A lot of new additions this week after my visit to the IBNS Netherlands fair in Hilversum last Sunday! It was a great fair. Much smaller than the big fair in Maastricht but I was a lot happier when I left. A total of 18 new banknotes and 12 new countries added to my collection!
- France: 5 Francs (P115a)
- Eritrea: 1 Nakfa (P1)
- Equatorial Guinea: 500 Francos (P20)
- Botswana: 10 Pula (P30a)
- Arctic Territories: 20 Polar Dollars
- Angola: 100 Kwanzas (P126)
- South Sudan: 1 Pound (P5)
- United States of America: 2 Dollar (P461)
- Suriname: 25 Gulden (P138a)
- Mexico: 10 Pesos (PS535b)
- Malawi: 10 Kwacha (P51a)
- Yugoslavia: 5000 Dinara (P93a)
- Jersey: 1 Pound (P32)
- Japan: 50 Sen (P59b)
- Ireland: 1 Pound (P70d)
- Gibraltar: 1 Pound (P20a)
- Lesotho: 10 Maloti (P21)
- Laos: 100 Kip (P6)
The last note from Laos is one of my favorite notes ever. I think the design and colors are stunning. This has been on my wish list for a long time and I could finally get it for a good price this weekend.
Yesterday a colleague returned from Hong Kong bringing the polymer 10 Dollar (P401b) with her. It's the first polymer banknote from Hong Kong and was introduced in 2007 for a 2-year trial period. Always nice to have good contacts when you're a collector of world banknotes!
Update 30 November 2012: As a suprise there were two more banknotes! Two 20 Dollar notes. One from the Bank of China (P335) and the other from the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (P207e). Both can be found on my Hong Kong page.
A new banknote arrived yesterday by mail. It's the Russian 250 Rubles (P36) issued in 1917 by the Soviet government. The note was also issued by the provisional government but the fact that the serial number starts with AB points to the Soviet issue.
Closer inspection of the note reveals some strange designs: there are swastikas visible! To the uninformed this is somewhat baffling since the note was issued in 1917 at a time when Hitler was still fighting in the trenches of WW I and the Nazi party was still some years away from being formed. The swastika however is not only a Nazi symbol. As you can see in this list from Wikipedia the swastika was used all over Europe prior to it becoming a dominant symbol of the Nazis. The Nazis also used swastikas on their banknotes by the way (like in this complete series which was issued in the occupied territories in Europe). So no worries for the Russians but it's another great addiction to my collection.
The swastikas are on the front and the back of the note but at the back it's most visible:
Two new notes arrived yesterday which I won on eBay. The first one is an ECU-testnote which I remembered from 20 years ago and which sparked my interest in banknotes. A year later I started collecting. The second note came as a gift with the first one and is from Burundi. Such a nice gesture!
On the 14th of November I celebrated my 35th birthday. Yes, thank you very much. From my mother I got a whole bunch of new banknotes as a gift. Some were new, some were better versions than I already had and some were issues with lower serial numbers.
The new banknotes are:
- Albania, 3 Lek (P41a).
- Bosnia and Herzegovina, 10 Dinara (P10a).
- Brazil, 500 Cruzeiros on 500 Cruzados Novos (P226b).
- Cambodia, 1 Kak (P25a) - 2 Kak (P26a).
- Russia, from 1991: 1 Ruble (P237a), 3 Rubles (P238a), 5 Rubles (P239a) and 10 Rubles (P240a).
- Poland, 50 Zlotych (P142c) and 100 Zlotych (P143e). With these two notes I now have one note for every denomination in this series.
- New Notgeld from Austria: 90 Heller from St. Johann in Tirol.
- Venezuela, 1 Bolívar (P68).
- Great Britain, a new military banknote: 10 new Pence (PM48)
- And finally a couple of new varieties from Yugoslavia: 20 Dinara (P85), 10 Dinara (P87a) and 100 Dinara (P90c).
