The Reserve Bank of Fiji has issued a very cool new commemorative banknote. The 7-dollar note has the national Rugby sevens team and their victory at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio as its subject. The note is printed by Oberthur Fiduciaire and is printed in a limited number of 2 million copies. An unknown amount will be sold as a special numismatic product. The note is expected to be sold out very quickly.
This note ticks a lot of boxes for me: I like the unusual amount on the banknote, I like the images used on the note and I happen to like rugby a lot! This sounds like a must-have for me.
The Bank of Canada has revealed what their new commemorative 10-dollar banknote will look like. I expected an epic banknote and they absolutely delivered!
The front of the banknote celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Confederation of Canada celebrates 4 leaders from the past: Sir John A. Macdonald, Sir George-Étienne Cartier, Agnes Macphail and James Gladstone (Akay-na-muka). The names of all of Canada’s provinces and territories and the dates when they entered Confederation are repeated in English and French across the top and bottom of the large window. To the left is the Memorial Chamber Arch. This arch is located inside the Memorial Chamber of the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill. The Memorial Chamber was dedicated in 1927 to all Canadians who died in military service during the First World War. The chamber has since come to honour all Canadian men and women who gave their lives in service to their country. In the back we can see the Hall of Honour. The Hall of Honour is the central corridor of the Centre Block on Parliament Hill.
The back of the note celebrates the natural features of Canada: the coast mountains, the prairies, the Canadian Shield and the Atlantic coast. In the background are the Nothern lights. Several cultural references have been added as well: the assomption sash (a pattern important to the Métis people), an owl's bouquet designed by the Inuit artist Kenojuak Ashevak, thirteen maple leaves which are linked by their stems represening each of Canada’s provinces and territories and of course the Maple Leaf, the Canadian flag and Canada's Coat of Arms. The banknote will be issued from 1 June 2017.
All in all: in my humble opinion the most beautiful banknote I've seen this year and top contender for Banknote of the Year 2017 as far as I'm concerned.
The Bank of Canada has announced it will unveil the new commemorative banknote celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Confederation of Canada at a special press conference on 7 April 2017 at 10:15 am local time (that's 16:15 CET).
I don't know about you but I'm pretty excited about this note, maybe because it's only the fourth commemorative banknote in the history of the Bank. For some reason I expect nothing less than an epic banknote! The new polymer note should be issued from 1 July 2017.
The European Central Bank (ECB) has introduced the new 50-euro banknote on 4 April 2017. This 4th note in the new Europa series has the same color scheme as the old note and also keeps the renaissance themed bridge.
Like the 20-euro note from the second series, the 50-euro also has a portrait window as a new security feature. You can find more information on the new note at the official website Our Money from the ECB.
Yesterday I read a very interesting article on the website FTM.nl (Follow The Money) titled "This is our new currency (if things go wrong with the euro)". It's an investigative journalism site which is unfortunately behind a paywall, but if you sign-up you can read the first month for free after which the subscription is cancelled automatically (articles are in Dutch but Google Translate will get you pretty far, for those interested).
Anyway, what peaked my interest was of course the title and subject of the article. There have always been rumours that during the Greek debt crisis the financial world and the Finance Ministers in particular took into consideration that the euro might collapse. What then? We couldn't just open the vaults and bring out the old gulden banknotes again.
The Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem never publicly admitted it but in deepest secret the Dutch banknote printer Royal Joh. Enschedé was preparing for exactly such an event. The article describes the search for these illustrious banknotes and the secrecy surrounding the production. Even admitting that such banknotes were being printed for a worst case scenario could very well have been explained as the Dutch already giving up on the euro furthering its downfall.
Although the journalist eventually had confirmation that the banknotes had indeed be printed, he never had visual proof of them. Rumour has it that they are still being kept in a gigantic vault in the middle of The Netherlands. No proof, until he met a retired public servant from the Dutch Ministry of Finance who (after some hesitation) showed him the note below.
It's supposed to be a banknote of 5-florijn, the so-called proposed new currency of the post-euro Netherlands. As you may know, the florijn has been a currency in the past and is still used today in some parts of the world. How totally awesome would a find like that be??
Well... it's not. What the journalist was shown is a 5-florijn testnote from Royal Joh. Enschedé. A note which is not a secret at all but can be bought on eBay. The search for the real secret post-euro banknotes continues, I guess.
Hello, I'm Steven Bron and welcome to my blog on banknotes! Here you can find: breaking news, background articles and of course my personal collection (world notes or at least one from each country, commemorative notes and polymer notes).
The Reserve Bank of Fiji has issued a very cool new commemorative banknote. The 7-dollar note has the national Rugby sevens team and their victory at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio as its subject. The note is printed by Oberthur Fiduciaire and is printed in a limited number of 2 million copies. An unknown amount will be sold as a special numismatic product. The note is expected to be sold out very quickly. 
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Yesterday I read a very interesting article on the website FTM.nl (Follow The Money) titled "
