GREECE, 5 drachmai, 1965

DescriptionThe proofs of this year were extremely well made.Modern Greece emerged from the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century. Seeking protection from Europe they looked around for a well connected yet weak European royal for patronage and alliances. They picked a Bavarian prince. The monarchs were mediocre, and have been thrown out by republican revolutions twice in the the 20th century.The political arrangements that resulted in the nations of modern Europe began to emerge out of anarchy starting in the 7th century AD or so. Europe, for our purposes stretches from Greenland to somewhere in Russia. Collectors of Europe would likely include Russia. Collectors of Asia, even though about 2/3 of Russia is in Asia, probably not.By “Modern World Coins” we mean here, generally, the round, flat, shiny metal objects that people have used for money and still do. “Modern,” though, varies by location. There was some other way they were doing their economies, and then they switched over to “modern coins,” then they went toward paper money, now we’re all going toward digital, a future in which kids look at a coin and say “What’s that?” We’ll say: “We used to use those to buy things.” Kids will ask “How?” The main catalog reference is the Standard Catalog of World Coins, to which the KM numbers refer.