ISIS announces new currency

In the last years of the Showa Emperor Japan minted some 100000 Yen coins in gold and the face value was significantly greater than the melt value of the gold. Of course the fakers got busy, using real gold, but finding a way to make coins worth considerably more than the gold.

 

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I am beginning to wonder if this story is a hoax or a scheme to market NCLT (non-circulating legal tender) coins.

 

I'm not questioning what you said , I'd like to know how they accomplished that without using a lesser amount of gold . Seems to me the only way they could accomplish that . Also for coins with such great value a simple acid test could tell the approximate purity .

 

They used the correct fineness and weight of gold, the profit was the difference betwixt the lower gold value and the higher face value of the coin. At that time I recall the gold was $500-600 and the face value in the neighbourhood of $880 or so.

Japan has also had problems of another sort with the 500 yen coin in cupronickel, these actually do circulate quite a lot - a coin worth more than $5 with about a quarters worth of metal in it.

 

Sounds pretty normal to me. It gets strange when the intrinsic value of a coin is higher than its face value. That could one day be the case with those IS gold pieces. But the 500 yen coins (about $4.20) or the Swiss 5 fr coins (about $5.15) circulate just fine.

Christian

 

The 5CHF coins are the only option in that denomination. Curiously I find the 1/2 CHF coins circulating in the USA as a dime - nothing like an instant 500% profit. The CHF and the pre-Euro Netherlands Guilder were the only currencies that appreciated vs. the US dollar over the last 100 years. The DEM over time after it was introduced, but was only circulated for a bit over 55 years.

 

Somehow I missed this story when first announced last fall...

Honestly, I don't think they intend it as a profit-maker at all. I think it is a political and religio-political move, to bolster their claims to be an actual state, and a properly Islamic one (by their understanding).

Right. They have plenty of other revenue streams, that don't require people outside their territory to accept coins with their imprint.

I imagine the penalty for counterfeiting in ISIS territory will be... severe.

 

I stay a way from it. Terrorist organization should be destroyed not given the time of day. Your helping by using Name in a very small way.
that's all I have to say.

 

Exercising the right to mint coins or money is just one of several forms of recognition for any nation. They are just trying to prove that they are an actual nation. Let us not as collectors, give them that recognition.

 

We're not on the gold standard anymore. Haven't been for a while.

And what makes gold "valuable"? Just because it's "gold"? No. Humans assign value to it, that's why it has "value"...oh, snap- that's just like the US Dollar!