– Collecting world coins and paper currency from around the globe gives you a number of rewarding opportunities. You can travel far from the comfort of your home. You can recall historic events. Quite a few coins – but especially paper money – pay tribute to men and women who brought significant political and cultural changes to their countries.
Sometimes referred to as a canvas for the engraver's art, colorful world bank notes also display an amazing variety of flora and fauna unknown in the US. Plus, with world coins and paper currency, you can flex your math and currency conversion skills by charting the fluctuations in money values. Lira to Euro anyone?
Let's look first at world coins
Whether you are just starting or prefer a more traditional approach to collecting world coins, you can never go wrong with gold and silver bullion. If bullion prices seem at first daunting, there's also the more affordable prospect of starting with foreign restrikes. You can also join Littleton's own World Money Club.
Don't overlook the chance to add interest to your world coin collection with issues from the Manila Mint in the Philippines. These pieces hold a special claim to fame. They're the only coins minted that were legal tender in both the US and another country!
Beginning collectors can get started with world coins by opening Littleton's popular treasure chests. Each features a fascinating assortment of Uncirculated, Circulated and discontinued world coins, such as 12-sided issues from Uganda and Great Britain, coins with holes from Fiji and Laos, and scalloped coins from Paraguay and Bangladesh.
Now let's consider world paper currency
Many collectors appreciate world paper currency because of its designs. They can be quite intricate and attractive. World paper currency also reflects a collector's individual taste, or aesthetic. Some designs win awards in international competitions.
Most foreign bank notes are extremely colorful. Collectors often save world paper currency from their global travels. Others assemble heritage collections based on family genealogies. And some world paper currency goes back far enough in history to be part of a revolution, like these French notes from the late 18th century.
Many foreign mints with printing offices are on the cutting edge of producing polymer bank notes. Polymer has two keys advantages over traditional paper when it comes to world paper currency: 1) it lasts longer, and 2) it offers more technical opportunities for embedding security features in a bank note's design to prevent counterfeiting.
World Coin Art
The sky's the limit when it comes to the many different kinds of metals, designs and even shapes that foreign mints issue for circulating as well as commemorative coins. See how many world coins you can identify in this Heads & Tails blog.
Just like world government printing houses are leading the way with polymer notes, foreign mints trying new techniques for striking coins, including such advances as photo-luminescence technology and color-shifting ink. You can discover a sampling of world coins on the cutting edge here.
The popularity of modern world coins endures because they are legal tender backed by a foreign government. Often the purity of precious metals used to strike these coins is of the highest value. And, if they are commemorative coins, these are issued in limited mintages – always an appeal to collectors! Here are two Heads & Tails blogs about world coins that celebrate wild animals from around the globe and from ancient civilizations to the present.
World coins pay tribute to popular culture
Animals found in the wild – many iconic to specific foreign countries – are not the only motifs to be found on the reverse of world coins. Take a look at the different Peace coins struck by foreign mints and some "lucky coins" from around the world.
Just as world paper currency enjoys tremendous eye appeal because of colored ink and threads, so, too, are world coins on whose surfaces color is increasingly being applied. Littleton's bloggers took a look at a number of world coins that have been colorized. And just for fun, check out world coins used in this foreign custom known as the money cake tradition.
Building a reference library, protecting your collections
Ready to build a serious collection of world coins and paper currency? Let Littleton Coin's chairman, David M. Sundman, help you with tips in a Heads & Tails blog. He lists his top reference books, including two titles that cover world coins.
Evaluating how to best organize and protect your collection of world coins? Check out Littleton's World Coin Holders guide. Looking for ways to safeguard and display your delicate collection of world paper currency? We have suggestions for you.
Littleton supports a nice variety of clubs relating to world coins and paper currency. Here are a few club suggestions that might catch your eye.
$11.50
$3.25
$10.25 to $15.50
$32.95
$2.00
$70.50
$82.50
$1.25
$23.95 to $130.00
$41.50
$6.25
$30.95
$1.75
$1.50 to $4.25
$1.75
$20.95
$41.50
$1.00
$29.95
$3.75
$1.00
$5.25
$3.00
$20.95
