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Message:: [QUOTE="Shangas, post: 504322, member: 360"]The Piece of Eight has a fascinating history. That's why I like collecting them. I got my first one about two years ago at a local coin-shop. I went in searching for something else entirely (which they did not have), and I was about to leave when I got into a conversation with the storekeeper. During the course of our conversation, I casually asked him - jokingly - "Do you have any pieces of eight?" I'd never actually held one before this time and had only the vaguest idea of their history. To my surprise, he goes: "Actually yes I do!" He turns around, opens a side cabinet and pulls out the coin in its plastic sleeve. "I held it back for another customer but he appears to have dropped off the face of the earth. If you want it, you can have it?" We haggled a bit and I bought it. That was the 1802 one. Then about a year after that, I bought the 1779, 1790 and 1820 coins from another coin-dealer at my local flea-market. They were going absolutely dirt-cheap. I was so suspicious I pulled them out of their packets to weigh them first. They all came in within the recognised weight-limit (26-27.07g) and so I bought them. The 1783 and the most recent one, 1819, I bought from another guy who deals in antique coins and silverware. At one point, he had an 1820 one, but since I already had one of those, I passed it up. I didn't need duplicate coins.[/QUOTE]