Squid, octopi, and cuttlefish

Hello all.

In addition to loving coins, I also love cephalopods (octopi, squid, cuttlefish, and nautili).
I would like to collect all the world coins that have any of these animals on them.
I already have the Iceland 1981 10 Aurar.
I am most interested in coins that were actually circulated as apposed to commemeratives, etc.

So, what coins do you know of which display any of these animals?

Thank you,
Aimee

 

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The 50 cent coin from Tuvalu (AFAIK they were for circulation) is the only thing that I can think of off the top of my head that has an octopus on it, at least as far as modern stuff. There are some ancient's (some pretty rare) that had octopi on them as well.

You can see an example of the Tuvalu coin here...
http://www.janeresture.com/tuvalu_coins/index.htm

 

Thank you.
That one will definately go on my list.

 

The Bahamas penny has a starfish on it but I guess that doesn't count.

 

Thank you. No, a starfish doesn't count. It is a pretty coin though. I have a couple of them, including one of the larger sized ones.

 

there's an octopus on maldives 25 rufiya '78... km#58 n 58a. But both are commems.

 

You will find the octopus depicted on the ancient coinage of Syracuse in Sicily, also that of Bruttium in Italy and Eretria (on the Island of Euboia) in Greece. There are others. A search via google should provide you with plenty examples.

The ones from Syracuse appear on the market fairly regularly and aren't necessarily expensive.

One theory for their appearance on ancient coins is that they were held in high regard as a delicacy. Ancient coinage depicted many creatures of the sea and the land, real as well as fictional.

 

Sorry to nitpick, but the proper plural form of octopus is octopuses, not octopi... the us to i plural form is unique to Latin-derived words. Octopus is Greek.

Anyway back on topic lol... best bet would be various South Pacific countried for more modern depictions of sea life. Is an eBay seller that seems to specialize in world coins that depic various wildlife... check to see what xcpddet is selling at any given time, bound to find something interesting. Tends to be a bit superlative in some of his descriptions lol, but if you like what he's selling can get around that. Doesn't appear to be selling anything right now but is bound to have new listings soon.

East Timor has a nautilus on their 1 centavo coin... saw a 2004 one on eBay (in their language it's "Timor-Leste" but the ebay seller had it misspelled as "Tomor-Leste" lol). Nice looking coin:

http://cgi.ebay.com/TOMOR-LESTE-REP...Z8424450458QQcategoryZ544QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

(OK to post links to auctions here? Isn't my own, not sure about rules on that).

 

I'm all for nitpicking, but octopi is an acccepted plural form.
From m-w.com:
"Inflected Form(s): plural -pus·es or oc·to·pi /-"pI/
Etymology: New Latin Octopod-, Octopus, from Greek oktOpous"

Thanks for the coin links!

 

Well there is no ultimate authority in grammar, lol, and to a degree what is and is not grammatically correct depends on whatever is accepted common usage, which can change. It is generally considered proper grammar to use Latin grammatical rules when dealing with Latin or Latin-derived words, but you almost never see "stadia" as the plural of stadium, and you often see "data" treated as if it were a singular word and not a plural (technically it's the plural of "datum"). Usually Latin style plural forms are ony used for words directly derived from Latin, however many words the Romans borrowed from Greek and incorporated into Latin are used as if they were Latin. Both "octopuses" and "octopi" are technically correct... I prefer "octopuses" myself, just because it preserves convention... but to each their own, grammar is not a static thing.

Anyway enough derailment of the topic, lol... back to finding octopuses or octopi or whatever on coins. See that East Timor piece? The nautilus seems a little weakly struck to me, but that may just be from the photo. Looks interesting though.

 

I agree that the nautilus looks a little weak. I think I'll wait and see if a better one shows up at some point.

 

East Timor.

'Timor-Leste' is actually the Portuguese for 'East Timor'.Although they issue their own coins,the official currency is actually the U.S. Dollar,not Escudos.

Aidan.

 

squid coin

I found another squid coin on ebay. Elf Falkland Islands 1 crown 2007 fishery squid catalog KM#147 copper-nickel testing a pic shot now....

 

more squid , octopi (octupuses) pics from ebay auctions now listing; hope this helps you ? :

 

more pics ? might be to large we will see:

 

​hope

 

the Palau coin is gold. I myself have the Tuvalu octopus coin in business strike and in proof version. I liked how they used the total space of the coin for the octopuses tentacles. great design. it is in my MISC. section of my world coins collection. i hope these pics helped you

 

here's 1 more i saw on Ebay: I think it says Spain 2010 ?

 

Jeeze... This thread is 7 years old...