Collecting coins and paper money makes interesting stories. I started collecting as a young child, but I didn't really get interested in Chinese coins until I was attending University. A Chinese friend gave me an old Chinese coin. I had no idea what it was, so I went into the Main Stacks of the library, and down to the bottom floor. I found a book by A. B. Coole, a prominant collector of Chinese coins and paper money (his library is now the foundation of the ANA's wonderful East Asian Numismatic Library) , called "Coins in China's History." After about an hour of searching, I found the coin was from the time of the emperor Kang Hsi (1662-1722), and the Beijing mint of the Board of Revenue. It was a very common coin, in nice condition, but with a story to tell.
A month or two later, I was looking through a 25 cents junk box, and found an old Chinese coin. It had a colour, a patina, that just spoke of ages of use. I purchased it, and after most of 2 hours of research in "Coins In China's History," I found it to be from the Sung dynasty, and the reign title Hsi Ning, dating from 1068-1077. It certainly was old, although not very valuable- under $4.00. It was a different style of writing, and a different metal than the newer one, but most definately a Chinese coin.
As a collector of coins and paper money, with some unusual tastes, I had been helping some dealers to attribute and price some World Coins. I told one dealer my story of the two Chinese coins, and he reached under the counter, took out a 1 Pound box of Velveeta Cheese, and said, "Here are a bunch of Chinese coins. No-one is interested in them. If you would like them, they are yours." The box was full of Chinese coins, of all ages. I had a great time cataloguing them, and most of them are still part of my collection. This was enough to really pique my interest in the area of Chinese coins. Collecting coins and paper money has led me into different areas, with this one giving me over 35 years of interest, knowledge, and stories- that of East Asian coins and paper money.
Collecting Coins and Paper Money can take one into very interesting areas.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Collecting coins and paper money- where it can lead you
I am not only a person who is collecting coins and paper money. I have worked for several museums, on the collections that other people have donated, and of course have volunteered my time to help other museums.
The Vancouver Museum was once housed in the Carnegie Library. This building was built and supported with funds from Andrew Carnegie. The museum's Chinese coin collection was housed in several window-sized frames, and displayed over the stair well where no-one could get a good look at them.
During the Canadian Centennial of 1967, a new museum was built to house many collections, including the coin and paper money collections of the museum. This was at a new location in Vanier Park, which was right across the parking lot from the Vancouver Community Music School, where I was taking viola lessons. I was told that there was a Chinese coin collection in the museum, and I went over there to take a look after lessons one day. The assistant curator at the time, Carol Mayer, showed me the collection, and, noticing my enthusiasm as well as some "expertese", twisted my arm and got me to volunteer some time to catalogue the collection.
The Asian coin collection at the Vancouver Museum is about 1800 coins strong. It contains good examples of spade and knife money, from about 500-650 BC. It contains several examples of early round coins, many of the typical round-coins-with-a-square-hole Chinese (and Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese coins), plus very interesting struck copper and silver coins. It also contains an example of the Ming note (paper money of 1368-1398), several other old pieces of paper money, and a very interesting forgery of a Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank 10 Taels note.
The collection is one of the best East Asian museum coin collections in North America. Of the ones I am familiar with, I would put it tied for second after the ANS Collection in New York, as far as East Asian coins are concerned. It does not have as many pieces as the collection at UBC's Museum of Anthropology, but it has an excellent breadth.
When most of the collection had been catalogued, I cut my left hand, right along the thumb tendon sheath. I could not play for several months. The Museum decided to do a large display about money, and I was hired to be the curator- to choose the pieces to display, to write the text, and to decide on illustrations. I ended up with a 36 case display, with 1080 pieces of coins and paper money. Each case had text- an overview, detailed descriptions of the pieces displayed, a related illustration, and often a map showing the area being illustrated. The display started with how coins are made, and then proceeded from China to Japan to India to Russia to Germany, France, Great Britain, and then to Canada, and closed with a section on forgeries and frauds. The display used materials mostly from the museum's own collection, and was supplemented by material from my collection, a local minting facility, and the Vancouver Police Department. I was told by some long-time collectors that it was the best display to be done in Canada on world coins, until the opening of the Bank of Canada Museum Collection in Ottawa.
