also have a lot of bank notes and my albums has pages that allows me to display bills. My album now includes a few international notes like Chinese RMB, some local currency, some limited edition local bills such as the commemorative UP College of Law P100, La Salle P100 and UST P200 bills, and also local bills that are not in circulation anymore such as the P5 bill. (It's too bad we don't have a P2 bill.)

5 pesos when it was still a bill

It took a while for me to put my coin collection together and it's not completely done yet because I want to put tags on each one to present the currency and value. Nevertheless, I'm really happy that I have a good way to keep my currency collection and share it with others.

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