European coins cover all the provinces, city states, municipalities, sovereign states, federations and nations which make up the area which we call Europe and the Middle East.

Generally when we speak of this regions coins we are also talking about the period post Byzantium Empire or late Roman Empire.

Initially these coins were hand struck and the smaller denominational issues were generally for local usage.

However the larger silver and gold coins could be traded by weight nearly anywhere in the world so many of these larger coins were involved in trade and can be found in nearly every country in the world.

Most of these early coins were quite crude because of the power exerted by the church over the use of figures which may be mis construed as God’s.

The beauty and craftsmanship of centuries of Greek and Roman coin manufacturing seemed lost for several centuries.

When religion finally lost its grip over the sovereign European nations, these coins came of age with wonderful designs proving that the art of coin die making was alive and well again.

Coins of this region can come in a whole variety of metals from A to Z, (Aluminium to zinc), including the precious metals of gold silver and platinum.

There are some interesting conflict coins to collect from the whole region which would have significant historical appeal to many collectors.

These conflict coins were occupation coinage, inflationary coinage caused by the wars and the coins which continued to circulate when the conflict coinage lost its value.

Coins of this region are also easy to collect by various themes and since many countries are small and most of the various countries coinages spilled into neighbouring economies many are readily available today.

European coins are an interesting and fun way to introduce kids to coin collecting because of their history, accessibility and inexpensive price.

We also now have the Euros which are collectable but not likely valuable but still a set of something which can be easily acquired.

Many people like to collect something they can acquire easily and cheaply.

Share this page:

What’s this?