Saor Alba

The arms of Maryland from a One Shilling note printed in 1733. The Latin legend on the note Crecite et Multiplicani translates to increase and multiply. Maryland issued it's first paper money in 1733, and it had a curious reason for issuing it - each taxable person in Maryland who burned 150lbs of tobacco to prevent the depressing of the tobacco price was paid 30/-. The notes in seven denominations from 1/- to 20/- were authorised by the Commissioners of the Loan Office and backed with a purchase of Bank of England stock. These notes were intended to be issued until 29thSeptember 1764, after which they were retired. The plates for the notes were engraved in England, and the notes were printed on fine woven and watermarked paper that was made in England also and bore "Maryland" in the watermark. These notes are long horizontal notes, and the image above has had to be reduced to permit it to easily be viewed. They were printed in plates of five notes each, a curious feature of the notes is that in the lower left center where the denomination is there are stars denoting the plate position of the note - this note having four stars was the fourth note on the plate. These notes having been printed in large quantities were used for the 1733 issue, then unused sheets were used again for a 1740 and a final 1751 issue. Because of the quantities printed for each denomination they were stored in archives for a long time - becoming redundant with the 1756 note issue that was printed by Jonas Green of Annapolis. Subsequently a small quantity of them have been liberated from archives in Maryland and now represent the earliest paper money that is readily available for most collectors. The indent portion of the note, like many early banknotes a portion of the note was kept in an account book, and the note was cut out by hand using a sharp blade usually with a wavy pattern to make the cut unique to the note as a guarantee that it was original.

I had to go look at mine: It seems like multi-colour printing is actually printing over of "Narodna Banka Kraljevine Jugoslavije" but doesn't quite get rid of text. Also they black out texts which promises to pay bearer of note in metal coin! So you get the worthless nazified fiat money now

I am confused why it says both Serbian National Bank, and then on back, National Bank Kingdom of Jugoslavia on reverse? I know they overprinted these with puppet government but why leave Kingdom of Jugoslavia stuff on there?

I have a whole bunch of stuff from Russia, USA, and Mali that I wish would come - my patience is expunged.

I sure like the red seal Bens. I have to imagine not many of them circulated or they would have stuck out like a sore thumb to tellers and store clerks.

Nice Deuce

I had a St. Ex 50FF in uncirculated, and wisht I had kept it. Sometime I wanna do a pilots and aircrafts thematic collection. I remember having one time a whole bundle of the earlier 50FF notes that were largely monocolour - Quentin de la Tours? Anyway those were like play money and I never saved them, only spent them to buy up rolls of coins in banks. And being laughed at by cashiers for buying the 100FF coins in silver - being told they would be worthless!

Can you imagine Liberte on a modern American banknote? I don't remember ever using the Pascal notes, but remember the Monte's well and on down to Debussy on the 10 or 20. I did use some of the Curie 500FF and Eiffel 200FF when I was last there,haven't been back to France since Franc days.

Tonga has the distinction of being one of the last absolute monarchies in the world, in "good" company with countries like Saudi Arabia and Oman. It is no surprise their previous monarch gave himself so many medals. He probably got one for filling the toilet every morn. His mug on the note reminds me of Idi Amin on the Ugandan notes.

I think my next is 1553:

I dabbled in stamps when I was a kid, never really got into them. But I sure would like some of those Zeppelin stamps, the originals, to go along with my future acquisitions of the Zeppelin 5RM coins from Germany, the Hugo Eckener gold medal etc.

A couple I didn't post yet: In a formal recognition of what had been a long reality, the Austrian and Hungarian Kingdoms were united as the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867, though they had long shared the same monarchs. In an age of empires the Austro-Hungarian Empire was one of the most diverse in terms of the multitudes of ethnicities that were encompassed within it's borders. The Empire was then Central Europe's largest nation-state, ruling an area that stretched from what is now western Austria, to the Adriatic Sea, the Balkans and a large area of the former Jugoslavia and into what is now Ukraine. Notes of the state treasury continued to be issued from before the formation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire on up until 1881. Then this issue was released into circulation, with allegorical vignettes of both Austria and Hungary flanking the design of the note. In essence, the nascent stages of what would be several amazingly well designed banknotes began. Curiously with this first issue in 1881 the designs were the same from front to reverse - save the different languages used on both sides - German and Hungarian. Even with the redenomination of the Gulden currency in 1892 and the adoption of the Krone - Korona currency that year, the Gulden paper money continued to be used until 1902 when it was finally replaced with the Krone - Korona denominated currency at a rate of 1 Gulden:2 Korona, therefore realising Austria-Hungary's adoption of the Latin Monetary Unit as it's currency value. This note lost it's legal tender status in 1902. Bank of Scotland is Scotland's oldest financial institution, and the only one that was originally constituted by an act of the Scottish Parliament. Curiously Bank of England was founded by a Scotsman the previous year, and Bank of Scotland was founded by an Englishman named John Holland - he would be naturalised as a Scot to permit him to do business in Scotland. Bank of Scotland commenced note issue in 1695, all notes until 1730 were issued in Scots tenor, basically Scottish sterling. So a £12 in Scots tenor was equal to £1 in English tenor. Later notes were issued as standard British sterling in Pounds and Guineas - the latter being the equivalent of £1/1/- Daniel(1754-1812) and William Lizars(1788-1859) were a father and son that were early 19th century Scotland's finest engravers and printers. In their profession they engraved many early banknote plates in copper as well as many other prints. Their attention to detail is abundant in this proof note that was printed ca. 1810 for the value of One Guinea. This particular vignette has "Scotia" in the centre, flanked by thistles and the legend in Latin Tanto Uberior - "So much more plentiful". This particular vignette has an amazing attention to fine detail that was rather common for Scottish printed notes of the era, a factor that was curiously as omnipresent on contemporary English printed notes.

Tractors:

Ships and boats:

Buckboard:

Horse drawn wagon:

Warship:

Heavy construction equipment:

More steam and babe:

Ships, trains, and a lovely:

More Mexican steam trains:

Steam train:

Boats:

Ships:

The ship: The place where it would end up: And finally what happened to it in 1588: Has to be one of the neatest series of notes depicting a ship and then it getting wrecked on the rocks at Dunluce Castle in Northern Ireland.