Anyone know where I can exchange my Dinar that I got in Bahrain? The bank and airport wouldn't exchange them for some reason.They said nothing over 10 Dinar. Any help?
I liked Bahrain so much, and so little people know about it, that I'll just post this answer everywhere for max "bahrain exposure". Bahrain is one of my favorite collecting areas. Back in 1997, several men posed as representatives of the Bahrain Monetary Agency and presented a forged order of new 20 Dinar notes to the Ciccone Calcografica Security Printing Company. Believing it to be a legitimate order, the notes were printed and delivered in early 1998. During one week of June, over 4 million dollars worth of Bahraini Dinars were presented to Bahrain Monetary Agency branches in Qatar and the UAE, and more showed up elsewhere throughout the region. The sudden activity brought attention, and it was soon discovered the "new" notes had very slight differences, (such as a wider gap between serial number prefixes). Thomas De La Rue, (the official security printers), denied having plates that differed from their originals, and the "new" notes were determined to be counterfeits. A new-colored note was printed to counter the rash of forgeries, and notes with the gap were refused from the exchange. The color change was a temporary quick-fix, and eventually a new design was released. All legitimate Bahraini Dinars with older designs are still valid and exchangeable with the Bahrain monetary Agency. There is no time limit. With so many different designs out there, your bank's refusal to take anything higher than a 10 is most likely due to the risk of accepting extremely high-quality forgeries. Unless you can find a bank that takes 20's, your best bet might be ebay. Just FYI, current exchange rates put 20 Bahraini Dinars @ $53.04. prior to 1993: genuine issue 1993-1998: unauthorized issue 1998: emergency issue 1998-2001: current issue 2001-present:
That was very interesting SM :bow: I also notice that there is a difference between the unauthorised note and the rest, if you look at the wavy pattern of lines around the central coat of arms.
Yep! The crisscross wavy lines are still there, they're just a lot lighter. Lots of other areas appear lighter or slightly off too: the watermark area, the pattern around the watermark area, and the field behind the main title bar.The back is just as bad! The original has blue & violet fields, while the fakes are peach & violet. If these notes were circulated the color differences would be near impossible to detect, and the only practical way to tell them apart is the serial letter gap. It's easy to see why banks/airport kiosks would choose to just not take them, instead of training all of their tellers how to spot them. It's a rarely traded currency in most countries. genuine on top, fake on bottom:
Goes to show you have to look at things twice because it isn't always what it seems. Thanks for sharing the information.
