Foreign currencies: coins and notes

[profk]

We used to have a supermarket bag basically full of pesetas that we couldn’t exchange after the euro came in. Dunno why we kept it, don’t remember my family giving a shit.

Used to like the ones with the holes in the middle.

[profk]

Remember lots of them having Franco’s head on them too, and thinking he was the king’s dad.

[urbanfox]

25 pesetas, with the holes wasn’t it?

[urbanfox]

Just checked and I’ve got about 50 quid in Mexican pesos, 50 quids worth of US dollars and 50 quids worth of Costa Rican colones.

Wonder if I’ll ever get to use them again…

[aboynamedgoo]

Good news for everyone who likes foreign bank notes, I have found the wallet where they are being kept.

A quick check revealed that there are bank notes from 15 different countries, and most of them are no longer legal tender for one reason or another. For the next three weeks, every day will bring you a new adventure in old money.

[pervo]

!

[roastthemonaspit]

OMG I need that wallet.

[eems]

doesn’t even mention the wallet, playa.

[ricardomotorbike]

Love the detailing on this Sri Lankan 5 Rupee coin. Have a bunch of stuff mixed up in my change pot, it’s all been though the coin deposit machines at the bank a few times now.

[aboynamedgoo]

Episode 1: Yugoslav Dinar

These banknotes appear to be first issued in 1968 and 1974. This was the period of the so-called “hard dinar” when the Yugoslav Dinar was linked to the US dollar, in an attempt to control inflation. In 1966 the rate was pegged at 12.50 dinars to the dollar, but by 1987 there were 457 dinars to the dollar. The annual rate of inflation was 76%. All banknotes were made worthless on 1 January 1990, when devaluation of 10,000 dinars to 1 took place.

20 Dinar

Faded violet with a ship in a port somewhere in what is now Croatia on one side and plain text on the other side.
Estimated value: £0.06

50 Dinar

Bright blue with a detail of the “Men of Stone” relief on the Belgrade parliament building on one side and plain text on the other.
Estimated value: £0.15

How do we rate the Yugoslav Dinar?

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[aboynamedgoo]

Episode 2: Italian Lira

For 141 years, the Italians used the lira as their currency. And then in 2002, the Euro came along. The lira was another currency that suffered from high inflation in the 1970s and 1980s, and as a result you needed thousands of the stuff just to buy a slice of delicious pizza. The two notes in my collection were first issued in 1990 and were the final design before the Euro was introduced. Art Brut wrote a song called ‘18,000 Lira’ which is included on their debut album. It is not one of their best.

1,000 Lira

Combination of red, violet and blue with a picture of Maria Montessori on the front and a kid with teacher on the back. Montessori is the founder of the education methodology that bears her name.
Estimated value: £0.45

2,000 Lira

Rusty brown featuring a portrait of a rather miserable looking Guglielmo Marconi on the front and drawings of his ship, radio masts and a telegraph on the back. Marconi is best known as the inventor of radio.
Estimated value: £0.89

How do we rate the Italian Lira?

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[Unlucky]

Got a lovey Fijian nkte somewhere.

[rob.orch]

I remember some of the rich kids at school being given a million lira for their eighteenth birthdays (which looking back at Euro exchange rates would have been several hundred quid)

[aboynamedgoo]

Episode 3: Canadian Dollar

When they had to decide what currency to use in 1858, the Canadians copied their southern neighbours and introduced their version of the dollar. Initially, all kinds of organisations, such as chartered banks, colonial, regional and municipal governments could issue Canadian bank notes but from 1944 onwards it has been the sole preserve of the Bank of Canada. The two bank notes on display today are from the “Birds of Canada” series, issued between 1986 and 2001. Every word is printed twice, in English and in French.

10 Dollar

Violet with a portrait of John A MacDonald, first prime minister of Canada, on the front and an osprey snatching a fish on the back.
Estimated value: £5.79

20 Dollar

Light green with the British monarch on the front and two common loons, the provincial bird of Ontario, on the back.
Estimated value: £11.59

How do we rate the Canadian Dollar?

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[pervo]

The backs are cool especially with the bird catching the fish, but the fronts are naff.

[paidinfull]

@aboynamedgoo

common loons*

That is one of the nicest banknote pictures I have seen

*also known as the great northern diver in the UK.

[aboynamedgoo]

Episode 4: Spanish Peseta

This is what @profk’s piggy bank probably was filled with when he was a kid. It was Spain’s official currency from 1868, then replacing the peso, until 2002 when the peseta was replaced by the Euro. Spain was another country that suffered from high inflation in the 1980s and 1990s with multiple devaluations implemented by the government. Today’s banknotes are from the final designs, first issued in 1992.

2,000 Peseta

Dark red with a picture of the 18th century priest, botanist and mathematician José Celestino Mutis on the front and a drawing of the Mutisia clematis flower, named in his honour, on the back as well as the entrance gate to Madrid’s botanic gardens.
Estimated value: £10.46

5,000 Peseta

Light brown with the man who ‘discovered’ America (Christopher Columbus) on the front and a depiction of an astrolabe on the back.
Estimated value: £26.14

How do we rate the Spanish Peseta?

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[aboynamedgoo]

Episode 5: Colombian Peso

The peso replaced the real in 1810 and has been the currency of Colombia ever since. For the last 20 years the Colombian Senate has been discussing a devaluation of the currency by a factor of one thousand. This has not happened yet. The only improvement is that bank notes no longer have 000, instead since 2016 they have the word ‘mil’ to make it easier to identify the value of each banknote.

5,000 Pesos

Brown on one side, light blue on the other. On the front a picture of the 19th century poet José Asunción Silva, one of the founders of Spanish-Amercian modernism. On the back a depiction of Puya plants as found in the Colombian section of the Andes mountains, a condor and a bumblebee.
Estimated value: £1.00

How do we rate the Colombian Peso?

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[pervo]

Love the hexagons

[pervo]

Ok so my friend got me the list of currencies he doesn’t have anything from and I got a bit overexcited and bought a load for him from eBay, some really cool notes you can get for a pound each. Really hyped for them to arrive.