ericl

I just got back from a two week tour of Iran and as you might expect, circulating coins are rare there. Anyway, I found this years specimen set, and in it was a one Ryal coin, and the exchange rate at the time it was minted, the ryal was going at 9800 to the dollar.

This may be the most worthless coin ever minted. Does anyone out there know of anything comparable?

(I know that there are lots of coins that due to hyperinflation, lost any value they might have had subsequently, but What I'd like to know is that are there are any coins of insanely low value that were being minted at the time they were worth less to nothing).

mbynack

The 1937 German Pfennig is 1/100 of a mark. In 1937 a loaf of bread cost 1.5 million marks.

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ericl

In 1937, the Reichmark was quite stable and worth a hell of a lot more vis-a-vis the dollar.

Bonedigger

Thought I posted this earlier, but guess I didn't. My most useless coin would be the Rai-Coins of Micronesia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones

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Drusus

Yap coins were not worthless at the time they were made...and the value has only gone up.

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900fine

When I was in Russia, I came upon a pile of aluminum 1 kopeck coins in a parking lot. Being 1/100 of a rouble, one needed 28 kopecks per US penny EXCUSE ME cent.

900fine

Hmmm... I thought hyper-inflation in Germany was a cause of great problems at the time. I also thought the US made enormous loans to Germany after WW 1 in an attempt to help.

Sincerely... I could be wrong, but that's what I thought happened.

mbynack

That will teach me to go by my faulty memory. The year I should have referred to is the years of hyperinflation in 1922-1923.

Did I mention that I have a bad memory?

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Drusus

The economy had stablalized by 1937...The stable Rentenmark was introduced (with an investment of loans on pretty much all its remaining assets) in November 1923 to replace the worthless Reichsmark and the many different notgeld...this pretty much put an end to inflation and hyperinflation and outlawed notgeld (again). Inflation and hyperinflation in german was around 1917 to 1923 but the nation had monetary problems pretty much from 1914-1923 as during the war they could not provide the society with enough money...and even if you had money, there was little to buy. The stable new Reichsmark was re-introduced the next year (1924) and remained pretty strong until the introduction of the Deutsche Mark in 1948.

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spock1k

my most worthless coin would have to be a penny thats in my wallet

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rhoggman

I would rather have a pocket full of copper or zinc pennies as opposed to a new gold dollar. The intrinsic value of pennies is worth far more.

95% copper pennies are worth about 2.5 cents based on the value of their metal content.

So your worthless pennies could be worth more than you think.

The goverment's "idea" of money is what is worthless.

coinflation.com

Haleiwa

And all this time, I thought american money had little or no value! Geez you guys found something way worser. O well, in a few years the american dollar should be right in there with the rest of 'em.

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FullTPDTS

Not a coin, but paper money... the Yugo 50 million dinar...

Drusus

talking about germany, these coins were pretty much worthless by the time they were minted and released, with hyperinflation every week denomiations got higher and higher and they simply could not product the coins fast enough to release them in time for them to be viable. With bills they could just print a higher denomination on the already printed bill, with coins...they just became a reminder of how bad it had become:









even the 500 mark coin was far smaller than what was needed at the time of its release (or very shortly after) to buy anything....at best it was able to be used very briefly as the smallest of change.

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coleguy

Maybe some county's need the small denominations to compensate for not rounding purchases to the nearest hundredth like the US. Take the price of gas for instance. Anywhere you go it's not a whole number price. So, if it's 4.18 1/8 per gallon, many country's may choose to collect that 1/8 per gallon instead of rounding down, which would explain coins that seem to have no other purpose.

Just my theory anyways.
GUy~