World Coin News August 2021

The year 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of the last Morgan dollar and the first Peace dollar. While the U.S. Mint has issued two commemorative coins to honor these significant silver dollars, they aren’t the only ones who recognize their importance. The Pobjoy Mint has released their own commemorative to honor the “significant evolution of American Freedom.” The coin is available in Unc. Cupro Nickel with a limited mintage of 1,921, as well as in Half Gram Gold with an even smaller mintage of 299. The reverse design combines both the Morgan and Peace dollars with the two profile images of Liberty and the Goddess of Liberty. 1921-2021 can be seen below the busts and the inscription “100th Anniversary of the Last Morgan Dollar-First Peace Dollar” around the outer edge.…

I recently read about a punch mark made on Russian coins collected by a Count Hutten-Czapski. Can you identify what this mark is for me? Count Emeryk Z.M. Hutton-Czapski (1828-1896) applied a small hallmark of the Sforza family shield to coins in his collection in the same manner as did the d’Este family in Italy. The count worked in the civil service of the Russian Empire. Among his many collectibles were 900 Russian coins he sold to Grand Duke George Mikhailovich, using the money to expand his Polish coin collection. Do you know how one can tell the difference between the German 1950-G 50-pfenning originals and the unauthorized ones? According to Numismatic Guarantee Corporation, “The 1950-G dated [50-pfennig] coin was re-struck without authorization by a mint official using genuine dies—quantity unknown. Mint mark…

“Thailand began to modernize to keep up with the international market.” IT WAS KING MONGKUT who had the first Siamese flat coins put into circulation. The King was being bothered by the British, who were always angling for better deals and warning them about the French. He clearly saw that his country was in an adapt or die situation. The trick was to do the modernizing without losing sovereignty. On the one hand was local politics, which is to say nobles with their own assets and armies, and traditional ways of doing things. On the other hand, the Europeans obviously had better military stuff, and all these other things they did differently than in Siam. Hard to tell what the good stuff was and what was just exotic foreign habits. Guns and gunships and…

When a coin collector thinks of cardboard composition coins, the collector is likely thinking of emergency money from the 20th century Spanish civil war, medieval siege money, or perhaps encased postage issues of France or the United States. U.S. Military Payment Certificates were issued between 1946 and 1973. While MPC issues were meant to prevent black market profiteering while finding a convenient way to pay troops in high risk environments, the paper notes were phased out during the Vietnam War. In November 2001 the military exchange store retailer Army and Air Force Exchange Service or AAFES announced the exchange would begin using cardboard pogs as a substitute for coins at U.S. facilities in Afghanistan. Pogs are lighter than metal composition coins and for that reason are less expensive to ship overseas. “The pogs…

“Courts failed to consider the damaged caused by theft” They threw the book at them. Two men previously convicted of stealing more than 3,600 ancient gold coins in Romania were ordered to pay reparations in May. Law enforcement got the legal aspects of this crime right, but do they understand what these criminals stole? On May 20, Darius Liviu Baci and Mircea Mihaila were ordered to pay more than $5.2 million in compensation to the state by a court in Alba Lulia, Romania. The pair were in prison between 2016 and 2020 after being convicted on the theft charges. They had not previously been ordered to make payment for what they stole. The pair met Florin Sebastian Zvînca and Romica Hîndorean in Austria, both of whom specialized in plundering antiquities from archaeological sites.…

You could consider it being the medieval form of ransomware. The question being asked is why a hoard of silver Carolingian deniers has been discovered in Poland. Until the 118 coins were recently discovered in a farmer’s field only three such coins had ever been found within the borders of what is now modern Poland. The first coins in the trove were encountered in a field near Biskupiec in November 2020 by metal detector enthusiasts. The finders had provincial government permission to search the area. The nearby Museum of Ostróda was notified of the find in secret, giving experts the opportunity to study the site. It appears the area where the coins were found had been wilderness at the time the coins were hidden. Biskupiec is in northeastern Poland in the…