READER PROFILE: RALF BÖPPLE

I was born in 1969 in Stuttgart, Germany, where I grew up, attended university and where I live with my wife and two kids, working as an international relationship manager for a larger regional bank. If you read reminiscences of U.S. collectors growing up in the 1950s and 60s, there is almost always the story of how they were drawn into the hobby of coin collecting by pulling pennies or silver coins from pocket change.

For a kid growing up in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1980s, it was the 5 deutschmark commemorative coin series that did the trick. At the time of their issue, they could be obtained at face value at bank counters. It was a very comfortable way of getting into coin collecting, even though 5 deutschmarks were a considerable amount of money for a young kid. Beyond that, the pre-euro situation of Europe of the 70s and 80s ensured that many different currencies could find their way into one’s collection – coins brought home from vacations in neighboring countries, through relatives and friends, and through swapping coins with schoolmates.

Although my interest in coins never ceased completely in my teenage years, it was not until I entered university that I became a more serious collector – a numismatist, if you like. In an old world coin catalog I came across pictures of the U.S. half dollar commemoratives of the early 20th century - coins with Indians on them, with covered wagons, bears, trappers and generals. Quite a contrast to the rather boring coins of the German Reich, which almost exclusively featured busts of bearded old men!

By the time my university studies had led me to the U.S., I was already heavily collecting its coinage and had become a member of the ANA. While in the States, I came into contact with the coins of Mexico. The real coins, I mean, not the modern silver and soccer world cup issues that can be found everywhere. Right away, I was hooked by the fact that these coins reflected much more the rough path of history the country had travelled than any U.S. coin could ever do for U.S. history.

Colonial issues, treasure coins, emperors, insurgent leaders, revolutionaries, countermarks from all over the world, extremely crude necessity issues and some of the most beautiful designs that were ever created – it was all there! From the first coin on - a Caballito peso in bright uncirculated condition for which I dipped into my university funds - my passion to collect the money of a country I had never been to and had absolutely no connection with at that time steadily increased.

When I first set foot on Mexican soil in 1999 for a one-month vacation to study Spanish (and, although in a much less planned way, to meet my future wife), my collecting interests had already expanded to Latin American crowns, necessity coinage and the use of Mexican silver world-wide. The global use of silver coins had always been of special interest to me (after all, I was majoring in International Economics). When I added a trade dollar to my U.S. type collection, I deliberately bought one with Chinese chops.

Ultimately, I chose to concentrate my collecting interest almost exclusively on Mexico. As the readers of this journal will already be aware of, chopmarks play a prominent role in Mexican numismatics as a proof of the use of its silver coins worldwide. Of course, this means that I am most probably the “least Asian” chopmarks collector around. I have to admit that I am unable to read a single word (or sign, if you will) in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. I am more interested in the host coins than the chops themselves. But it does not prevent me from asking the usual questions of the field: why, when, where, by whom which coins were chopped in Asia.

Living in Germany and being rather removed from the collecting circles of the U.S. and Mexico, it was very important for me from early on to build an extensive numismatic library. As mentioned, I joined the ANA, and subsequently a number of other associations as well, as this is a great way to gather the information along with the coins and to get an idea of how the collectors and researchers in these fields think and work. So it should come as no surprise that I became a member of the Chopmark Collectors Club as soon as I learned of its existence back in the early 2000s. I read all of its newsletters from page to page when Everett Jones kindly provided me with copies of the back issues. Of course, I bought a copy of the Rose book as quickly as I could get a hold of it, and I did not hesitate for a second to renew my membership in the CCC when Colin Gullberg announced his intention to revive the club two years ago.

For more information about the Chopmark Collectors Club, see: http://chopmarks.org

Wayne Homren, Editor

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