Coin Collecting Specialties Exonumia

Coin Collecting Specialties Exonumia

People love to collect coins, and one of the sub specialties in coin collecting is Exonumia. The hobby of coin collection exonumia is the practice of collecting metals and tokens. It is a practice that not a lot of people that collect coins are aware of, unless you are one of the people that love this specialty within coin collection circles.

Exonumia is the practice also of collecting coin like objects, not just tokens and medals. Medals and tokens are the most frequent practice of people who enjoy exonumia, but there are other coin like objects that qualify for collecting under the hobby exonumia.

Exo means “out of” from the Greek language, and nummus means “Coin” from the Latin language, so it means out side of coins, or a derivative of such. The term exonumia is applied to any collection of coin like items.  The British call this practice or hobby Paranumismatia, which is unique to their nation as far as a word for this unique branch of coin collecting.

Some people love to collect items such as bus tokens, pub tokens, casino tokens or chips, and other types of tokens made from a variety of materials. Many tokens that are made in the U.S. are not as widely known as the different tokens from ancient times, in fact that is what makes many people begin to collect these types of items.

Some coin collecting purists feel that Exonumia is the dark side of coin collecting, they do not feel it should be classified as coin collecting. For them they scorn Exonumia and say that it’s a made up hobby, and that it is not true coin collecting.

But others feel that this purist attitude is not valid, and they enjoy collecting a variety of items anyway. You can collect anything that strikes your interest, and if it is something that could be valuable down the road, all the more power to you.

Otherwise, even if it is not especially valuable, if you enjoy collecting it then you can have a lot of fun collecting tokens and the like as long as its something that brings you satisfaction and enjoyment, then it is a successful collection and makes you an official Exonumia collector.