About The Arab Collector
The Arab Collector (Arabic: المُقتني العربي, Al-Muqtani Al-Arabi) is an Arabic platform founded in March 2016 as a digital magazine for promoting the knowledge of numismatic, philately, and, banknote in the Arab world and based in Australia. It was published monthly, but starting in February 2017 it transitioned to irregular publication.
It was first published in Wagga Wagga City in ِApril 2016 and for many years it was run by its co-founder, Mazen Mira.
A global edition is published in Wagga Wagga and covers the Arab World in the Middle East and North Africa where Arabic is a common language, it is also accessible to other readers from across the globe.
The name “Muqtani” in Arabic refers to collectors or individuals who possess valuable objects, such as coins or postage stamps. This term is commonly used by Arab researchers and hobbyists who have a passion for collecting such items.
History
The Arab Collector has been based in Wagga Wagga City since its first issue, The inaugural issue of the publication was released on 28 April 2016, by Mazen Mira and Moheb Rizkalla as a free online magazine. The two had previously worked on publishing different educational posts about collecting hobbies in Arabic on different specialised forums and on social media until they considered having an independent publication for collecting hobbies in the Arabic language.
It was first published as a monthly bulletin distributed digitally on Facebook until the registration of the domain on the 13th of March 2017. Formerly, the suggested name for the magazine was “Coins & Stamps” (عملات وطوابع) in Arabic, representing its primary focus. However, the name was later changed to The Arab Collector before the release of its first issue.
The inaugural issue of The Arab Collector was released in April 2016, and published as the May 2016 issue on the magazine’s Facebook page, and it was set out to tell the news and collect articles through hobbyists. There were only 5 writers (hobbyists) participated in the first issue, featuring 8 topics covering a range of articles about coins and philately.
The main article for coins was about the history of the Scalloped coins and how the Indian coins impacted the Arabic coins throughout 87 years, featuring images of coins from Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Oman, Sudan, and an Indian 1 Anna, on its cover.
In August 2016, The Arab Collector incorporated “Coin Index“, a Facebook page which was launched by Tarik Al Bawab in Jordan, This incorporation aimed to expand the magazine’s coverage of numismatic content from the region. Subsequently, in May 2017, The Arab Collector established a collaboration with “Arabian Coins” from the United States, further broadening its sources and reach.
In October 2017, the official website of The Arab Collector was launched as an online newspaper for publishing news and covering events related to numismatics, philately, and banknotes in Arabic, currently, it has an online archive with unformatted text for different articles published on social media platforms.
In May 2018, The Arab Collector announced the introduction of the “Egyptian Coins Guide”, an annex listing the statistical data and the estimated price in US Dollars of the graded coins by both PCGS & NCG for the Egyptian coins minted between 1916 and 1950.
In early 2019, a new column was introduced by the name of Syrian Money Guide, featuring topics about the coins, banknotes, and tokens that were issued and used in Syria starting in the early 20th century.
In October 2019, a specialised philatelic section named “The Local and Private Mail in Morocco” was introduced, to illustrate detailed information about the history of the Local and private mail in Morocco starting in 1882 and featuring the French postal lines.
In October 2019, it also introduced a new column named the “Encyclopedia of Egyptian Banknotes”, an annex featuring various detailed information about the Egyptian banknotes for more than 125 years, like the banknote terminology, the governors, watermarks to all of the banknotes issued in Egypt since 1889 till now. the encyclopedia was divided between the different issues of the magazine and is due to be completed in 2026.