I finally added some notes to my collection from one of my favourite series: the Suriname year 2000 series. What I specifically like about this series is the beautiful design with the vibrant colors, the flowers and the birds. Everything you would expect from a banknote issued by a tropical country! I hope to add the rest of this set in the future.
You can find the 5, 10, 25 and 100 Gulden notes (P146-149) right here.
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!
- From Spain I got this very interesting set of coupons. They were issued during World War II in Barcelona and were (mistakenly) sold on eBay as emergency money. On the front it depicts the Blue Division (División Azul in Spanish), the logo of the division, the iron cross and the swastika. The División Española de Voluntarios was a group of Spanish volunteers who fought with the German army at the eastern front. The backside of this piece shows several produces which could be bought with the note, like sugar and bread.
- The Jason Islands are an archipelago in the Falkland Islands which used to be privately owned by Len Hill. To fund conservation work on the islands, Hill issued a set of collectors banknotes in 1979. Five different notes were issued with Len Hill as 'administrator' and his portrait on every note. Each denomination shows a different type of penguin which can be found on the islands: a Humboldt penguin on 50 pence, a Jackass penguin on 1 pound, a Rockhopper penguin on 5 pound, a Gentoo penguin on 10 pound and a King penguin on 20 pounds. Upon Len Hill's death the islands were eventually donated to the Wildlife Conservation Society. All banknotes can be found on my Jason Islands page.
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.
- The forst one from Italy is a Biglietto di Stato. These are banknotes printed by the state instead of the Central Bank. A modern example of such a note is the Euro. The Euro banknotes are printed by the member states instead of the central bank in Frankfurt. This particular Italian note is the 1 Lire from 1944 (P29b).
- Another Italian note is the 1000 Lire from 1969 (P101b) with composer Giuseppe Verdi on it. This is a different signature variety than the one I already had (P101e).
- The next one is the 2000 Lire (P115) with Guglielmo Marconi on it, the inventor of the radio.
- The last Italian banknote is the very nice (and quite expensive) 50.000 Lire (P116b). The Italian hero on this banknote is the artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Yes, that guy from the book Angels and Demons by Dan Brown.
- My final new banknote is the (in my humble opinion) beautiful 5 Mark (P8b) which was issued in 1904 by the German Empire. So this little blue friend is more than a 100 years old. Amongst collectors it's known as the 'Dragon Note' for obvious reasons.
A new week with lots of new banknotes and all from Europe.
- Good old eBay brought me some joy with a set of Nazi paper money. This whole set was issued to German soldiers in the occupied territories throughout Europe. As somewhat of a history enthusiast this is a great addition to my collection but also a real historical document. I got the 50 Pfennig and the 1, 2, 5, 20 and 50 Mark (PR135-PR140).
- A new country in my collection is the Isle of Man with this 1 Pound note (P40c) from 2009. It's printed by Thomas de la Rue and another great example of their craftsmanship and ability to incorporate local art and themes in a banknote.
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.
- While I waited for the shop to open I saw behind the glass some notes I'd been searching for in Paris recently: Disney Dollars. This isn't money you can put on your bank account but you can spend it in Disneyland and Disneyworld in the USA. That was also the reason I couldn't find them in Disneyland Paris a few weeks ago: they're not accepted on this side of the ocean. I immediately bought three notes: from 1987, 2008 and 2009. I think they're beautiful designs. I know some collectors think they shouldn't be in a banknote collection but as far as I'm concerned it's money and it belongs with the other banknotes. You can find more information on Disney Dollars at this website.
- I also acquired this very pretty 100 Francs (P107) from Belgium, 1938. Belgian paper money in UNC grade (for the non-informed: that's the highest quality) is rare and this note is no exception. But it still looks great and I have a soft spot for pretty banknotes.
- The 1000 Francs (P10a) from Gabon means a new country has been added. Like many other African banknotes this one is also a beauty with nice colors and pictures.
