The annual summary of my year in coin collecting with some highlights, the most incredible year for finds in decades.
Change Finds:
--Canada again leads the pack with 153
--Great Britain is 2nd with 31
--Germany is 3rd with 13
France, the Bahamas, Singapore, and Switzerland come in the top five also.
New countries found in my change include Belgium, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Iceland, Malaysia, Namibia, Oman, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Turkey, and the Ukraine. I made a change in jobs and in lunch. Now that I have to buy lunch outside of work I use cash since it is faster and offers more options. These lunch places have lots of foreign coins up for trade and take a penny leave a penny trays filled with odd things.
The graph for American money is fairly predictable the lowest face value coins and currency are easier to find. The exception are dimes because since 1965 it has not changed design and older ones are silver and get easily filtered. No 50 or 100 dollar bills although I now found an ATM that spits out larger bills.
Oldest United States Find
1916 Cent
Oldest Foreign Find
1940 Canadian Cent
Most Valuable Find (above face value): tie
2013 $5 Star Note, ML-* about $10.00
1963-A $2 Bill, A-A about $7.00
Most Valuable Foreign Find
Asian Merchant/Game Token, 010-8887 8206 about $1.00
Most Surprising Find
Barbara Apotheke 1 Treue Taler token
Books: 2015 Red Book but I have yet to fully go through it.
Websites: The web is still getting better for coin values and information. My site seems a bit outdated.
Equipment: Phones apps are still limited. Started using Google Sheets and Office Mobile to keep track of finds quicker.
Summary:
I reached record numbers of finds this year with 619 finds, that is about 9 times the average per year. Most were repeats but many were unique pieces. Unfortunately none were rare or valuable.
Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and change for all
