I have to agree with Padraic, Deano. That seems pretty high.

There was a commercial this past summer about getting a bunch of older
circulated U.S. coins in a nice little treasure chest for something like $20.
The downside was that it was all, what we call, junk coins; common circulated
coins worth between face and melt value. The true value of the coins you got
was less than five dollars, and the chest was cheaply made.

There seems to be any number of auctions online for a pound of foreign coins
that your son would probably like. As an alternative, have you checked with
your local coin dealer? They sometime have a "junk box" of foreign coins that
they're usually willing to let go for a song.

I, too, remember seeing the ad you mentioned, but I don't remember where nor
any of the details involved.

Jerry

"Padraic Brown" responded:

On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 16:40:33 GMT, "Deano" wrote:

I received a catalog in the mail that was about coin collecting--it had some
serious coins and some "gift" items--birth year sets, etc.

I was interested in a treasure chest that I believe had about 300 coins from
around the world in it--it retailed for about $30-$40--I have lost the
catalog and really wanted to order the set for my son who is very interested
in money from other countries.

I cannot seem to find that particular item online--has anyone gotten a
catalog like this? Or could point me in the right direction as to how to
find this unique gift for my son?

That's awful expensive! You can easily get 300 foreign coins from an
Ebay auction for perhaps $10 to $12 including postage; then simply
find a nice little wooden box in a craft shop or second hand shop.

Alternatively, you could bid on a heftier lot, such as this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=394010901 3

which has almost twice the coins.

Just an alternative suggestion, since I don't know the source for your
item.

Padraic.