Picked these up at the Bangkok auction earlier this month. Now they are on the way to PMG for grading.
Thai paper currency might as well be the dark side of the moon for me, when it comes to knowledge. They're neat looking, though, I'll give you that. I just came across a crisp UNC Thai note in some stuff I had, as a matter of fact. Much more modern, of course.
I really like the green 1936 20 Baht despite the rust on the reverse. I like the intricate designs of TDLR notes vs the simplistic Japanese occupation versions. I also like the way the old notes always had scenes of a temple (or floating market, palace, etc) from a river/canal as a vantage point. While waiting to leave Bangkok, we watched an 8' monitor lizard swim around looking for food in a canal. The canal was at the back of our hotel. When we went back inside the hotel, there was this old B&W poster photo of several businesses next to the canal from 1950's. Hard to imagine, but I believe most of the transportation in Bangkok was by boat through these canals long before roads! Some of the older Thai banknotes capture this older way of life.
Yes, even back in the 1960s life was much different there. I would have loved to live there back then. But I will be back in late July into August for the next auction to see what I can get in the way of old currency. It's not necessarily cheap, though. Some of those go for thousands of dollars depending on what they are. I stopped collecting the more modern notes from Thailand and concentrate on pre-1957 ones now.
If you submit/certify some of your latest notes, let us know how they turned out. Keep us updated on your wins in the summer (& good luck!) I can imagine many being expensive (just know when to back off).
