I see no problem with the various number of countries because it does state that they are coins of currently existing countries. Thus, it is quite easy to have coins from 100's, if not 1000's, of different countries. Just think, how many different countries have existed from the past to the present?

Is the answer not trivial? I imagine the collections include money from countries that no longer exist. Does the record stipulate current countries? And who gets to define what a country is, anyway?

In the last E-Sylum, ASR Murthy of Madras (Chennai) wonders what the Guinness uses for definition of a "Country" since numismatic collections can contain more countries than the current UN roster.

It must be pointed out that the total number of current countries (independent nations) in the world is 196, according to the UN.

People collecting bank notes do not necessarily collect just current countries. Add in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, the Confederate States of America, etc and I'm sure you can reach the 221 that Sanjay Relan of Hong Kong has.

With coins, the 255 that Justin Gilbert Lopez has is even easier to explain, but probably very time consuming to collect. In the 1700s and 1800s, so many cities in Germany were truly fully independent countries (the German states, unified only by rather similar cultures and languages) that they alone could make up the difference, although other regions such as Italy were also composed of many independent entities.

The information in Guinness is not misleading, it only requires the recollection that historical collections must recognize many more countries than the present UN organization.

I note with interest the question of how many countries there are in the world. So how does Northern Cyprus rate? I think the Turkish would say it was a separate country and for many many years residents and tourists were unable to cross from one to the other although I believe it is a little more relaxed now.

Those guys with 221 to 255 coins from around the world are what the young people today call "weaksauce." Visit the "everycountry" group at ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/everycountry/ and try to collect one of each "place" on their 7,500 line checklist!