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Contents Introduction:
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The Collection
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Worth Its Weight In Gold
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A brief look into the book and what you can expect
A quick look into how i came across these items and my collection came to be
Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining
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Copper Bottomed
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Introduction
In our project “Taxonomy� we were to collect 30 items and present them graphically. Over my life I have gradually collected coins and i thought this would be perfect for my project, in total I had a collection of about 75 coins but chose to round this down to 30 to get rid of most of the common coins and repeats. This left me with to me what i considered the most interesting coins. I found coins quite interesting as a child, i think it was because each coin has a different story, especially foreign ones, what path have they taken before coming into my hands and who has owned them, each scratch has a different tale which i find greatly interesting. Not only this but also how each country decides to decorate their coins, we have has everything from shields to the offside rule put on our coins so i like to see different culture behind each coin that i collect as well as the difference in how they’re designed, do certain countries tend to have heavier or larger coins or how do older coins differentiate between newer coins. You consider all this with each and every coin
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The Collection
This coin collection started out when i was young when i first found some coins in an old lego box of my dads the coins interested me and so i decided i was going to collect coins from here on out, as time went on i found various ones and brought some back from holidays with me, I ended up with a collection, this had really been pushed to one side though until we started this Taxonomy project and now this book is to share my collection of each coin that i have, most i don’t know a lot about so i will be researching them individuall and learning about each coin as i write about it.
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Worth Its Weight
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In Gold
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The first coin im going to look at in my collection is this 25 Pesetas spanish coin from before they switched over to the euro system, i like it because it really reflects the country it’s from, this is through the font they use on the word “Espana” and to the use of the golbe from the Sevilla expo in 1992 10 - Taxonomy - May 2014
I imagine this was a one off coin that was only made in 1992 as thats when the Sevilla Expo happened, but what i also like about this is it’s one of only 3 coins with a hole in the middle, and the only gold coin in fact that has one. It’s more of a faded gold than a bright one and so purhapas this reflects its
Value as it is only worth 25 Pesetas. I took this coin home with me after a holiday to spain with my family when i was a child.
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Although it doesn’t look it in pictures, this is also a gold coin, again faded like the previous one and a little more dirty, this is my 10 Santimu coin. a bit lack luster on decoration on the number side, but on the flip side there’s a nice shield with two dragons on and 3 stars above it, reading 12 - Taxonomy - May 2014
“Latvijas Republika” meaning Republic of Lativa. Made of a Nickel-Brass could be the reason this coin has worn down so much. This is quite a thin coin measuring only 1.4mm in thickness. This coin was made in 1992 and it’s one of them coins i cannot remember how i aquired it.
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Here is my 20 cent piece from France, i think it was from before they moved over to the Euro as well so it is when their curency was franks. they have wheat and leaves on the number side as well “Liberte ecalite franternite” which is French for “Freedom, equality, Brotherhood”. 14 - Taxonomy - May 2014
This coin is a slightly brighter colour gold than the rest of the coins and i got it from a holiday to France i went to with school when i was a child.
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At first i couldn’t work out where this coin was from as it’s a 2 Dollar coin yet had the queens face on it, upon inspecting it futher i saw “Australia” on it and realised that Australia trade in dollars as well, as part of the common wealth and once owned by England, they have the Queens face 16 - Taxonomy - May 2014
on their coins. The one side has a bearded man on there although i have no idea of his significance, this is a very thick coin given its small size. The coin was made in 1999 and i think it was a coin i found in the lego box at my dads when i was a child that started this whole collection.
