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What country is the biggest "num-o-stitute"?
GritsMan
Posts: 2,599 ✭✭✭
Just flipping through Krause, and am astonished--and highly amused--at some of the subjects some countries choose (or are paid to choose?) for coins! Cook Islands, for instance, has series on endangered wildlife, which I kind of can get even though most are from faraway places. But an entire series celebrating "500 Years of America"? Or a coin about Chinese paper-making? Or a series on American National Parks? What does Cortes have to do with the South Pacific?
Just makes me wonder who is in charge of their program...whoever raised his hand and said "I'll do it!"? Or perhaps they've got a deal with some mint to churn out coins simply for profit?
Which countries are your favorite numostitutes?
Winner of the Coveted Devil Award June 8th, 2010
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<< <i>Or perhaps they've got a deal with some mint to churn out coins simply for profit? >>
That's usually the answer. Behind every major multiplicity-of-issues country is usually a big mint corporation using it as a flag of convenience. If a mint's marketing department thinks up a brilliant new coin idea, it has to then find some government somewhere that will approve it as a "coin" - otherwise it's just a "mint medal" and far fewer people will want to buy it.
Perth Mint (Australia) usually uses Tuvalu, Cook Islands or Uganda to legitimize it's coins when it can't get approval from the Australian government to do so. But the coins are still marketed in Australia, to Australians - which is why coins from these countries often have Australian themes.
Pobjoy Mint (Great Britain) normally uses British territories such as Isle of Man, Gibraltar, and the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands.
National Collectors Mint and other smaller private mints in the USA makes use of anarchies such as Somalia and Liberia for their "coins". I guess that maximizes profits for them - with no actual government to have to share seigniorage with. Many of their "coins" are ending up in the "Unusual World Coins" book rather than the mainstream Krause catalogues, because the catalogue compilers have recognized this. American private mints are also responsible for the Marshall Islands coinage.
Of course, sometimes the vast quantities of coinage these countries produce comes back to haunt them - literally. Cook Islands is a good example of this.
Flicking through their Krause listing, you may have noticed a large number of the pre-1995 coins have quite high denominations compared to their bullion value. Some people saw an opportunity here, back when bullion prices were low. They'd buy up Cook Islands coins by the suitcaseload for bullion value (which was far below face value), then book a trip to the islands and take their coins down to the bank to get full face value for them. They could make enough profit to pay for the trip, and have a nice tropical holiday on top of it. It cost the Cook Islands government money to buy back their own coins, of course, and the Cook Islands were already broke. So to put a stop to these "bullion tourists", the Cook Islands has put strict limits on the importation of their own coins and declared most of their pre-1995 coinage no longer legal tender. Much the same thing happened in the Marshall Islands, I understand.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Apparently I have been awarded the DPOTD twice.
Both Liberia and Somalia have had internationally recognized governments for years, despite their anarchic internal conditions. I'm sure those governments are getting what they require in exchange for the "flag of convenience."
And I'll bet that any tourist who tries to use a Cuban or North Korean NCLT as money in those countries will probably wind up in prison, or worse.
<< <i>
And I'll bet that any tourist who tries to use a Cuban or North Korean NCLT as money in those countries will probably wind up in prison, or worse. >>
How come, Newsman? The denomination issue again, or something else?
<< <i>And I'll bet that any tourist who tries to use a Cuban or North Korean NCLT as money in those countries will probably wind up in prison, or worse.
How come, Newsman? The denomination issue again, or something else? >>
Because both North Korea and Cuba forbid tourists from interacting with any locals that aren't vetted by the State. As part of this, both economies use "visitor currency". In Cuba, it's the Convertible Peso. In North Korea, special "Foreign Exchange Certificates" are used by visitors. In both countries, it is illegal for locals to obtain or use the tourist money, and likewise illegal for tourists to acquire or bring into the country any local money. This way, the locals aren't able to be given usable money by the tourists, and therefore have their pure communist financial status corrupted by an influx of capital. In practice, of course, a black market in luxuries and "illegal items" using hard currency has always flourished, despite official efforts to exterminate it.
It's also a handy deterrent to defectors. The local currency is completely worthless outside the country - there's no official or unofficial means of converting it into any other currency, because officially it should never be allowed to leave; the only people who will pay money for it are banknote dealers and collectors. So anyone attempting to flee with their worldly wealth in the form of banknotes will find themselves penniless once they cross the border.
Many Communist countries had "foreign exchange certificates" of some kind during the Cold War. But the ultra-paraniod North Koreans were unique in having two classes of foreign certificates: one for visitors from their fellow Socialist countries, the other for visitors from Capitalist countries. However, with the recent collapses in the North Korean economy, I don't think any kind of visitor money is currently in use there much anymore; Westerner money is now usable directly in stores manned by trusted party apparatchiks.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Apparently I have been awarded the DPOTD twice.
If there were any controls on coins and banknotes in China now, I never saw them. Curiously I bought up bundles of 1.000 notes of some of the small change notes, so I had bundles of currency when I left, and nobody even looked at them or cared.
The local paper was quite worn and dirty, the FEC, of course, was nice, clean and crisp. The face value difference between the two currencies was 10-to-1, the 1 FEC note was the same value as 10 yuan internal currency.
Collecting:
Conder tokens
19th & 20th Century coins from Great Britain and the Realm
BTW one country nearby that has too many commemorative and NCLT coins is Canada. They range from undeniably tacky to very lovely and meaningful, and lots in betwixt.
I have not looked through my Krause in a while, so if they have issued any circulating coins, I guess I just forget them...I'm easily distracted, moreso by naked mermaids
<< <i>I'm going to have to go with Palau. I don't think they've ever issued any actual circulating coins, but plenty of NCLTs, most of which feature anatomically correct naked mermaids. >>
How do you define 'anatomically correct' when it applies to a mythical creature?
<< <i>Palau:
<< <i>
<< <i>I'm going to have to go with Palau. I don't think they've ever issued any actual circulating coins, but plenty of NCLTs, most of which feature anatomically correct naked mermaids. >>
How do you define 'anatomically correct' when it applies to a mythical creature?
Are you suggesting that Ariel is not real? I saw her at Disneyworld, and she is a hottay.