25 Weird & Bizarre Coins That Are Actually Legal Tender

laurentyvan

An interesting link I found and thought I'd share.
Apologies if it's been done.

https://advanceloan.net/blog/25-bizarre-coins-that-are-legal-tender/

bronzemat

Thanks for the link

dadams

Thanks for the link Laurent. Let's see if we can make our own list of 25.

Stone Money:

Rai_stones

SYRACUSIAN

Judging from the issuing countries, ALL of the coins in that list are commemoratives. The (tricky) article compiles them as legal tender, because NCLT = Non Circulating Legal Tender (coin). In other words, I have no doubt that all of them are sold at multiples of their face value and clearly no one in their right mind would ever think of trying to spend them.

And even if someone tried, it wouldn't have been accepted: Non Circulating LT.

Sapyx

Hate to break their clickbait, but I'm pretty sure that quite a few of those "legal tender" coins aren't actually legal tender.

Somalia: every single one of the coins illustrated is a fantasy NCNLT "coin", issued by a private mint in America without the knowledge or consent of anyone associated with the Somali government. The internationally recognized Somali government was in exile at the time most of these "coins" were issued, with Somalia itself degenerating into a functional anarchy. The clue are the coins denominated in "dollars". There is not, and never has been such a currency unit as the "Somali dollar". So that's numbers 1, 3, 14, 18, 19 and 21 off the list.

Liberia was in the same status as Somalia during their vicious civil war back in the 1990s: a lawless anarchy with no-one really in charge and numerous rival governments claiming legitimacy. Such countries are a perfect "flag of convenience" for a private mint wishing to legitimize their latest numismatic "products", without the inconvenience of having to pay seigniorage to the country in question.The Krause listings for Liberia are constantly being reviewed, as only the coins issued by "the winners" are now considered legal tender. So number 13 is dubious.

The Cook Islands retroactively removed Legal Tender status from most of their "NCLT" coins when people started arriving on their shores and actually spent them, having bought them on the secondary market for a fraction of face value. So, while numbers 11, 12, 15 and 25 all originally were legal tender, they no longer are.

So we're down to 14.

And sorry dadams, but rai stones aren't NCLT, they're CNLT - they're actually used as money, but they are not legal tender and have no legal existence as money in Micronesia. They're protected cultural artefacts; non-Yapese aren't supposed to buy them or export them from the island.

carabonnair

I'm guilty of owning No. 9. I had to laugh when I read "This elegant coin was crafted by the inhabitants of the South Georgia and The South Sandwich Islands". I don't think that is quite true. The scientists at the research stations are pretty busy. But I'm sure the museum director, Sarah Lurcock, would accept one of these at face value, if offered.

SYRACUSIAN

Sapyx, your post was an eye opener on these coins and in particular the paragraph on the Cook Islands. The idea that some of the multiple commemorative coins from them had reached such low prices in the secondary market, that some people repatriated them and attempted to spend them would have never, ever occurred to me!

In a different life, if I were a teller at some shop and an individual would offer to pay for an inexpensive item, such as a bottle of water with a "guitar" coin would have seriously tempted me to accept it, pocket it and cover the cost of the bottle myself.

laurentyvan

What about this one?

@SYRACUSIAN said:

In a different life, if I were a teller at some shop and an individual would offer to pay for an inexpensive item, such as a bottle of water with a "guitar" coin would have seriously tempted me to accept it, pocket it and cover the cost of the bottle myself.