Coin Drive

Do you have a real Euro coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Thinking about a post I made over at My Box Is Warm about things gone missing like thumb/flash drives I remembered a cool little one I came across.

These USB Flash Drives are made by a company I never heard of called LaCie, a quick search shows they specialize in external hard drives. Although a 7.5TB hard drive sounds cool I liked these little 8GB and 4GB flash drives pictured below.


For $29.99 and $19.99, for the 8GB and 4GB respectively, it's not a bad value for style but seeing how some people can't tell the difference between U.S. nickels and Spanish 20 Euro cents I don't think these will become common. Just a few months ago both were listed $5.00 cheaper so maybe if the have a sale it will be a good opportunity.

Check out how these drives blend with the Euros.

If I had a budget or if this blog were something more than informative I would get one of each and fill them up with the coin books I can purchase in .pdf format along with a complete list of legit coin websites built into a modified Firefox browser made for collectors. Portable OpenOffice with spreadsheets ready for a simple entry to organize your personal collection or install one of those professional coin software programs. Then do some sort of giveaway.

But alas I won't!

Do you have any type of money and want to know its value? Leave a question or comment and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Eh, er. How can I explain?

Do you have a Euro coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

I'm in line waiting to pay for a highly overpriced textbook when the young nice and giggly non-American student in front of me wants to pay with exact change. That is nice and all but she didn't understand why her two nickels where rejected by the cashier. Kindly everyone points out that those are Euros and not nickels, she asks "What's the difference?" Not knowing how to explain the entire currency system I traded a dime for the Euros and she paid the dime forward and hurray the line moved on.

I assumed the woman was Eastern European by old-fashioned visual and audio cues but wouldn't they still know of Euros? Plus who has Euros in their purse and still not know they aren't nickels. She responded in English very well.

You might think it was a scam to pass off funny foreign money as U.S. but 40 Euro cents is about 50 U.S. cents and she got rid of them for 10 cents. She did not stay long enough to try to give her my change of 26 cents to attempt to cover the exchange rate. Could it be I offended? No because she was so happy when she left after also refusing her receipt.

Strange exchange. I'm usually good at explaining money value but this nervous exchange had thrown me off. Either way I got me some Euros for cheap.

Here's the stats...
Type/Country: 20 Euro Cents / Spain
Year: 2001
Mintage: 146,000,000
Metal: Brass
Value: $0.25 in Very-Fine for each

There were two but I just scanned it once because it would have been redundant, you know why repeat, there is no point in showing them again and again.

Note: The image was done using my other scanner. I rarely use it and the luster comes out less shiny but the details are high. (Click on image for a larger picture) The problem is I have less setting control. I'll probably use the regular scanner for future scans.

Do you have a European coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Like Another Hole In Your...

Do you have a Greek coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Again those Canadian cents are trying to get my attention. I found another one yesterday oddly enough in the past month the four I found span four decades, 2006, 1997, 1985, and 1978. Still I will try to ignore them as much as possible.

Coin lots are generally full of junk coins meaning some are excellent but common while some are rare and damaged. For this coin from Greece someone insisted on turning it into a pendant.

While I'm not the biggest fan of 1800s coins I do know something about them. This one in particular is highly sought after in mint states. On average if undamaged and at Mint State 60 it would go for $1,000.00. This is the 1833-A which is rarer than the 1833 that is also hard to come by in high grades.

Look at the coin above you see why overtime they become rare. Some person thought, "Whoa never seen this must be rare let me nail a hole through it and keep it safely around my neck." You can see marks where the coin was held down to drill/nail also it started to warp. This damage drops coin value to nothing unless rare. The question becomes is this one rare enough.

Book value places a fine piece at about $50.00 while auction values hover around $80.00. Nothing compared to the 1845(o) Drachma that in fine condition goes for $1,100. At this point dropping the value by 90% seems appropriate. It is still silver.

Here's the stats...
Type/Country: 1 Drachma / Greece
Year: 1833 A
Mintage: Not fully known, less than 1,125,000
Metal: Silver
Value: $5.00 in Damaged condition

So should you take that state quarter and turn it into a pendant? What if some future collector finds it and wants to kick you in the head?

Go for it. You can't play the "what if" game. I can only hope you do a little research in case you feel it might be rare but ultimately every damaged coin does raise the value for the rest that still float around.

