I have always been drawn to World Coins in particular. They cover so many subjects that interest me. There is art and design obviously, and of course geography, but also history, both political and social. The designs a nation puts on its coins can tell you so much about them, their history, and what they deem important. The thought of holding in your hand, a small object that was earned, handled, and spent by another living person gives a huge sense of connection. A single coin can transport you to faraway places in both distance and time. 

I first became interested in putting together a collection of coins from every country in the world when I lived in America in the late eighties and early nineties. Coin collecting was big for me back then. Perhaps there was less other "stuff" to distract me.  It was also quite easy to get involved in. There were many coin shows one could attend locally, and world coins were extremely popular. This is quite strange when you remember just what an inward-looking country the USA is for the most part.

 

This was also a time before the internet and searching for coins really meant "searching". You could not go on eBay from the comfort of your own home because it did not yet exist. Having said that the internet has been a boon for information and tracking down those hard-to-find coins.

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I have personally always concentrated on the 20th Century. When I started collecting it was the current century and I now see it as the pinnacle of an exceptionally long history for coins, both in use, and design. It was the first century during which almost every country issued their own coins. I have kept up with 21st Century changes, but the proliferation of coins for collectors and the reduction in quality of design has left me feeling disillusioned.

 

Collecting modern coins has been taken over by countries and mints out to produce a product specifically to sell to collectors. When I started out it was more about collecting the everyday coins different countries used for day-to-day commerce. Nowadays people are moving away from the daily use of coins. They are certainly on the decline as a means of payment.

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Creating a list of Countries

Over the years I have noticed just how many new collectors ask the question, "Where can I find a complete list of countries for my OFEC collection?"

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I too raised that question, but as you gain experience you realise that to compile a complete list is virtually impossible. Not only because of the sheer number of different coin issuing entities involved, and the various definitions of what constitutes an entity, but because of the considerable number of definitions of what even constitutes a coin. One man’s coin is very much another man’s exonumia.

 

What one must do is firstly decide on one’s own criteria for their collection. Everyone will have slightly or vastly different criteria, and so everyone's personal OFEC collection list will be at least slightly different.

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There are certain questions that you can ask yourself to narrow down your own definitive list. What I have attempted to do here on this website is to give you the tools with which to answer those questions. I have done this by outlining my own method that I followed to produce my list in the hope that it helps you define yours.

 

I also offer you my own personal OFEC list, or a more comprehensive list if requested. Please get in touch. I will be happy to give you more choices! The copy of my list shown here on the "20th Century OFEC Entities list" page is basic, having only the Main Entity and Sub-Entity names. If you request a copy of my complete list, it does come with additional information about each entity to help you decide.

 

 

How I Produced My List​​

I found it necessary to firstly define what constituted a country or autonomous dependency. By researching various sources and lists of 20th Century countries and dependencies I compiled a list of 380 main political entities. These include all the obvious countries, self-governing dependencies and monetary unions that existed during the 20th Century, but also many smaller and no longer existing ones.

 

There were additional even smaller entities that only existed for a matter of months or that never had control of the territory they claimed. Since I was primarily concerned in creating a list of coin issuing entities, and none of these very minor entities produced coins I excluded them at this stage.

 

These 380 separate main entities are defined, more or less, by their borders, not by a political change or change of name. This type of change would create a new sub-entity only, as I see these as a continuation of the same country, albeit with a political or name reform. An entity being completely divided, or indeed merged with other entities, usually is what results in the creation or deletion of an entity or entities from my list. It is worth noting that where an entity's name is retained and only one or more of the new entities created have a new name or names, I have kept the original country as an ongoing entity. It is only where it has all been renamed that the original entity was ended.

 

Once I had established this list of political entities, I went on to research each one's political history, and attempted to pinpoint each different political period. This was no easy task. Some of these changes took place over several years. Usually because of political turmoil and wars, either internal or external.  Quite often I was left with dates that were not always clear cut as some changes take place over a number of years. Sometimes these are a bit of a compromise. I also noted every change of monarch or other ruler for each political period. Each of these changes creates anew sub-entity in my list.