- Another new country is Malaysia with the blue 1 Ringgit (P39).
- Just behind Malaysia in the alphabet is another new country: Mauritius. Named after the Dutch Stadtholder Maurits the island was colonised from 1598 on by the Dutch. They managed to wipe out the native Dodo but the ugly bird makes a comeback on this 10 Rupees (P31c).
- The last new country and banknote is the 5 Dirham (P19a) from the United Arab Emirates. It was issued in the year 2000 (or 1420 if you follow the Arab calendar which is also used on this banknote).
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.
- From Austria three Notgeld notes. A very nice one from Waldhausen and two from Mauthausen. Mauthausen, haven't we heard that name before? Indeed, the place where a famous World War II concentration camp was. They apparently have a thing for prisoners in Mauthausen because on the two banknotes are pictures of "different types of prisoners of war" from World War I. Now there's a nice thing to put on your banknote...
- From Spain a 2 Pesetas (P95) from 1938 with the text "Republica Espanola" on it. This was issued during the Spanish Civil War.
- My second Swiss banknote is the 10 Francs from 1963 (P45h).
- One of my goals is to have at least one banknote from every country. But I also have a preference for some countries and one of those is Germany. So I'm delighted to have found the first ever banknote issued in the Federal Republic of Germany better known as West Germany. From 1948 it's the 1/2 Mark (P1a).
We had election night in the Netherlands. The PVV (Freedom Party) distributed banknotes amongst their supporters picturing their leader Geert Wilders on an old 100 gulden banknote. This in support of their wish to leave the euro and return to our former currency, the gulden. The banknotes were made by Benny Wezenberg, a transport company owner and PVV supporter. A spokesperson of the Dutch Central Bank said they were monitoring the action to see if the public wouldn't be confused in thinking it was real money.
Confusion over a banknote with Wilders on it?? Rrrright… Later the spokesperson said it is the duty of the Central Bank to monitor all money being used in the Netherlands and to make sure no fake money enters the system. If it doesn't then they would regard this 'new' note as a joke.
By the way, the stunt had little effect on the results which can be viewed here.
Update: How nice! I tweeted NOS reporter Ron Fresen who was there on election night asking him if he can get a Wilders banknote for me and he will try to send me one!
Update 2: Yes! The banknote has arrived and is added as a fantasy note to my collection.
The Wilders Gulden:
The original 100 Gulden:
As mentioned earlier Thailand has issued two new commemorative banknotes. The prettiest of the two, the 80 Baht commemorating the 80th birthday of the queen, has arrived.
The folder accompanying the banknote, has the same golden design as the commemorative 100 Baht which was issued for the birthday of the king in 2011.
Vacation is almost over so that means friends and colleagues will return home from strange countries far away and hopefully bring something nice for me. That's exactly what happened this week when I could add the 150th country to my collection: Switzerland.
Well, that's neither far nor strange but it's still a nice number.
This week I bought a bunch of new banknotes which also meant three new countries for my collection. Just one more to the magical number 150! I'm also happy to report that my collection of commemorative banknotes from Thailand has expanded. Hopefully I'm able to add another one of those Thai beauties to my collection, like the one I wrote about recently.
The harvest this week:
- Trinidad and Tobago with 10 Dollars (P49).
- In the Carribean a group of small islands has formed the Eastern Carribean States with common banknotes and coins (sort of like a tropical Euro). I've added a 5 Dollar (P47) to my collection. The serial number starts with an A so that means my note belongs to the island of Antigua.
- A former part of our Kingdom which was still missing from my collection is the Netherlands Antilles. A note of 1 Gulden (P20a) is now also present.
- My collection of Thai banknotes has grown with two more banknotes. The first one is a commemorative note of 100 Baht (P110) issued in 2002. The second one is the 50 Baht (Pnew) which was issued in 2012.
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