Small Change is Welcome – The Devolution of Coin Collecting

{ image rejigged and reblogged from theconversation.com }

 

I have always had an interest in coins.  As a child I can remember the excitement of finding an unusual fifty pence such as a 1997 IOM Motorbike or a Gibraltar Ring of Dolphins.  It was magical.

As I got older and began to actively acquire and save any pictures, I found the magic continued.  I never knew what I would come across in my change and was always eager to add anything different to my growing collection.  This continued for many years and in the meantime, my love of coins continued to grow.

I can recall finding several gems over the years – Suffragette, all twenty-nine Olympics, WWF, EU Stars, NHS……  It was nice.

Of course, it all changed quite a lot.  It also changed quite quickly too.

Within a year or so I was no longer able to find unusual coins in my change as thousands of other people were suddenly looking for the same coins as me simply to make loads of dollar selling them online.  And at around the same time, The Royal Mint suddenly began to stop putting coins into circulation like they once (and always) had.  Things had changed and they had realised just how much more money they could make by releasing coins in a ‘purchase only’ format.  Things had changed.  Like EVERYTHING.

 

{ All prices are COMPLETELY true and real of course lol – image reblogged from thesun.co.uk }

 

And now……….  If you go through a bag of fifty pences you are lucky to find any pictures at all.  Even crap like Girl Guides, Archery or Victoria Cross are rare sights – all because chancers have had them away to try and sell on eBay.  Yup, things really are that grim where MOST pictures have been sucked out of the monetary system altogether.  Yup, it really is that shit.  And that is what it is like in 2022 (and has been for several years now).

SO what lies ahead for the future of coin collecting?  Just what can people expect on a numismatistical (word first penned by me and now used by hundreds of others such as the mighty Westminster Collection and their highly stimulating blog lol) level?

 

Yup, it really is that shit.  And that is what it is like in 2022 (and has been for several years now).

 

Well it all depends on how the 288 Group (yes guys it’s CONSPIRACY TIME!!!) want to play it.  At the moment they are still very much on their ‘purchase only’ and make lots of extra lolly trip.  But I suppose that if the general British public make it clear that are not happy about this, things could change.  The sad part is that the general British public have a track record of putting up with a great deal before they actually start bitching about things.  So a big part of whether or not things WILL change is in the hands of everyone right now.

Personally, I am hoping that in years to come we will once again see times when it is possible to find rare and unusual coins in change.  Whether or not this will be the case remains to be seen.  So time will tell.

 

© Article and images (except where stated) copyright Mik Smith 2022