After the coin display was done, I was asked to write a book about the display. It showed the coins in the display, their description, and had much more room to write about the significance of different pieces.
I did the revisions to the book on the phone, long distance from across North America. I attended a Suzuki Violin School in Wisconsin, and phoned in revisions every day on a pay phone. One day there was a tornado about 30 miles further north from where I was.
I also visited several museum collections, including the ANA in Colorado Springs, which houses the best library on Asian coins in North America, the Smithsonian collection in Washington, where they had just got a fabulous Chinese Paper Money collection which took up 10 cowboy boot-sized boxes, the ANS in New York, where I got to spend a day with Rose Chan Houston discussing the Chinese spade money and knive money of their fabulous collection, the ROM collection in Toronto, and the start of the Bank of Canada Museum in Ottawa. I reviewed their texts, and suggested a few revisions, and they reviewed mine, and did the same. All of the museums were memorable in some way, and most had incredibly fabulous people involved with the collections of coins and paper money.
I realized that there were very few people in North America with an expertise or even interest in Asian coins at this time, and Vancouver was lucky because it had more Asian people than most of the rest of Canada. Population dynamics have changed the demographic makeup of Vancouver considerably since that time. Vancouver now has a large percentage of people of Asian extraction, and with them more people who are knowledgeable about Asian coins.
I now buy and sell coins and paper money, and go to shows. I have done several multi-case displays. I have done talks about the life and money of Sun Yat Sen, talked on the radio, and for national conventions, and written articles about various aspects of collecting coins and paper money. I had no idea that the little gift that got me started would lead into such a different field, but that is a story for another blog. Such is the power of collecting coins and paper money.
The Vancouver Museum was once housed in the Carnegie Library. This building was built and supported with funds from Andrew Carnegie. The museum's Chinese coin collection was housed in several window-sized frames, and displayed over the stair well where no-one could get a good look at them.
During the Canadian Centennial of 1967, a new museum was built to house many collections, including the coin and paper money collections of the museum. This was at a new location in Vanier Park, which was right across the parking lot from the Vancouver Community Music School, where I was taking viola lessons. I was told that there was a Chinese coin collection in the museum, and I went over there to take a look after lessons one day. The assistant curator at the time, Carol Mayer, showed me the collection, and, noticing my enthusiasm as well as some "expertese", twisted my arm and got me to volunteer some time to catalogue the collection.
The Asian coin collection at the Vancouver Museum is about 1800 coins strong. It contains good examples of spade and knife money, from about 500-650 BC. It contains several examples of early round coins, many of the typical round-coins-with-a-square-hole Chinese (and Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese coins), plus very interesting struck copper and silver coins. It also contains an example of the Ming note (paper money of 1368-1398), several other old pieces of paper money, and a very interesting forgery of a Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank 10 Taels note.
The collection is one of the best East Asian museum coin collections in North America. Of the ones I am familiar with, I would put it tied for second after the ANS Collection in New York, as far as East Asian coins are concerned. It does not have as many pieces as the collection at UBC's Museum of Anthropology, but it has an excellent breadth.
When most of the collection had been catalogued, I cut my left hand, right along the thumb tendon sheath. I could not play for several months. The Museum decided to do a large display about money, and I was hired to be the curator- to choose the pieces to display, to write the text, and to decide on illustrations. I ended up with a 36 case display, with 1080 pieces of coins and paper money. Each case had text- an overview, detailed descriptions of the pieces displayed, a related illustration, and often a map showing the area being illustrated. The display started with how coins are made, and then proceeded from China to Japan to India to Russia to Germany, France, Great Britain, and then to Canada, and closed with a section on forgeries and frauds. The display used materials mostly from the museum's own collection, and was supplemented by material from my collection, a local minting facility, and the Vancouver Police Department. I was told by some long-time collectors that it was the best display to be done in Canada on world coins, until the opening of the Bank of Canada Museum Collection in Ottawa.
After the coin display was done, I was asked to write a book about the display. It showed the coins in the display, their description, and had much more room to write about the significance of different pieces.
I did the revisions to the book on the phone, long distance from across North America. I attended a Suzuki Violin School in Wisconsin, and phoned in revisions every day on a pay phone. One day there was a tornado about 30 miles further north from where I was.
