Kingdom of Serbia - 1 Dinar
Date: 1942
Mint: Budapest, Hungary
Condition: VF-XF
Material: Zinc
Weight: N/A
KM#: 31
Catalog Value: $2.00 - 6.00
Serbia, a country with a troubled past but a bright future. This coin came from a time when Serbia was a Kingdom and a sovereign nation - sort of. Serbia's past has always had some sort of trouble or been part of another country. It was a suzerain of Turkey and the Ottoman Empire until the late 19th century. Then it became an independent Kingdom and one of it's citizens was the direct cause of WWI. Then it became the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, then the Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia, then came the Yugoslav wars in the 1990's then finally in 2006 it became a nation-state again. Sorry to sum up about 2,000 textbooks-worth of history in a short paragraph, but you get the point.
This coin, like many others from WWII, is made of zinc. Whenever I see zinc in a dealers dump bin, I buy it, and this is a perfect example of why I do it. This coin came from a hoard of coins that I purchased, which made every coin virtually $0.04 a piece. So for 4 cents, I got this piece for a steal! Although I may never sell this coin, the collectors value is still there! Maybe one day I will sell my coins off, but I HIGHLY doubt it; I would rather starve to death then sell off my precious collection - maybe. Anyways, the reason why it is made from zinc is due to the fact that Germany occupied the country during WWII. Oops, did I forget to mention that little fact in that short paragraph, ahh no worries, it's just history! Other than the nice coat of arms presented on the obverse and the sprigs on the reverse, the coin is pretty plain. It's still an unusual piece to own and find in a dump bin, and that's the reason why I'm showing it off to all of you!