 

It was then necessary to look at each entity's coinage history and determine each substantial coinage series and changes of series and design. This was equally difficult and again often not clear cut. These changes could also take place over a period of years, with different coin series often overlapping.

 

However, by looking at these two fundamental areas of political and coinage history, I was able to compile a list of the total number of unique political periods and coinage series for the 20th Century. This list ran to 1735 entries.

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The included 1735 separate entities fell into one of the following categories. 

Political Period and/or Ruler with an associated Coinage Series

Coinage Reform without Political Reform or Ruler Change

Political Period and/or Ruler without any Coinage Reform 

Political Period and/or Ruler that did not issue coinage

 

All the while it was important to keep in mind that the emphasis of this project was about the coinage of an entity, rather than the political history. As evidenced above, there are a lot of times the two things do not coincide.

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With this in mind, once I had finished comparing histories I needed to remove all entities that had not issued coinage, or at least not issued new, different coinage. To begin, there were 107 of the original 380 main political entities that had never issued coinage (NIC) throughout their history. Therefore, I removed these entities from my list leaving me with 273 Main Entities that had at some point in time issued coins.

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This list of 273 Main Entities makes a particularly good initial OFEC list, if you want something a bit more manageable, and achievable. These 273 are shown as Main Entities on the 20th Century OFEC entities list.

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In addition to the 107 political entities that never issued coinage, there were 124 sub-entities associated with them. There were also 418 sub-entities, associated with the 273 main entities, that never issued coinage. This was when a Main Entity, which has issued coins at some point in its history had a political period during which it did not issue coins. 

 

As I was only interested in entities that had issued coins these 649 non-coin issuing entities were removed from the original list of 1735, reducing the number of entries to 1086. This can help explain why there are often gaps between the dates given in my list for one period of a country's history, and the next period. I can provide more information on the individual history of each entity based on my research if requested, which will show periods when no coins were issued and fill the gaps.

 

These periods of non-issue are sometimes because an entity used coins of another country or a monetary union at that time. Additionally, some entities may have had sufficient coins already in circulation, and in at least one case they were a cashless society. Visionaries perhaps, since that appears to be the way we are all heading!

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Breakdown of the 1086

The 1086 series (or types) can be broken down into the following categories.

 

Firstly, there were 1000 Standard Circulating coinage types issued by sovereign countries or autonomous dependencies. These are for each of the Political Periods and Monarchs or Rulers with a distinctive Coinage Series issued at the same time, or shortly thereafter. Political Periods include reforms, which could mean anything from a complete overthrow of the current government or regime, to simply a change of country name without regime change. It also includes all of the circulating coinage types already in use at the beginning of the century, including 21 types that were only minted in the 19th Century, but continued in circulation into the 20th without further issue.

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This can be broken down into the 105 circulating types at the Start of the 20th Century, 104 New Countries etc. formed during the century, 306 Political Reforms, 188 Changes of Ruler without political reform, 278 Coinage Reforms without political change and finally 19 Second or Regional Coinages issued or authorised by the central government of the country.

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To these 1000 we can then add the 86 non-circulating types. These are legal tender, and officially issued by a country or autonomous dependency, but they do not circulate freely. They tend to be commemorative in nature. These are usually issued by a country or dependency that uses another countries coinage, or the coinage of a monetary union for their day-to-day commerce. They are only noted when an entity does not also issue circulating coinage. You may well decide to only include circulating types.  Some of the non-circulating types are hard to find and can be expensive, as they are usually minted in much smaller numbers.

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The 86 break down into 2 at the Start of the Century, 16 New Entities, 35 Political Reforms, 13 Ruler Changes, 5 Coinage Reforms and 15 Second or Regional coinages.

