Saor Alba

Those African notes are so kewl, and so easy to get addicted to. I think most of the continent is a great sleeper area for banknotes and coins, particularly those smaller countries.

Nice notes MauMau, the Tunisian is wild

I have a big bag of USSR change coins somewhere, will try and see if I can find a 1976.

The one difference I notice from the OP's coin and the one from the auction catalogue is that the upper and lower portions of the numeral 0 are heavier on the OP's coin. It might help to see a colour enlargement of the date area on the piece, since it is in greyscale it is more difficult to discern subtle differences in metal flow that might have been affected if the date was indeed modified.

Which except for vending machines and coinstars, are effectively money. Even one of my banks takes them.

Poland is a wonderful country and I look forward to visiting there again maybe next year.

The Roman empire fell for a reason.

My earliest FRN, and first large sized FRN that I have owned since I was a kid. Talk about the colonialist imagery used on this note, the USA had "leased" the Panama Canal Zone when Panama was assisted in it's independence efforts from Colombia in 1903. By 1914 the Canal had been completed and the USA had it's colonial crown jewel, in the age of empires and colonial expansion, the Canal Zone was a strategic military and commercial prize that paled European powers colonial possessions in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Been through Hagerstown a few times, it is in a very lovely part of Maryland near the Appalachians. Back during the time those notes were being issued Hagerstown was the transit point for a lot of trade betwixt the east coast of the USA and the Ohio valley area. The city was also an important locale for staging battles of the Civil War, notably Antietam.

Thanks for posting the new African notes from Botswana and Uganda. Seriously the African notes are just so attractive, great designs, lots of colour and rather off the map for collecting. Right now I am on the prowl for some French colonials, but after my Rhodesian purchase earlier this year the whole continent just is so fascinating.

Actually Northeast are great to deal with, they will at least work with you on price and they do well with customer service. I have bought some very rare Scottish medals from them over the past few years.

Nice replacements See323

Two Chuckie Cheese tokens and a zincoln.

I have seen a few of the gold ones, Northeastcoins had a couple recently.

Nice solids See. The lions are not just prominent in HK, but also in China - even in jadeite, bronze, granite etc - they are regarded as good omen for business - like prosperity insurance in the form of integrity. I remember seeing them in various places like hotels, banks etc.

32 cents, all American.

BTW I got Jack in the mail the other day, thank you very much. Looks like he was trying to hide from that photographer that was taking pictures of him and Marilyn on his birthday.

1557 The coin pictured above is a plack, a billon coin worth 4 Scottish pence. It was issued in 1557, many of these coins were counterfeited, resulting in their being called in for examination in 1575. The forged coins were destroyed, and the coins found to be authentic were counterstamped with the star in heart mark and re-released into general circulation.

1558 - since I haven't seen a 1559 Likely a counterfeit made by French soldiers stationed in Scotland during the part of Mary's reign when she was living in France and was married to Francis II.

Now we are venturing into my terra firma - particularly with Scottish.

1560: Scotland, Testoon of Mary - these were minted from 1558-1561. Thankfully most of my Queen Mary coins are dated.

'Twas one of those good karma goes around days. While I was at the grocery store to buy bread to feed the army, my change - one cent - got stuck in the coin return chute. I kind of swatted the return chute to free the coin and it was a veritable slot machine payout. There was about several hours worth of change stuck up in there - and apparently nobody complained or did anything. All I wanted was my penny, so I handed the rest of the payout to the clerk there. Then passing by the Coinstar machine was my legitimate payout a 1970 quarter.

My son had 26 wheat cents in his wallet when he came home from school this afternoon. He was picking them up walking around school, apparently someone must have busted a collection - probably one of the Whitman folders, because all the cents are from 1941-1957 with all different dates and mintmarks including several S mints. He said that it appeared as though someone was then throwing them around on the floor at school. I loathe to think that a collection was broken up, stolen etc. Several of the 1950's dated cents are BU, well were.

My 14 year old son found 26 of them just lying on the ground around school today. I will sort them out and list them later. I am still amazed.

When I saw them in a darkened reject slot at the Meijers store, I thought oh - five Canadian 10 cent coins, not an unusual find and welcome all the while - especially after another mini-drought of finds. I swiped them quickly from the reject slot and looked at the edges quickly on the way to the parking lot and pretty much confirmed from the edges that indeed I had five Canadians. However when I got home and pulled them from my pocket and looked at them, I quickly noticed only four of them were legal immigrants - one of them is a citizen of the USA - a 70 year old citizen in silver! Inasmuch as my lousy camera(Sony) will permit me to photograph them - it is a 1940-D Merc. Welcome home intrepid traveler.