Saor Alba

Not a purchase, but a gift from a friend in Egypt:

Oregon and the Texas commems are all I like from that whole series. I have a MS-67 Texas, now I need a nice Oregon to compliment it.

Ah the "kuponyi" which were like little worthless bits of paper that were easily faked. They were replaced with the first generation of hryven denominated notes that looked like they were printed in the 1930s. I didn't like using them in circulation because they were easy to mix up denominations - but even now it can be confusing with 1 and 5 hryven notes similar colours, and 2 and 10 hryven notes similar colours.

$4.75 in quarters - first find in weeks, one that instantly alerted my 16 year old daughter that she needed money again. Her name is Penance.

Gram used to rub a dollar on a kid's head for luck then spend it on a lottery ticket. We have another tradition of stamping our hands when we see a white horse, when you get a hundred stamps you will find a nickel. It is a tradition that has passed from my great grandparents on down to the present day, even my kids do it.

This is a unique vignette, whereas many Latin American banks used stock images since they were more affordable, this bank appears to have had their own vignettes created. I would love to find out who the lady was, surely she must have been someone known to one of the principals in the bank. One of the fascinating aspects of many Waterlow & Co printed notes was that they were unique designs, rather unlike American Banknote where they used a lot of stock images, over a period of 60-70 years in some cases, so you could see a lady on a Canadian, Mexican, Dominican, and an Ecuadorian note during the same era. I know when I am re-doing my website I am seriously pondering doing a series of pages on the security printers, and the engravers of the vignettes.

Guatemala is a country in Central America, located betwixt Mexico and Nicaragua. Like many contemporary Latin American countries, commercial banks issued banknotes into the early part of the 20th century - the effect of which was very lovely designs created by Waterlow and Sons and American Banknote Company. Competition for banknote orders was fierce betwixt the two companies, but Guatemalan banks tended to go with Waterlow and Sons Printers for their note orders. One aspect of many Waterlow printed notes was that they used original vignettes created for the customer more often than ABNCo did. Guatemala had pegged their currency, the Peso, to the French franc at a rate of 1 Peso : 5 Francs, but this peg was abandoned and the currency allowed to float - resulting in an inflationary period that extended for about a quarter of a century. In 1925 the Guatemalan central bank stepped in, and recalled all the peso denominated notes and exchanged 60 Pesos for a new "Quetzal" denominated currency that remains their currency unit to this day. This note was issued by a commercial bank, El Banco de Occidente, Quetzaltenango, in the city of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala's second largest city in south central Guatemala. The design of this note dates into the late 19th century for this bank, and was used up until the currency recall in 1925.

The Tatarstan notes are enigmatic, they usually never had denominations on them - only an assigned value. There are also many different varieties of them.

I have gone into large grocery stores in the morning in Donets'k and gotten yelled at by the cashier because I tendered a 200 hryven note(about $28) for a purchase. Yes, literally yelled at. OTOH I have been in small market stalls and only had a big bill like a 200 and had them take off quickly saying they had to go break it, then run back with my small pile of change. It is something I have learned in Ukraine, always try to buy from entrepreneurs that run their own little businesses, because they bend over backwards to make a sale - unlike big businesses where their attitude makes you think it is a privilege to buy from them.

The peso has been on a rather steady decline in value again, rather hard to accomplish given the dollar's precipitous plunge in real value.

Mira a este:

The latter two are paper, but it would make sense that the lowest value note would be polymer since it sees a lot more usage and wear. I am going to order the new $1000 when I have replenished my payPoo account and have it sent from Mexico City.

Nice Japanese hanhatsu, I only own one of them - from Hiroshima of all places. I am intrigued on the Mexican note - is it polymer? I have to get one, for some reason I really like the new Mexican notes.

Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, so Mexico, and so appropriate for this brand new $500 note issued in September 2010 by Banco de Mexico. Artists, writers, leftist political agitators extraordinaire - and tempestuous lovers whose radical ideas shocked conservative Mexican society in the early 20th century. This note commemorates their lives, and their art, with a self portrait of Frida Kahlo on the reverse of the note with a vignette from another of her works.

Nice note See323

This forum looks too much like others now, but as RD pointed out - yes, it is now "View New Content" instead of "View Unread Messages".

Unfortunately I am already thinking about another medal I saw for sale too... Yet another addition to my numismatic harem.

Now I need a nekkid lady shooter.

Just got one of those in the post on Friday, my very firstest shooting medal.

I am familiar with the legal situation with Northern Ireland and the British Isles, but the other place where commercial banknotes circulate is Hong Kong where you have three commercial banks circulating notes along with the government of China and frankly I don't know what legal standing they have as tender. The joint stock banking system that was created in Scotland during the 18th century resulted in a safeguard against large scale bank failures. There were a couple of sequesters, that resulted in notes being paid out in dividends over a period of time - but the only catastrophic failure was the City of Glasgow Bank in the 1870's. In very sharp contrast to England where bank failures were a near daily occurrence.

One I waited patiently a long time for, this 100 francs note was issued in Mali beginning in 1972 and saw very heavy use. Finding nice crisp uncirculated notes from this issue are next to impossible. There are lots of treated, cleaned, and pressed notes out there - but this one has nice heavy embossing from the day it was printed.

It is NOT legal tender in Northern Ireland, nor is anything other than British coin legal tender in Scotland. Historically when Britain issued Ten Shilling(until 1970) and One Pound notes(1984) they were legal tender in all of Britain. Basically as promissary notes they have no legal tender status, but are commonly accepted by merchants and even in court challenges have been held to be acceptable money. NI notes trade at a nominal discount in Europe, though curiously Scottish notes trade at a 1% advantage in some traders in Europe.

Specimen banknote, actually noted as "Presentation" by National Bank of Ukraine: This features portrait of Ukraine Nationalist Panteleymon Kulish. This note has variable optical inks, and spark technology which will likely be incorporated in new Ukraine notes issued in future.