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The next coin is an Irish 20p from 1986, the year that these coins came into circulation, nearly all of them had varitious animals on, this one had a horse, i was unsure whether to put this in the gold or copper section as its very inbetween, its a dark brass colour but i cant work out if this is because 18 - Taxonomy - May 2014
it has faded or because it is supposed to be that way, either way i dont want to clean any of my coins as they all hold stories so i prefer to keep them this way. All the coins also had a harp on the other side with the word “eire” on them which is the Irish name for “Ireland”
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My final gold coin was given to me by my uncle who lives in Norway, which is a 20 KR or “Krone” the Norwegian exchange rate is weird meaning this coin is only valued at about £2, even though its equivilent to our £20. this coin was made in 1994 and is still in circulation now. 20 - Taxonomy - May 2014
The heads side of the coin has Harald V on it who is the current king of Norway. This 20 KR piece of the only one of my coins i have considered cleaning as it has an annoying dirt stain on the number side of the coin that just looks horrible to me.
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Every Cloud Has
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A Silver Lining
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The first coin i’ll be looking English 5p infact slightly at from my silver section of larger with a smooth round my collection is an Irish 5p, edge though. it’s very simular to the Irish 20p as it is from the same circulation of that coin, this one was made in 1996 and features a bull on the one side with the same harp and word “Eire” on the flip side. It’s about the same side an 24 - Taxonomy - May 2014
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Another well decorated coin and one of the two silver coins in with a hole in the middle, is the 5 Kroner coin from Norway, it weirdly differs a lot from the 20KR coin from norway in such that it has a hole in the middle, a riggid edge rather than smooth and features decorations over King Harald Vs face. 26 - Taxonomy - May 2014
a reletively well preserved coin, again given to me by my uncle when he was back over from Norway, it was made in 2000 and features an interesting circle of symbols on the one side of the coin.
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The first of my 1G coins is this 1997 piece, the newer of the two pieces, it features an interesting design, on the one side is a cross hatch pattern with a rectangle block above with 1G on it, and on the other side a rather weird angle of the former Beatrix of Netherlands, a normal coin features the heads side 28 - Taxonomy - May 2014
with the person either facing left or right, but to have them facing down is very different. This coin was found randomly in the street in a bag full of foreign coins i managed to convince my friend to sell to me for 50p when we was much younger.
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It’s hard to describe this coin in writing, but of all my coin collection it is by far my favourite and most facinating and yet i know so little about it, it features a plant on one side with writing above and below with with the number 1 and some more writing below that, this 1 yen piece was given to me by my 30 - Taxonomy - May 2014
teacher in year 3 when she got back from her trip from Japan. That’s all the facts i know from this coin by looking at it, no date or anything, now the interesting part, this coin really doesn’t feel like a coin at all, it is so light, but when you drop it on surfaces or onto other coins, it sounds just like any
other coin would, which is what makes me so facinated with this coin, it is easily the most unique and different to all the coins i own.
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This is the other Netherlands 1G coin and is a much older version, dated at 1972 it is 25 years older than the other one in my collection. this one has an shield with a lion in much like the Netherlands logo, it has a lot more details and patterns along it than the newer version of it. on the flip side the only simularity 32 - Taxonomy - May 2014
is that it has a womans head on it, but this one has a different woman on it, Juliana of Netherlands who was the queen of Netherlands when this coin was distributed and she is facing right. It seems like the newer version of this coin really tried to go with a modern look that hadn’t been done before.
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Another Netherlands coin of lacks decoration and isn’t mine is this 1975 25 cent one of the most interesting piece, worth a 1/4 of the coins of mine. 1G piece it is a lot smaller, the heads side of the coin is pretty much the same as the 1G coin with Juliana of Netherlands also on the coin. Their is a crown above the 25 Cent on the front but apart from that this coin 34 - Taxonomy - May 2014
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This coin interests me because of its size really, there is nothing too different in design to its sucessor coin, it still has the same pattern on the front and still has Queen Elizebeth II on the heads side, but back in 1979, the 5p coin was a lot bigger, i don’t know the reasoning for them making 36 - Taxonomy - May 2014
the coin significantly smaller but is makes this coin more interesting as it is exactly the same as a 5p, but more the size of a 10p
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This is the fist of my 3 American coins, and is the 1988, 25 cent, referred to as the “quarter” what i find interesting about American coins is they have “coined” (excuse the pun) names for each of their coins, being a very religious country they have “In God We Trust” written on their coins. as well 38 - Taxonomy - May 2014
as lots of other signs of paitriotism, which reflects the country well much like the first spanish coin i looked at, all of their coins have previous significant presidents on them, this one featured the first president of the USA, George Washington. the flipside feautres an eagle flying high
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Originally i didn’t know where this coin was from nor its value, i just knew it was 20 of something, upon further research i found out it was from Switzerland and is a 1980 Helvetia 20 Swiss cent or “Rappen” it features a crowned person on the heads side, although i have no idea who this is. I like the 40 - Taxonomy - May 2014
I like the design of the value within the wreath on the other side of the coin though. It’s my only swiss coin so must have come from the bag of foreign coins i found with my friend.