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It is worth bearing in mind that a substantial proportion of modern entities that issue circulating regular coinage also issue Non-Circulating Legal Tender (NCLT). Also keep in mind that NCLT are different from Circulating Commemorative issues. These would come under the Standard Circulating category mentioned above.

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Those 283 Coinage Reforms that took place without Political Reform require explaining. Occasionally this would happen because a country wanted merely to update their designs, however there were usually other underlying reasons. This often followed a devaluation of the country’s currency, or it may have been a money saving exercise, excuse the pun. They may have needed to reduce the cost of producing coins by making them smaller, or of a lower value metal.

 

The second or regional coinages may be a group which you choose to exclude from your list if you already have the primary coinage from this entity. These would have been minted concurrently with the primary coinage of the time. They include issues minted by a central government for use in a specific region of the country, usually for financial reasons. The coins issued by Indonesia around 1962 for two new provinces are examples of this. They include specific issues for use by visitors to the country for example in Cuba.

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​To summarise; my own criteria consist mainly of coins issued by central governments. These issues can be for an entire country, or a particular region (think Hong Kong, Oman), and can be circulating issues or non-circulating legal tender where no circulating issues exist.

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What about excluded categories?

While researching and compiling this list I also gathered every existing list I could find from printed catalogues, such as those produced by Krause and others, and from various websites etc. I then used these lists to cross reference my own research and to ensure that I didn’t miss any coin series that I would want to include.

 

While doing this I compiled separate lists of other categories of coins and exonumia that did not meet my own criteria. Although these categories appear on other lists and in popular coin catalogues and websites, I personally did not want to include them in my own collection, but you well might.

 

That is the beauty of such a collection. You can pick or choose what you want to include and be master of your own collection. You only have yourself to please, and answer to. If you want to omit a certain series of coins for whatever reason that is up to you, even if it appears on other OFEC lists.

 

For example, there are a few countries that are not universally recognised as such by the international community. Some collectors would not include coins from these. ​

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​I will now detail the categories that I personally do not include. If you would like to include them, I can send you the lists that I have.​

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Firstly, I do not include tokens. There are tens of thousands of tokens that have been used throughout the world for a thousand different reasons in a thousand different places. Tokens are mainly used to trade for specific items or services. You can get tokens for everything from a loaf of bread to a service wash at a launderette, or from a bus ride to a brothel visit!

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Well known coin catalogues and websites list some of these tokens but not others. I have never been quite sure where they draw the distinction. They are all very collectible, and I have quite a few. But, for me they fall into the category of exonumia rather than coins.

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For examples of what I mean by tokens that tend to be included, think of the various leper colony tokens, POW camp tokens, mining camp tokens, US tax tokens, french municipal tokens, German notgeld etc. As I said, I do not include any of them. Not even the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Svalbard (Spitsbergen) or Tatarstan issues, in case you were wondering! There are 945 entries on this list.

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​Most of the remaining types that I do not include tend to be regional or local coinages. Although you could almost include the tokens already mentioned in the same category. They tend to be coins, or tokens, which are not issued by the central government of a country.

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Some, such as the provinces of China, the German States and to some extent the Indian Princely States, issued their own local coinage of the same weights, denominations, or series as the central government issues, and would have used both types concurrently. The German states had centrally issued smaller denominations, while issuing their own larger value coins.

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Personally, I focus on more centrally issued coins and therefore these local and provincial issues do not meet my criteria. Other local issues minted in times of coin shortages also fall into this category, which again are like the notgeld issues. They total another 141 entries.

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​The next category are those coins issued during times of rebellion, revolution, or civil war. This includes coinage issued by competing factions in certain conflicts, and again were usually for local or regional use by their own supporters, and not centrally issued.

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Spanish civil war coins and Mexican revolutionary issues would come under this category, among others. Propaganda issues are also included. Often issued by governments in exile and revolutionary groups. They are for the most part small, limited number issues, which are not always even legal tender, and would invariably not have circulated as coinage.