Do you have a Greek coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Piastres

Do you have a Lebanese coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Three weeks into the new year and the three finds have all been Canadian cents of little interest. While it's still nice to find Canadian cents it gets a bit annoying that this coin is the only type I'm finding recently. So I'll keep up with my foreign lot.

The Piastre is usually equivalent to 1 dollar but in the case of Lebanon it is equivalent to 1 cent. To be more accurate it is 1/100 of a Lebanon Livre (Pound). Sure checking the current exchange rate and 1Lebanon Pound = 0.000665779 U.S. Dollars. This makes the Piastre = 0.00000665779 U.S. Dollars, yes quite grim.

This is why the last Lebanese Piastre were issued in 1980. They still are legal tender but for what I don't know.

As with most coins from Arabic countries everything is repeated in both English and Arabic. The date is where most people get confused. This is a 1969 coin not a 1979. A quick look at the conversion chart and you'll see what looks like a 7 is actually an Arabic 6.

In the late 1990s early 2000s I would get quite a few Piastres in my change I can only guess an influx of Middle Eastern visitors plus the phasing out of this coin in their country created an ideal opportunity. Since then it is rare to find one in my change even if they hold little value.

Still this one is in excellent condition for a forty year old, no offense.

Here's the stats...
Type/Country: 50 Piastres / Lebanon
Year: 1969
Mintage: 3,488,000
Metal: Nickel
Value: $0.75 in Unc

Do you have an Arabic coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Lightweight Alternative

Do you have a world coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

When the economy gets tough the coins get lighter. Sure you can do the old standard of making the coins smaller but that is a temporary solution at best. Nope you must do something drastic like change the metal composition or in some extremes abandon metal all together. Not having any legal plastic money from any country in my collection I have the second lightest thing.

Aluminum: Some nice and nerdy facts...

• Aluminum is the most abundant metal on Earth
• Aluminum is the 3rd most abundant element on Earth
• Aluminum is commonly found in mixtures and must be always be refined
• It is non-toxic
• Once in metal form it is easily recycled

Here is a nice one from Indonesia slightly larger than a standard U.S. quarter but less than half the weight.

This was back in 1955 when we were using silver the U.S. 25 cents weighing 6.25 grams each while this 25 Sen weighs 2.22 grams. Almost one third the weight on a coin slightly bigger. Currently Aluminum is about $0.65 per lb while the only other cheaper coin metal is Zinc at about $0.55 per lb. (Sorry for mixing English and S.I. units).

Why not everyone switch to Zinc? Well it is highly reactive and can be unhealthy.
So then why not Aluminum for all? Again it is highly reactive and bends easily.

By highly reactive I mean it will oxidize and bond with any other element very easily. Finding a WWII aluminum franc is easy but in perfect shape it's rare. Time is not good on most of these coins.

Here's the stats...
Type/Country: 25 Sen / Indonesia
Year: 1955
Mintage: 25,767,000
Metal: Aluminum
Value: $0.35 in Unc

Air tight containers are best for storing these coins, they tend to haze over when exposed to air for any length of time.

Do you have a world coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

They Never Roll Away

Do you have a square coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.

Why are coins always round? Well sometimes they're not. The theory behind round coins goes as follows:

• Some ancient coins are made from knife handles that were round.
• Smashing a gob of metal leads to a roundish shape.
• Cutting a round coin is easier than any other shape.
• Making a coin into a shape requires a rim or extra work.

Looking at this piece we see it is a nice diagonally aligned square with rounded corners it has typical coin alignment. Sure the shape is neato and the design is all shells and waves but this coin is more than it seems.

The design was originally for the Netherlands 5 Cents from 1913-1940. It was retired and then in 1943 a slightly smaller coin was needed for Curaçao and Surinam. WWII caused some odd coin problems this being one of them. I have little info on the Surinam or is it Suriname version so I assume it's from Curacao.

Historically this little country was ruled by the Kingdom of Netherlands and then Napoleon caused problems and Great Britain issued emergency Spanish money cut into bits.

On December 15, 2008 the islands that make up Curaçao were set to become a free and independent country but that has been postponed, again. It would be nice to see what they would choose for their own money.

Here's the stats...
Type/Country: 5 Cents / Curaçao (possibly Surinam)
Year: 1943
Mintage: 8,595,000
Metal: Copper-Nickel
Value: $1.25 in Fine

Do you have an odd shaped square coin and want to know its value? Leave a comment/question and I will do my best to find out the price and history for you.