Danziger's Bio
My coin collecting experience goes back years to when I was in primary school. Since I was always interested in history, I thought coin collecting might be a good “exercise“ to learn more about Poland. Also, my family tree clearly shows that our roots have been in the Danzig area from at least the XVII century, thus focusing my interests on this particular region. Unfortunately, as is probably the case with most young coin collectors, I did not have enough funds at that time to build a serious collection and eventually put the hobby on hold for a while.
However, some years ago, I realized that in fact almost everything that our family had before the WWII, including keepsakes like photos etc., was destroyed in 1945 when Danzig was almost completely burnt to the ground. Thus, wanting to re-gain something historically associated with Danzig, something I could eventually pass on to my children and (hopefully) grandchildren, I decided to build a unique collection of Danzig coins from the period between WWI and WWII, when Danzig was proclaimed a free city (Freie Stadt Danzig).
Over the years, I was fortunately able to acquire some truly distinctive Danzig coins, most in the highest grades ever assigned to the coins by NGC (e.g., 1 Gulden 1923 MS67, 5 Gulden 1927 MS65). At the same time I have really become enamored with numismatics. Hence, although I now have a complete set of Danzig coins (1923-1939), a burning desire to find other (older) Danzig coins has emerged, especially since the history of Danzig coins is as rich and old as the city itself, being over 1000 years old.