Blown Away By Royal Mail International Delivery

You may be aware of this already if you follow me on Instagram but I was just blown away by this that I had to make a blog post about it. I posted the below coins to Spain (I'm in the United Kingdom) on the 25th April... and they arrived IN SPAIN exactly 3 days later!

Am I going mad? Are Royal Mail not busy? How did they get the envelope there that fast? I'm so impressed.

I must say thanks very much to Pablo for his order. Hope to deal with you again in the future! Left me a really nice review below that I have also listed on the 'Review' page on this blog.

Really excited to just engage with and help out fellow coin collectors!

Belgium Coin from WWII - I Can't Help Myself

I've landed on another WWII coin. This is a Belgium 5 Francs coin from 1941. Belgium was invaded by German forces on 10th May 1940. After 18 days Belgium surrendered beginning a German occupation that lasted until 1944.

As I mentioned in my before post; zinc and aluminium coins are normally issued in a time of crisis. In this instance copper and other metals used for coins during the time were needed for weaponry.

My WWII memorabilia is slowly building...

1862 Indian Commonwealth Coin

I haven't yet sorted through the latest batch of Indian coins to add any spares to the blog. HOWEVER, this one coin did catch my eye and I had to give it a look.

It's a 1/4 Anna 1862 Copper Coin. What a beautiful coin! I particularly like the old coins with the British Monarchs on it makes me feel like I'm closer to India, Australia, the general commonwealth! Unfortunately as you know the European Union has pulled us sharply away from the commonwealth. We are unable to make free trade deals with the likes of these countries because of the EUROPEAN UNION.

It winds me up when these career europhile politicians claim that being part of the European Union gives us more CLOUT on the world stage. Rubbish. Iceland with a population of just over 300,000 has signed a free trade deal with China and you guessed it, the European Union hasn't! Leaving the EU would allows us to engage with the Commonwealth countries which we've so shamefully abandoned.

Wow that's my rant for the day!

Let's Go Back to WWII - In The Netherlands

My favourite period by far for coins is WWII. The period is littered with zinc and aluminium coins. The reason so many WWII coins are zinc or aluminium is because many base metals such as copper and nickel had to be used elsewhere for the production of war materials.

This is a 1942 Netherlands 10 Cent. Germany invaded The Netherlands on 10th May 1940. These coins were produced from 1941-1943!

3 Worldwide Delivery's in 3 days!

Reporting to base! Very excited as during the weekend I had 3 customers, 2 of which were new, one returning! I find that the people that buy my spare coins have fantastic taste. As soon as I send them photos for them to check that they are to their standard I look at the photos and think 'Wow, these actually look really good' haha! 'I'd buy these coins myself!'

The countries that the orders went to are Romania, USA and Spain.

I'm also in talks with an Australian! HOW EXCITING!

Cleaning Zinc NAZI Coins - FEEL LIKE I'VE DISCOVERED FIRE

Ok I haven't discovered fire. However I may have stumbled across a way to clean ZINC coins.

Basically I found a Nazi coin with the swastika and the date covered up, which is no good to me! I need to see a date! So I took to the internet as I always do and typed in how to clean zinc.

How I cleaned the coin:
1. Squeeze lemon juice into a little tub
2. Put the coin in
3. Wait 6-12 hours (6 hours should be enough but I took it to 12!)
4. Brush off the juice with a tissue

DONE

I did the one coin then I ended up soaking all my Nazi coins! Worth a try if they're in really bad condition! I never clean coins because I know it ruins them most of the time, but if they're in awful condition what have you got to lose?

Before and after, and my little lemon juice tub

You can see the dirt rise to the surface 

The finished products

A Coin 296 Years Old, In My Hands

Yesterday a gigantic load of coins arrived! 12 kilograms! I'll go into more detail in terms of what I received in due course but first let's talk about the oldest (recognisable) coin in the load.

1720 Half Penny. A coin 296 years old. I've researched on an auction site that one of these in good condition costs £420! WHAT! Obviously this one below isn't worth that, it's probably worth half a penny still... but it's still cool to have a 'new old' coin to add to my collection!

Front

Back 

What it should look like!