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Also one of my favourite coins is this 2001 edition of the £5 coin, myself and my brother were given 1 each for our birthdays when we were younger, he chose to spend his straight away where as i chose to keep mine, i love the design on the coin as it marks the 100th aniversary and death of Queen 42 - Taxonomy - May 2014
Elizebeth, inside the V is the Queens face with “one penny” below with the dates above her head and an representation of crystal palace to either side of this. Its the largest of all my coins and one of the best designed. I love the level of detail on this coin as well, on the
heads side of the coin, you can clearly see ever so slight wrinkles on the Queens face, this just makes it look so much more realistic and amazing to me.
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The other asian coin i have is this 1 Hong Kong Dollar from 1994, again there’s not a lot i know about this coin as their is a lot of cantonese writing on it, but luckily it does cross over a bit with English. It features a small plant on it with the word “Hong Kong” below it, it’s quite close to the size 44 - Taxonomy - May 2014
and shape as an English 10p piece, but has straight ridged edges where as the 10p has more of a curve to it.
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This coin is an 1982 25 PTAs, it’s very different to its sucessor as firstly it’s silver and not gold, it doesn’t feature a hole in the middle and doesn’t hugely reflect spain as a country, where as the other one does. On the flip side, it says Juan Carlos I Rey De Espana which translates to “Juan Carlos of 46 - Taxonomy - May 2014
Spain” and is the face that is featured on this coin. He bacame king of spain back in 1975 and is still the current king.
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I like the one side of this coin, just because its quite simple and depicts a woman picking or planting a flower with 1991 below her, this is the 1991 50 Pfennig which is a divsion of the mark before they joined the euro system, this is quite a small coin that features “Bundesrepublik Deutschland� on it. which 48 - Taxonomy - May 2014
is referal to the cold war era of Germany, this is a bit of a weird thing to feature on a coin but never the less, i like the design.
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The final coin with a hole in it is very simular to the 5 Kroner from Norway in my collection in the fact they both simular size with the Norway coin being slightly smaller, both silver and have a hole in the middle, this could be because it is also a 5 Kroner coin, difference is this one is from Denmark 50 - Taxonomy - May 2014
On the one side if features an almost celtic swirling pattern and also love hearts, which is a different thing to encorporate on coins, on the other side the hearts continue where it as a triple repeated pattern with crowns and the roman numerals II inbetween each one. all with the date 1990 below it.
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My second American coin and last silver one is the 1964 5 cent coin, and once again it goes more commonly by it’s nickname the “nickle” much like the other coin if features the words “In God We Trust” as well as a presidents head, this time, 3rd president of the USA Thomas Jefferson 52 - Taxonomy - May 2014
I’ve also noticed a lot of their it means exactly but its a coins say the word “liberty” nice motiv along the top. this is interesting as i don’t know why. On the other side of the coin is the picture of the white house with “E Pluribus Unum” which is Latin for “Out of many, One” I don’t know if this is again them being very patriotic or what
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Just off the coast of France but part of Britain, Jersey follows the same currency as us with Great British Pounds, here is a 20p from Jersey made in 2002, i must have aquired this on a holiday somewhere of even been given it in England and noticed it wasn’t normal so kept it. The head side of the 54 - Taxonomy - May 2014
coin is pretty normal and looks exactly like the english 20p, but on the other side has a lighthouse with Bailiwick of Jersey written above. this is jersey and the surrounding islands. The other unique thing about this coin which may not seem different to us is that it is the only non round coin in my collection.
