The first coin in my collection

Here is the 1952 Austria 10 Groschen, a coin which was produced by Austria from 1951 – 2001, a pretty good run! The (second) Austrian Schilling was produced after WWII, from 1945 – 2001. 1 Schilling is divided up into 100 Groschen. The coin has a simple but attractive design with the word “GROSCHEN” around the bottom, larger than on many coins with the 10 smaller in the top with the year in between.

Like other Austrian coins, the obverse features the Austrian coat of arms. The arms feature an eagle (sovereignty), with the Austrian shield on its chest, wearing a mural crown for the middle class. The eagle is holding a sickle (agriculture) and hammer (industry). In 1945 the eagle has broken chains from its legs, symbolising liberation from the National Socialist Dictatorship. Where some coins feature the coat of arms on the whole, or majority of the coin, the 10 Groschen has a smaller version, with the country name “Republik Osterreich” taking up half the coin. I think it’s a great design overall.

In 2001, Austria moved to the Euro. A lot of the other designs were updated over the years, so this 10 Schilling design was the longest lasting out of this era of Austria (not counting the Maria Theresia Thaler, but that is for another post).

So, how did the 1952 Austria 10 Groschen come to be the “first” coin in my collection? It wasn’t the first coin I collected, I didn’t even visit Austria to get it. Let me explain. Although I have been collecting coins on and off all my life, I hadn’t tried to organise them or anything until a few years ago. Having started to get into collecting with a bit of a passion, I got (for Christmas, thanks Santa!) a nearly 4kg box of mixed world coins. This one:

I decided I needed to start cataloging my coins. I got one of those plastic boxes with about 24 compartments in it, and sorted that bag of coins by country, alphabetically. I put each in a saflip folder and spread them across five folders I bought. Being a spreadsheet kind of person, once I had sorted the coins, I recorded them all in Excel. This 1952 Austria 10 Groschen just happened to be the oldest of the smallest denomination coins from the first country alphabetically in that bag. Some more stats:

Total coins from the bag: 877

Weight: 3897.45 grams (4.444 / coin)

Countries: 43 (Depending on how you count them: Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Denmark, Egypt, Fiji, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Malaya, Malaya and British Borneo, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritius, Netherlands, Netherlands East Indies, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Tuvalu, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, Vanuatu, Western Samoa

Oldest coin: 1895 UK Half Penny

Newest coin: 2016 D US Cent

Most from one country: 135 (UK)

Unique coins (not counting year): 243 (counting the same coin from different years, it is 599).

Largest coin: 1972 New Hebrides 50 Francs (32.9mm), although heaviest was 1975 Fiji 50 Cents at 15.55g

Smallest coin: 1948 Netherlands 10 Cents (15mm), although lightest was 1942 Japan 1 Sen (0.65g aluminium).

I found sorting through that box of mixed world coins to be a fantastic way to kickstart serious collecting. It gave me a bunch of countries to learn about across 120 years, and for a few cents per coin, kept me busy for three months (longer if you count the fact that I’m still writing about it now). I would strongly recommend buying a mixed bag of world coins to encourage any new collector (it doesn’t have to be 4kg, even a hundred grams of random coins is fascinating!)