ARE METALS A SUBCATEGORY OF COINS? YOUR THOUGHTS...

[ominus1]

..i now have pruchased 2 metals..one of Louis XVII, of which there were NO COINS minted of him   and now i've bought a Catherine Medici bronze ...since i haven't found any coins of the Medici lady queens of the Franks...they are round and have two sides so.....do we put them in the same bin as coins?...what do you think?....

[Nerosmyfavorite68]

I would consider round medals to be a subcategory of coin collecting. 

[Phil Anthos]

Metals are not coins. Medals on the other hand are considered exonumia and can be loosely categorized as coins for collecting purposes.

~ Peter 

Edited November 14, 2024 by Phil Anthos

[sand]

For me, the answer is yes and no. Medals have value to collectors and anyone who likes them. Most medals are round and flat. Most medals are made of metal. Therefore, in a way, medals are coins, even the rectangular ones, and even the non-metal ones. But, I don't collect them, yet.

[ominus1]

9 minutes ago, sand said:

even the rectangular ones, and even the non-metal ones.

...that is a true statement  very good Sir...:)

[shanxi]

A definite yes for ancient Roman medals.  I'm pretty sure that you could buy something with them back then.

[John Conduitt]

I don't think so. Coins are for spending, medals are for commemoration. There is the grey area in between containing commemorative coins but I don't count those as coins either unless they circulated. Medals have value and so technically you could buy something with one but in that case everything would have to count as a coin, which it isn't. By the same token, I count tokens as coins if they circulated for the purpose of general spending, but not if they didn't.