I also visited several museum collections, including the ANA in Colorado Springs, which houses the best library on Asian coins in North America, the Smithsonian collection in Washington, where they had just got a fabulous Chinese Paper Money collection which took up 10 cowboy boot-sized boxes, the ANS in New York, where I got to spend a day with Rose Chan Houston discussing the Chinese spade money and knive money of their fabulous collection, the ROM collection in Toronto, and the start of the Bank of Canada Museum in Ottawa. I reviewed their texts, and suggested a few revisions, and they reviewed mine, and did the same. All of the museums were memorable in some way, and most had incredibly fabulous people involved with the collections of coins and paper money.
I realized that there were very few people in North America with an expertise or even interest in Asian coins at this time, and Vancouver was lucky because it had more Asian people than most of the rest of Canada. Population dynamics have changed the demographic makeup of Vancouver considerably since that time. Vancouver now has a large percentage of people of Asian extraction, and with them more people who are knowledgeable about Asian coins.
I now buy and sell coins and paper money, and go to shows. I have done several multi-case displays. I have done talks about the life and money of Sun Yat Sen, talked on the radio, and for national conventions, and written articles about various aspects of collecting coins and paper money. I had no idea that the little gift that got me started would lead into such a different field, but that is a story for another blog. Such is the power of collecting coins and paper money.
Friday, March 9, 2007
eBay
If you are collecting coins and paper money, I don't see how you can survive without eBay. It has many opportunities for you to add to your collection, or to let someone else add to their collection by selling your items. I talk about eBay in more detail on my auctions-world-wide blog.
I generally like eBay, both as a seller, and as a buyer. I have done very well in some months, and not so well in others. I am now putting more items in my store, and will be having others coming up on the weekly auctions. I have been having some problems lately with customers not receiving my goods, and with one customer who says he sent me a money order that I did not receive. These are the problems with the eBay system, I guess. I sell US, Canadian, and world coins and paper money, and I try to have interesting pieces for sale. If you would like to visit my store, click here to visit coinsnpaper on eBay.ca.
If you are not a member of eBay yet, you can sign up quickly and easily. eBay has many national operations, in the US (the biggest site), Canada, Britain, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, The Philippines, and many other countries. You may want to sign up only once in your own country's site, or you may want to sign up in several countries. I have 2 different names, one that I use when buying, and one that I use when selling. I have also registered on both Canadian and US eBay. I am equiped to sell on any eBay site, and I will be investigating selling on several different sites. I list all my offerings to sell internationally, but I am not sure that they always show up on all the different national sites.
If you would like to visit some of the different National sites, I will make it easy for you. The first link is for the US eBay, which has many American items, of course, but also a huge amount of material from around the world. Click here to visit coins and paper money on eBay.com. When I wrote this, the US site had 233,529 offerings in coins and paper money.
The Canadian site lists many Canadian and world wide coins and paper money items. To visit this site, click here to visit coins and paper money on eBay.ca. When I wrote this, the Canadian site had 155,568 offerings in coins and paper money.
Australia has an interesting site. A number of my listings have appeared on the Australian site, as well. To visit this site, click here for coins and banknotes on eBay.com.au. When I wrote this, the Australian site had 9,216 offerings of coins and paper money.
The Singapore site offers many types of paper money, and surprisingly few coins. To visit this site, click here to visit the coins and paper money on eBay.com.sg. When I wrote this, the Singapore site had about 6600 offerings of paper money, and only about 2200 offerings of paper money.
Some offerings from different nations will show up on the listings of other countries. For example, I saw several listings in Italian on the Singapore listing. Be sure you click to see international listings if you are interested in world coins and paper money. This is supposed to show all listings that will ship to your country, from eBay sites around the world.
I hope this has helped to show you some of the interesting features of eBay, and how it will help you in your quest of collecting coins and paper money.
I generally like eBay, both as a seller, and as a buyer. I have done very well in some months, and not so well in others. I am now putting more items in my store, and will be having others coming up on the weekly auctions. I have been having some problems lately with customers not receiving my goods, and with one customer who says he sent me a money order that I did not receive. These are the problems with the eBay system, I guess. I sell US, Canadian, and world coins and paper money, and I try to have interesting pieces for sale. If you would like to visit my store, click here to visit coinsnpaper on eBay.ca.
