I have no additional information on the mint responsible for these coins. Black Mountain Coins seems to sell coins from one of the breakaway orders, but Italian is used on these coins rather than English, so they're probably not of the same origin.
On the 26th of January 1788, a fleet of British ships laden with convicts made landfall in Sydney Cove, founding the penal colony of New South Wales - the first permanent European settlement in Australia.
It is celebrated as out national day - the equivalent of your Independence Day (July 4th).
There are several groups that call themselves the "Knights of Malta" that issue coins; this coin was put out by one of the American-based groups.
The group normally considered the "real" Knights of Malta is based in Rome and since the 1960's have issued coins denominated in tari, soldi and scudi - just like they used to back before 1797 when they actually owned Malta.
Unfortunately, you won't find coins issued by any of these groups listed in Krause; they're all considered "unofficial coins" and filed into the Unusual catalogue.
Most coins of Chile have a condor, which I understand is like a vulture, only bigger; Chile even had a currency unit called the condor. Not sure if that counts. Likewise, most coins of Ecuador and many coins of Colombia show the coat of arms, both of which have condors as the crest animal.
Yep, "Defender of the Faith". Originally a title bestowed by the Pope on King Henry VIII for openly opposing the Reformation. When Henry went Protestant himself, he and his descendants continued to use the title, to signify their headship of the Church of England.
It also appears on Australian predecimal coins, normally abbreviated as "F:D:". I believe Australia and Britain were the only countries in the Empire/Commonwealth to routinely include this title on the coins. Early series Australian coins of Elizabeth II are known as "Godless coins" because the Mint forgot to include "F:D:" in the titles.
The animal on the 10 toea is a cuscus, a kind of possum. Numerous species of possums live throughout Australia, New Guinea and Indonesia. And yes, I imagine that local tribespeople do indeed eat them.
And to keep this thread on-topic: yes, most of my coins are circulated as well. As far as my OFEC collection is concerned, if you can read the country, it's good enough. If I had to spend $100 on OFEC coins, I'd rather buy 20 new countries than 1 or 2 near mint state coins.
Perhaps one reason why pics of awful coins don't get posted too often is, well... they're awful, and don't photograph well.
Interesting how I put 'Mom & Dad Site Gallery' in the above URL title and it translated to 'Mum & Date Site'.
How did that happen, given that we're 'personna non gratis' with them?
and...
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Speaking of the M & D site, I guess I'm just totally computer illiterate, but I remember posting there once, and made reference to the Coin Talk site. When my post showed up, "Coin Talk" had changed to some other name. So, I guess it's possible to be sure a competitor's name isn't posted?
Yes. It's done using the swear-word filter most forums come with; you can tell the software to automatically change one word to another. CCF uses it quite a lot, to make sure blacklisted sites never get a mention.
Obviously, one of our admin/moderators has also programmed our swear-word filter to change any reference of CCF to "CCF". Whoever it was, it's obviously an American... or they'd have said "Mum and Dad Site".
(I've used sneaky cheating to get CCF to show up here in this post.)
2009 is the 10th anniversary of the euro as a currency unit. In the countries which adopted it, prices and bank accounts began to be listed in euros beginning in 1999, and countries began printing and striking their notes and coins in preparation for the changeover day when all the old currencies would be abolished and the new currency issued for circulation, which happened in 2002.
Rome, Constantinus "Gloria Exercitus" This is such a beautiful strike of this coin, I questioned whether it was real or not. The appraiser at my coin store assured me that it was.
Looks OK to me.
It' s actually Constantine II as Caesar (junior emperor), from the period 317-337 AD. Mintmark, Antioch-in-Syria, sixth officina (SMANS).
I hate to contradict you, S.George, but the one at the top left isn't Jesus, it's Mary. You can tell by the abbreviated titles she's given: MP on the left, QV on the right (the "Q" is really a Greek letter theta) - this stands for Mater Theou, Mother of God. The letters on either side of Jesus are always IC - XC (Iesus Christos), sometimes depicted IS - XS like it is on the coin at top right.
I'm going to take a wild guess and say these are from the 5th or 6th century. Someone please correct me if I"m wrong.
Gladly.
These coins are much later in Byzantine history; Christ didn't begin to appear on the copper coins until after the iconoclast controversy was settled in the mid-800's AD. Mary didn't appear on coppers until much later, around the late 1000's AD.
Edited to correct: the IS-XS coin is top right, not bottom right.
The first one is a fantasy dollar, depicting Huang Taiji, the first emperor of the Qing dynasty; you can find the whole series of Qing monarchs on these fantasy dollars. No genuine Chinese coins had a design like the obverse of this one; the reverse is taken from the Yuan Shi-Kai dragon dollar.
As for the second one, consider the source: if it came from the same place as the first one, then it's most likely a reproduction, too.
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Likewise, most coins of Ecuador and many coins of Colombia show the coat of arms, both of which have condors as the crest animal.
