Here's a few examples of old foreign currency I received from a very elderly lady in her 80's back when I was a teenager working at a donut shop. She was a widow and spent her last years working at the shop. If I helped her do her work, she would reward me by giving me a hand full of these old bills that she had picked up on her worldly travels during her youth when she was married. To me they were not worth anything, but I saved them because they were cool looking and I know they meant something to her since she had saved them for many years before giving them to me. Actually she had given me in total around 50,000 to 100,000 in Japanese yen (1000 yen notes). But since I eventually moved to and lived in Japan, I spent them just like regular currency. Anyways, there are a few of the examples that she had given me. Thought I'd post a picture of some of my favorite ones.
Nice notes. The only one really worth anything is the upper right, Farmer's Bank of China. It's in decent condition and should fetch over $10. For reference: https://www.ebay.com/itm/mw7700-Chi...937718?hash=item52211e1476:g:UoUAAOSwNnRYiprM The other two are in the sub-$5
All the bills she gave me were ones that she got during her trip(s) there in as late as the 60s. Yen rate was much different. For example, the Yen rate in 1973 was 301.15 yen to the dollar. So that 100,000 yen would have been $332.06 in 1973. The yen rate was probably even better when she bought that yen in the 60's. I spent it in 1988 at which point the yen rate was between 122 and 134 throughout that year. So at best, it was around $746. That may sound like a lot of money, but at that time Japan was extremely expensive to live in. The yen rate has gone down much more but prices for things have also changed. So even though it's still expensive to be in Japan, it's nothing like it was back in the mid to late 80's. I remember so many times spending $20 equivalent in yen to get full on a meal at McDonalds. The lady that gave this currency to me probably never figured I'd actually go to Japan. And it was just a fluke that I still had that currency, because when I was a kid, I never thought it was worth anything. Had I thought it was, I would have included it in my actual collection, which that collection was ultimately misappropriated and lost forever. Also when I took these old yen bills to Japan, no one would take them when I tried to pay for things with them. I had to actually go to the bank and turn them in, in exchange for new modern currency.
