2020 is now upon us, and this being my first post of the year, and the first post of the decade I have decided to start off with another first. For Christmas a family member bought me a coin as a present, a novelty item, but something which I can say is unique (for now).
Roughly about the same size as a £1 coin, I got a copy of the world’s first silver sovereign. Minted by the Royal Mint for Gibraltar this coin is limited to a strike of only 100,000 and is composed entire of pure silver. Now I am sure in the future many more of these will be minted, and the novelty of a silver sovereign will quickly wear off. But I can say at least I have one of the very first batch that has been minted.
So what about my intentions for the new year? Since it is a fresh year and a new decade I have decided to focus my efforts on areas of numismatics I know very little about. The coins of Asia and the Middle East I will have to admit I have very cursory knowledge of, as for Africa I can say my knowledge would be equivalent to the average man on the street. So this year I have decided to try and obtain and learn about coins from these areas of the world. A departure from Europe and N. America for a change.
I will however attempt to obtain more ancient coins as it is always an interest to learn something interesting from over a thousand years ago. There is also a quirk of holding something used and made by people who lived during that time. A weird disconnect for want of better words.
Finally, I will always try and seek out further unusual coins and numismatic materials. My love for what I like to term as ‘Funny money’ hasn’t diminished (such as the ancient Greek dolphin coins, or German notgeld). Despite my aims to focus on new areas of the globe. Perhaps I can marry the two objectives, I would love to add more Chinese spade coins to my collection, let alone dagger or money trees. There are also the outlandish currency of the Pacific islands which may be a challenge and worthy goal to try and get. Either way, it is still January, so I still have an entire year to discover and explore new areas of numismatics.
Numismatic Exploits 