Today the new banknotes of South Africa featuring Nelson Mandela are released to the general public! Read more about them in a recent post or view the promotion material on the official site.
The new notes come in 5 different denominations with an image of Nelson Mandela on the front and the animals of the Big Five on the back.
To promote these beautiful new banknotes the South African Reserve Bank made this video.
So BanknoteNews has a fun new challenge: identifying who Sister Sarah is on the Bahamas 1/2 dollar note (P42). When I was doing some research on my own collection I too ran into this problem. She is prominently featured on the banknote with her name next to her picture but I couldn't find any information on her.
But the readers of BanknoteNews have apparently found out who she is.
IDENTIFIED: According to Paul Walters, "Sister Sarah is indeed a real person. I am not sure if she is still living, I don't think she is. She was a prominant figure at the straw market in the 1970s, when the market was located along the dock--before it moved to its present day location on Bay street."
They also found an article mentioning her as a local straw weaver. Has the riddle finally been solved?
Some rather odd new additions to my collection this week. Some collectors would even go so far by claiming this isn't even real money. Well, it isn't!
As the regular visitor might have noticed I've implemented some changes on this blog. First of all it's wider. My blog has always been 750 pixels wide, but now it's grown to 900 pixels. Not much wider perhaps but it allows me to implement another change: advertisements...
Yes, that horrible evil phenomenon which will be the downfall of humanity as we know it!! Well, that's a bit over the top perhaps since it's an add for the great Banknote Book. This is by far the best catalogue on banknotes out there so if you want to check it out for yourself, please do so by clicking the banner at the right. That way I make a little bit of money as well.
On November 7th the new 20 Dollar will be released to the public in Canada. To announce this event Canada has unveiled a giant image of the note on the side of the Central Bank building.
This has sparked some controversy in Canada due to the costs for this piece of art. The image costs almost $40.000 to design, produce and install. This is of course a large sum for you or me but to be honest: is it that much for a publicity campaign? I don't know.
But that's not the only turmoil surrounding the introduction of the new banknote. Apparently some Canadians have been outraged that the pictures of three naked women and the Twin Towers are on their new money.
Yes, this is the moment where you probably should raise your eyebrows...
What they view as a weird semi-pornographic image is actually the Vimy Memorial in northern France, a monument for Canadian soldiers who died in the First World War. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story I guess. On November 7th everyone can view the new banknotes for themselves at their local sexshop bank.
Another week with some great new banknotes. My mother recently visited Rome in Italy. Of course she knows I'm always interested in new banknotes for my collection so when she came across the store Numismatica Merulana in the Via Merulana she just had to go in. Lucky me! She came home with some very nice Italian banknotes. But that's not all this week because I also received my oldest German banknote to date.
I read an interesting topic on the members forum of the IBNS. Somebody has a special collecting theme: UNESCO sites on banknotes. UNESCO stands for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
What are these sites? To quote UNESCO: "The World Heritage List includes 962 properties forming part of the cultural and natural heritage which the World Heritage Committee considers as having outstanding universal value." Countries like to put sites on their banknotes which are the pride of a nation so it should come as no surprise that quite a few of the current 962 sites have ended up on banknotes thoughout the world.
Right now people on the IBNS forum are compiling a list of the sites, so it's 'work in progress'. The list is impressive so far and can be viewed after the click (pick numbers and the exact banknote will be added later by the collectors):
A little game: trying to determine where the artist stood when he shot the photo or made the painting which went on to become a banknote.
The first one: the back of the 1 Pound note from the Isle of Man (P40).
A new week with lots of new banknotes and all from Europe.
So what's this? All of sudden everything is in English on this website?!
Well not everything yet but I'm working on it. Since I'm listed in the members section of the IBNS with my website I've noticed a lot of traffic from across the world. Now that's great of course but unless your native language is Dutch you wouldn't understand a word I wrote. So I decided that from now on my banknote website will be in English. I've only translated a few of the recent posts at the moment but I'm hoping to translate everything soon.
Of course, I'm 100% Dutch: English is not my native language. So if you're reading this and thinking: 'WTF is this guy blabbering about?', then please bear with me.
Rare auction of Arab world currencies provides rich pictorial display of region's turbulent modern history. (...) Banknotes – sometimes dubbed the "calling cards of nation" – reflect changing political and economic fortunes across a century and a half of Middle Eastern history, the collapse of empires, war, revolution and unrest.
Nice article in The Guardian about the auction last week of the collection of banknotes from the Middle East by George Kanaan. Despite the fact that the auction has finished and that you have to login at auction house Spink to see past auctions, the catalogue is still freely available when you search Google for it: right here. (Via)
The autumn winds are blowing throught the streets and the days are getting darker and colder. But don't be too depressed because I have found some new banknotes for my collection! I've managed to expand the number of countries in my collection and I even added my daughter Charlie's favourite little friend.
Since I was in Delft for another appointment I took the opportunity to visit Van Domburg. I bought my first banknotes in that shop many years ago. It was nice to be back again and see nothing had changed. Still boxes everywhere and hundreds of binders filled with stamps, coins and banknotes. The smell of old paper was in the air. They sell mostly stamps and the banknotes are scattered throughout the shop but if you're not in a hurry you can always find something to your liking. Luckily I was the first customer of the day so I had all the time in the world to find the following new banknotes.
CoinWeek has published a video shot during the last Paper Money Fair in Valkenburg, the Netherlands. A few traders comment on their favourite banknote. To be honest: they really are beautiful (the banknotes of course, not the traders). Some of the notes shown cost a small fortune to acquire but there are also some cheaper banknotes.
Video (with free 80's theme music!):
I hadn't visited Van Mastrigt in Rotterdam for a while so when I had a free afternoon I stopped by them. Their banknote collection is very small and most of it is piled up in something which can best be desribed as a waste paper basket. Most of it isn't worth much and in very poor quality (Van Mastrigt is primarily a coin- and stampshop). So it takes some time and a trained eye to spot the good banknotes between the toilet paper.
Apparently someone had brought a large amount of Austrian Notgeld because it comprised half of the available banknotes. I'm not really a Notgeld collector but nice looking or interesting notes always spark my interest. After about half an hour of digging through piles of paper money I had six new notes for my collection.
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