Paper Money: New Acquisitions

Very nice acquisitions @Troodon ! Great to see your elephant theme set grow.

I got this 1992 10 pa'anga as soon as I saw it become available on eBay. Really like the old style design of these Tonga notes (the back almost looks like an Eastern block note from Europe LoL):

-I rarely catch an UNC note on my travels & I can see that would be frustrating while visiting Guatemala. I got a half quetzal from that nation as I like the quetzal bird portrayed too:

Once I got the note in hand: it made me want to pick up some of the earlier versions but I have found the other, older varieties tough (& expensive) to track down. I really like the old Maya pyramids & architecture featured in some of the denominations. Maybe someday!

 

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I was very lucky on my last day of my trip in the Guatemala City airport to get really fresh 1 and 5 quetzal notes. I do have a 1/2 quetzal (50 centavo) note but these tend to get beat up pretty quickly (they look really nice if you can get a fresh one, but they're hard to find there. They circulate very heavily very quickly). I didn't think at the time of saving notes higher than 5 at the time (later thought better of that kind of thing lol, but at the time my habit was to save any banknote worth $5 US or less, or at least one of the smallest bill if all of them were worth over $5. Actually that should have included a 10 but I just didn't save one for some reason. Exchange rate at the time was 1 US dollar being worth a little over 7 quetzales, so even the 20 was worth less than $5 US.)

Other than the signatures most of the designs haven't changed much since I was in Guatemala in 1998, other than the 1 quetzal note coming in a polymer variety. (I've seen older notes online and the designs only have a few minor changes since about the 1980s.) One of these days may finish the set and get the 20, 50, and 100.

 

I lived in Jamaica for 2 years & only managed to keep a ratty $20 at the last minute. I had rules back then (in 1995) & one of them was that I didn't collect World (only CAD) which seems absurd now. But I was paid super low wages & had to fight tooth & nail to get the $ that my employer owed me.

We collect according to what we can afford. Try to remember the context (when you were in Guatemala). The most common UNC notes I came across were the $500 (or $100 Jamaican note). Both of these I needed for groceries or taxi fares back in Kingston (95 & 96). It wasn't the safest city to get around in. I was "living pay-check to pay-check" but if money was easier back then, I'd probably have kept a few UNC $100.

I came across the following denominations low denominations once at a bar where a couple of ratty examples were in a tip tray. The bar tender didn't mind me examining them as they were worth cents ($34 JD = $1 USD). I remember looking at them & thinking I would love to pick up a few nice ones (as souvenirs) someday. When I started collecting World about 10 years ago, these were super cheap so I put off buying. Since then, their prices have steadily krept up so that the $5.00 now can be nearly $10 USD (even though it is quite common according to Numista). The only cheap one is the $2.00. I still need the 50 Cents note which I never saw while there.

Another thing is: very few services/retail outlets allowed VISA (or plastic) back then. Cash was worn out much quicker in hot, humid Caribbean (Central American countries) countries where "cash was king."

 

Nice examples

 

I like the little crocodile that is on all the Jamaica notes
I do have one $1 that I saved when I visited once, but most of my Jamaica notes have been from dealers.

 

Bargain bin finds from the coin store today:

Italy, 1000 lire, 1982


Just something really amusing about his expression here.

Indonesia, 100 rupiah, 1984


Can't think of anything clever to say about this one; just like it.

Saudi Arabia, 10 riyals, 1977 (AH 1379)


Another note that just instantly makes you think of the country it's from.

Cyprus, 500 mils, 1982


Just love the scenery on the reverse of this one.

Cyrpus, 1 pound, 1982


Love the mosaic on the obverse here.

 

-Same here! I stayed a few nights in Negril & we went to a little river that was supposed to be filled with those little crocodiles (I only saw one skittish critter). I believe it was the little edible kind (like they BBQ in Thailand) & are pretty delicious in their own unique way. Still looking for that 50 Cent note!

-Nice pick ups @Troodon ! I'm glad I don't have a LCS (like yours) near me! I'd probably go broke! My last experience with a Bargain bin resulted in this P-43 $1.00 from Bahamas:


I saved up my pennies to pick up some more FIVES. It took me a few months to form this set of 3 notes from Bahamas:

P-63b (from 2001):


P-72 from (2007):


P-72A (2013):


Now, I would like to get P-63a (1997)!

 

Something I've been meaning to get for about a year now:




Really like the new design series, and like this one almost as much as the 1000 yen note.

Maybe I'll get the 10,000 yen note eventually for completion's sake.

 

50 Roubles Banknote, Russian Civil War issue (Whites), Siberia and Urals
Issued 1919, redeemable April 1920

 

now thats a really unique piece, thanks for sharing.

 

Correction on the date of that Saudi Arabian note; that should be AH 1397, not 1379. I had copied the date from a site that apparently transposed the numbers; I realized it was wrong when I looked at the dates of other AH-dated coins I have.

 

Just got this today:




Not hugely dedicated to collecting MPC's but love some of the designs, especially the reverse of this one. This particular issue seems really hard to find in any kind of decent condition. (Other than the very rare and expensive ones in mint state, these ones are always very beat up and ones this nice are hard to find. This is the nicest I could find under $100. It's like every other one is either mint state or in terrible condition.) That's apparently the case with the higher denomination ones ($1 and up) because people were less likely to save them rather than spend them.

P.S. We need to put the American Bison on money again. I don't care which coin or banknote, but surely we can find something to put it on.

 

its all in the name...LOL MPCUSA my specialty, was #1 @ PCGS for the Series 611,661,681 and 692 all Vietnam issues.

the art work is amazing ! so what is the best looking ?
my opinion is the series 611 $10 called the marylyn Monroe
note my examples of this and several others are on a different computer
but if you were going to get a few this is a must have kind of on the expensive side though.