If you are not a member of eBay yet, you can sign up quickly and easily. eBay has many national operations, in the US (the biggest site), Canada, Britain, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, The Philippines, and many other countries. You may want to sign up only once in your own country's site, or you may want to sign up in several countries. I have 2 different names, one that I use when buying, and one that I use when selling. I have also registered on both Canadian and US eBay. I am equiped to sell on any eBay site, and I will be investigating selling on several different sites. I list all my offerings to sell internationally, but I am not sure that they always show up on all the different national sites.
If you would like to visit some of the different National sites, I will make it easy for you. The first link is for the US eBay, which has many American items, of course, but also a huge amount of material from around the world. Click here to visit coins and paper money on eBay.com. When I wrote this, the US site had 233,529 offerings in coins and paper money.
The Canadian site lists many Canadian and world wide coins and paper money items. To visit this site, click here to visit coins and paper money on eBay.ca. When I wrote this, the Canadian site had 155,568 offerings in coins and paper money.
Australia has an interesting site. A number of my listings have appeared on the Australian site, as well. To visit this site, click here for coins and banknotes on eBay.com.au. When I wrote this, the Australian site had 9,216 offerings of coins and paper money.
The Singapore site offers many types of paper money, and surprisingly few coins. To visit this site, click here to visit the coins and paper money on eBay.com.sg. When I wrote this, the Singapore site had about 6600 offerings of paper money, and only about 2200 offerings of paper money.
Some offerings from different nations will show up on the listings of other countries. For example, I saw several listings in Italian on the Singapore listing. Be sure you click to see international listings if you are interested in world coins and paper money. This is supposed to show all listings that will ship to your country, from eBay sites around the world.
I hope this has helped to show you some of the interesting features of eBay, and how it will help you in your quest of collecting coins and paper money.
Collecting Coins and Paper Money- a Start
Welcome to my Collecting Coins and Paper Money blog. I have been a collector since I found a 1929 Canadian Penny under the surface of Okanogan Lake at Osoyoos, when I was a child of 9. I wiggled my toes in the sand, out about chest high in the water, and found something hard. I went underwater to find it, and this strange penny came out. I was not even aware that old Canadian money looked different, and I became fascinated. I started collecting Canadian pennies, and then Canadian coins. I expanded to British Commonwealth, Proof sets, World coins, and finally into paper money. I then became very interested in Asian money, especially Chinese, and became somewhat of an expert in that field.
I did a large museum display (1080 coins, 36 cases, pictures, text, maps, and a book to go along with it (Handfuls of Cash), after cataloguing the museum's 1800 piece collection, and later catalogued another museum collection of 3000 Asian coins. I eventually became a small dealer, going to local shows and selling on eBay, and have kept expanding my interests into other fields of numismatics. I am currently becoming more interested in the South Asian and Persian areas.
I like collecting coins and paper money because it involves history, economics, calligraphy (especially in the Asian and Middle Eastern fields), metallurgy, and culture, as well as valuable items that in many cases are also pieces of art.
I hope you share my love of collecting coins and paper money. I am willing to help you as much as I can, answering questions and giving information.
I sell on eBay as coinsnpaper, where I am a sometime powerseller, selling assistant, and operate a store. I has no idea that collecting coins and paper money would bring me into all these fields.
I did a large museum display (1080 coins, 36 cases, pictures, text, maps, and a book to go along with it (Handfuls of Cash), after cataloguing the museum's 1800 piece collection, and later catalogued another museum collection of 3000 Asian coins. I eventually became a small dealer, going to local shows and selling on eBay, and have kept expanding my interests into other fields of numismatics. I am currently becoming more interested in the South Asian and Persian areas.
I like collecting coins and paper money because it involves history, economics, calligraphy (especially in the Asian and Middle Eastern fields), metallurgy, and culture, as well as valuable items that in many cases are also pieces of art.
I hope you share my love of collecting coins and paper money. I am willing to help you as much as I can, answering questions and giving information.
I sell on eBay as coinsnpaper, where I am a sometime powerseller, selling assistant, and operate a store. I has no idea that collecting coins and paper money would bring me into all these fields.
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