Does Coin Collecting Mean One is a Numismatist?
Your average numismatist may or may not indulge in coin collecting. One could also say on the other side of the coin a person who spends their time collecting coins could or could not be a numismatist. The hobby of coin collecting can be traced back to the fourteenth century and some have even said the Roman emperors were known to have coin collections but it really is not known if it was a genuine hobby or if they may just have been hoarding the coins! The hoarding of coins goes back to the very beginning of coinage where people kept them for the coin’s value and coin collecting later developed and is known as the “Hobby of Kings” as well. Because of the number of coins that have been minted throughout history are so vast no coin collector could ever hope to collect a sample of every coin produced. Probably King Farouk of Egypt, with the vast resources he had access to may have had the largest and most spectacular general collection in the world during the mid twentieth century. Also
