Can you spot the irony in this design?

satootoko · January 25, 2004 12:05AM

My scruples would not allow me to inflict this tarnished metal on anyone else, so there is no giveaway here!

The reverse will be posted after a while.

spoon · January 25, 2004 12:17AM

You talking about the "devil tail" (anchor) on the right side??

satootoko · January 25, 2004 2:02AM

Nope. Something much more fundamental.

Lloyd · January 25, 2004 2:26AM

Does she look like she's grabbed the last sausage in the shop?

Radagast · January 25, 2004 2:58AM

Interesting that Liberty is sitting on this French coin and not doing anything advance her cause.

historygeek · January 25, 2004 2:59AM

French Indo-China + French Colony ----- Liberty

satootoko · January 25, 2004 4:24AM

<< <i>French Indo-China + French Colony ----- Liberty >>

Bingo!

historygeek · January 25, 2004 5:36AM

But the thing is, the French thought that they were enlightening the various colonial peoples by extending French culture, French law and French democracy to them. The French hoped that the colonies would evolve and eventually they would take their place within the French Republic, like Algeria.

1jester · January 25, 2004 6:18AM

Where's Algeria now?

Anyway, it's pretty ironic that France is using our Statue of Liberty. And.....she's sitting down on the job!!!

SYRACUSIAN · January 25, 2004 6:21AM

Why are the French worse than any other colonial empire, such as the British for example? I don't see any irony, I only see a nice coin. Please ,enlighten me. Really.

satootoko · January 25, 2004 6:34AM

<<France is using our Statue of Liberty>>, which they gave us in the first place.

Dimitri - no one says the French are any worse than the other colonial powers, but really, don't you find it ironic to see Lady Liberty on a colonial coin

historygeek · January 25, 2004 6:39AM

Well, the worst Colonial empires were the Portuguese and the Belgian.

Aethelred · January 25, 2004 6:51AM

I have never thought it fair to judge the people of the past by the moral standards of our time.

historygeek · January 25, 2004 6:54AM

Ummm, even the British warned the Belgians about their abuses in the Congo.

Aethelred · January 25, 2004 6:56AM

That is to say one should seperate his or her coins from political views.

SYRACUSIAN · January 25, 2004 7:02AM

I personally find that very hard Michael. My political views affect my collecting habits, no doubt about it.

historygeek · January 25, 2004 7:05AM

3 million dead in a decade Africans is not a "political view”. And many of us collect coins because of the history, and history cannot be separated from politics.

Aethelred · January 25, 2004 7:05AM

I agree Dimitri, it is not always easy to seperate the coin from it's maker. Nazi coins or Soviet coins would be two cases in point. I should not have said "everyone should" just that I try to.

SYRACUSIAN · January 25, 2004 7:15AM

True. Most of us love those German and Russian designs, don't we? I didn't know about this genocide in Congo. And to think that I've spent 7 years studying in Brussels, totally ignoring this fact. Does this mean that I have to get rid of a very nice B.Congo 1888 5 centimes red BU? (ICG MS65RB actually) Or should I start by burning my "Tintin au Congo" comic book? (original version!)

historygeek · January 25, 2004 7:22AM

No, but you should give them to me.

I have no problem collecting coins of a mass murderer, history kinda desensitizes you.

Askari · January 25, 2004 12:33PM

Dimitri, old King Leopold originally ran the Congo as his private fief. The eastern portions especially were a center of rubber production. The natives were given quotas to deliver and if they didn't succeed (and it became increasingly difficult), their hands were cut off and nailed to the overseer's office. When a reporter finally exposed the brutal reality of it all, Belgium seized the colony from their own king's hands to administer it themselves.

newsman · January 25, 2004 12:56PM

<< <i>history kinda desensitizes you. >>

Depends on how close that history is. I can live with the relics of colonial empires that have long since deteriorated, but I don't collect Nazi coins because my wife doesn't like to be reminded that most of her mother's family died in Hitler's death camps.

I also won't buy NCLT coins from countries like North Korea and Cuba because I know from my job that these countries support terrorism and use their coinage programs to draw hard currency from US collectors. To me, it's no different from buying cocaine or heroin on the street and putting money in the pockets of al-Qaeda or the Colombian FARC.

historygeek · January 25, 2004 1:03PM

<<<Belgium seized the colony from their own king's hands to administer it themselves. >>>

Until the Belgian Parliament did not know what to do with it and gave it to private investors, like mining companies and the Catholic church.

SYRACUSIAN · January 25, 2004 6:19PM

That's more interesting than I suspected. Thank you Askari and historygeek. Any book reference on the subject maybe?

newsman · January 25, 2004 6:24PM

<< <i> Any book reference on the subject maybe? >>

There's a great movie about Patrice Lumumba that covers some of it.

Askari · January 25, 2004 9:38PM

I recommend reading Adam Hochschild's King Leopold’s Ghost; A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1998).

Can you spot the irony in this design?

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