Here in the uk there is a company called change checker which sells coins and gets people to collect coins by checking what they have in their change, all the different designs.

They have now introduced trading cards into the mix and the way it works is this.

Coins are released by the royal mint all the time with different designs on them and in various amounts. Change Checker are now making trading cards for each coin design and matching the rarity of the coin to the card, rarer the coin rarer the card.

You cannot buy the cards from them, they include one card with each order you make from them of a coin. The cards are trading card size but here is the good bit, you have no way of knowing which card you have or are being sent because the front of the card has a scratch off cover which you scratch off with a coin.

Each coin put out into circulation has it's own card and if a coin is ten times rarer than another coin then so is the card.

Unscratched cards are already selling well on ebay and putting a set of the cards together would be a fun challenge.

A quick look on the auction website reveals that several are available for three figure sums already.

quote:

Originally posted by JOHN LEVITT:
A quick look on the auction website reveals that several are available for three figure sums already.

And for the gamblers, there are listing for unscratched cards too

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:
Coins are released by the royal mint all the time with different designs on them and in various amounts.

I think this was one of the big reasons why coin and stamp collecting fell off a cliff in the United States. At one time every kid grew up with some kind of coin collection and/or stamp collection, but then the hobby markets emerged and Governments decided to produce coin and paper currency not just to replace the worn money, but to have unnecessary design changes for collectors. The market became flooded with "limited" designs and people lost interest in trying to find them all. Sound familar?

Especially with the US quarters, I can't tell what I have in my pocket. Between different Presidents and different States and different designs, they all look like foreign coins now.

But really, these were mainstream hobbies and they crashed and burned in the late 70s and early 80s and they have never recovered.

I'm an occasional coin collector, mostly silver proof or silver bullion, but it has to have a good design and a proper limited edition total, not above 8,000 preferably under 5,000.
I don't think I'd bother with this new additional card gimmick though. I'm not really into circulating coins, they're not rare enough.
You do get some coins that have a much rarer mintage and the media will blab on about checking your change for them, but if you read the coin 'bibles' the mintage for these rare ones can still be 500,000. Rare? Nope!

I think the big boom in circulating coin collecting here was 50 pence pieces and £2 coins. In fact there was a case of a man here a few years ago, murdering another for his Beatrix Potter 50p collection.

quote:

Originally posted by Hedgehog Witch:

In fact there was a case of a man here a few years ago, murdering another for his Beatrix Potter 50p collection.

now hold on right there, i was never actually convicted.

I go through my change, when I get some to look for error coins and many collectors specialize in errors. The coins in the US can suffer from double dies, filled dies which cause missing items on coins, rotated reverses, off centered, and other maladies.

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:

quote:

Originally posted by Hedgehog Witch:

In fact there was a case of a man here a few years ago, murdering another for his Beatrix Potter 50p collection.

now hold on right there, i was never actually convicted.

I was trying to keep your anonymity.