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I also include in this category the coins of Germany and Japan that were produced for use by their own military personnel in other countries, during the two world wars. These are quite often not issued for use in a specific country. Some of these were never released, with at least one Japanese type having never been shipped and subsequently re-melted. There are 72 entries in what I call the military category.

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The last list I have are medallic or bullion issues. As with tokens both are other types of exonumia, and not genuinely coins in my opinion. It seems to me that, like tokens, there must be an awful lot more than are on this list, particularly the medallic types. So again, it begs the question, why did these few end up on popular lists? I think with bullion it tends to be because they are included along with the regular issues in the Krause publications. My personal feeling is that they should be separate. There are 22 medallic issues and 22 bullion on the list.

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​There is one last category of so-called coins that I do not include, but they did not even make it on to any list. These are what are commonly known as Fantasy Coinage. They include coins issued unofficially by mints for remote, sometimes uninhabited places, mostly for the purpose of selling to collectors. They also include coins of so-called micro-nations and made-up places. Again, I have some of these myself, but I do not include them in my OFEC collection. Most of these appear in the Krause catalogue of Unusual Coins if you are interested.

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This will give you another 1202 entities to ponder. Add this to the 1086 entities on my list and you could have an OFEC collection of almost 2300 entities. This is just for the 20th Century remember. I think even this could be expanded to include more tokens and medallic issues.

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With so much choice of what to include I am sure you now see why I originally said that everyone’s list will likely be different.

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Last Thoughts​

As you can see there are so many diverse types and criteria that it would be extremely unlikely for two people to ever have the same list. Apart from which categories to include on your own list, the other huge factor that divides opinion is what category to put each entity into. What constitutes a country or dependency? Right or wrong, everyone will have their own opinions on this which would make for a different list for most individuals even if there was agreement on which categories to include.

 

As just one example, I personally include Japanese puppet states as main entities, just as I include German influenced countries of WWII. To me there is no difference between these two. Some people will likely include the Slovak Republic perhaps, or those parts of Yugoslavia that were German puppet states during World War II, such as Croatia and Serbia, while not including the Japanese puppet state of East Hopei. I do not personally see any difference between them.

 

There are lots of situations like these that will all need a decision from you as to inclusion or not. You only have to look at my list, and I am sure there will be entities that you immediately question. I have done a lot of research and have good arguments for everything that I have included. It does not mean I have not made mistakes. I am sure my list will change in the future, and I am happy to revisit my decisions if you have a different opinion. Please, drop me a line, but only with an equally open mind.

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You may also be able to think of entities that are not on my list that you are sure issued coins. They probably don't fit my criteria but fall in to the token or fantasy categories. But by all means let me know your thoughts. You never know, I may have made a mistake.  For a list of the more common omissions, and why, see my "What's Missing?" page.

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So, while my list may not answer all your questions, it will at least give you a starting point with which to begin narrowing down your own definitive OFEC list to collect.

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You may be wondering how I am doing with my own personal quest. In all it has taken about 37 years, and due to another update completed over the last couple of months my collection is no longer complete! Please go to the "One From Every Country - My Collection" page to view an example from my own collection of the sub-entities I have on my definitive list.

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While on the subject of lists, I have also compiled a 21st Century list, which I can send to anyone interested.  This, as with the 20th Century list, includes all changes to world coinages, both political reforms and coinage reforms. It does not include any of the coinage types minted during the 21st Century that were previously introduced during the 20th Century. So just the 98 entries so far!

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If you have questions, please feel free to contact me using the email below. Many thanks for your visit, I hope it has been interesting.

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If you are wondering about my choice of coin image at the top of the page; this coin was designed by my brother and I for the Royal Mint. The design was chosen as 2015 regular circulating commemorative 50 pence from the United Kingdom. It was designed and minted to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain fought during World War II. The image is of the proof sterling silver version.

Happy collecting!

Lee - January 2nd 2025