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One of my other favourite coins is this, a 1932 three pence piece, i find it interesting not only for the design but also the need of 3p i guess the economy was a lot different back then but you wouldn’t think there would be much need for it which i guess is why it stopped circulation. 56 - Taxonomy - May 2014
The other thing i love is the fact it’s so dirty, its supposed to be silver but is almost black, but still has all the details showing on it. On the one side it has King George V of England, he died 4 years after this coin was made. It is one of the smallest and lightest of my coins and the oldest at 82 years old
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Copper
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Bottomed 59
My last Danish coin and first copper coin is this 50 Ore coin, much like the other Danish coin it features a love heart to which i still don’t know why it has this. it features a crown on the other side but doesn’t have any person or face on it, i wonder if this is a common thing for coins in Denmark. 60 - Taxonomy - May 2014
The coin was made in 1990 and doesn’t have too much of a design to it, the only other text on it is “LG UP” in very small writing at the bottom of the number size.
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I thought i’d also feature a more common modern coin as well to compare them, as i went on holiday to spain they were changing over to Euros and so i collected a few of these when i was younger, they have nice designs on them and feature a globe on one side representing the EU which i think is pretty 62 - Taxonomy - May 2014
universal for Euro coins and then on the flipside it features the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral. it seems the difference between the old Spanish coins and the new Euros is that the old ones were more a representation of Spanish culture where as the new ones show the history of spain.
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This coin isn’t massively down rather than the interesting as I have another convential looking left or simular coin in my collection, right. but it is the 1983 Netherlands 5cl coin, it features a simuar design to the other coin but instead only has vertical lines on it with 2 rectangle blocks side by side on it. It again features Beatrix of the Netherlands on it facing 64 - Taxonomy - May 2014
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Here is my Canadian 1cent coin, made in 1981 this features a mapleleaf much like the one in the Candian flag, i don’t know if this is the flower of Canada or what but they use it a lot. This was given to me by a Canadian family member when she was over visiting, it resembles a penny significantly. 66 - Taxonomy - May 2014
in size and shape and even more so when you turn it over and see that it is pretty much exactly the same design on the heads side, this was interesting to me as i didn’t know that Canada was part of the common wealth so it was something i had learnt through the coin itself.
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One of my oldest coins (although no where near as old as the 3 pence piece) is this 1 pence, made in 1962 this was a huge coin, although quite thin, it takes up a lot of room purely from its diametre, this could be the reason the design of the coin got changed as it took up so much room. I like the 68 - Taxonomy - May 2014
very british front of this coin, i dont know if it’s supposed to be anyone of any significance or just a random person representing something, but i also like on the heads side you have an image of Queen Elizebeth II a lot younger than she is in any of my other coins, this is a piece of history.
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This is the 1 cent piece from spain, made in 2003 it is massively simular to the 5 cent piece there isn’t much to say about it as it is pretty much the same coin other than the size of it, it is such a tiny coin and it seems like these modern coins have made the more redundent ones smaller as if they were 70 - Taxonomy - May 2014
to soon get rid of them all together, and with people getting richer, this could potentially happen one day, making these coins more valuable.
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The final coin in my Taxonomy of 30 is this one cent coin from America, again featuring the words “In God We Trust”, “Liberty” and “E Pluribus unum” again, the change is the design, the coin has American President Abraham Lincoln on it and was made in 1977. Much like the other coins this 72 - Taxonomy - May 2014
coin has a nickname, and like our 1p, it is called the “penny” On the other side it also features the Lincoln Memorial which is a lot bigger in person than you would expect.
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Dean Scicluna U1154130 Taxonomy of 30 C o i n s d c s g r a p h i c s. wordpress.com
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