Paper Money: New Acquisitions

Inexpensive ... pretty ... and kinda educational sorta.

 

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Kinda like China, where Mao shows up on every single note printed...

 

The Gandhi Series of banknotes are issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as the legal tender of Indian rupee. As the name suggests, the series is so called because the obverse of the banknotes prominently display the portrait of Mahatma Gandhi. Since its introduction in 1996, this series replaced all Lion Capital Series banknotes issued before 1996. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) introduced the series in 1996 with 10 and 500 rupee banknotes.

As of 10 November 2016, the RBI issues banknotes in this series in denominations from ₹5 to ₹100. Printing of five-notes, which had stopped earlier, restarted in 2009. On 8 November 2016, the ₹500 and ₹1000 banknote denominations of this series were demonetized and the new Mahatma Gandhi Series of banknotes were revealed in denominations of ₹500 and ₹2000, intended to replace this series.

edited - copyright

 

Today's new pickup is this rather ordinary 1923 USN Ace - not sure why I got it, wallet carry, sometimes you just get stuff and go hmmmm.... why did I get that? Well, it's here, and next in line. So up it goes...

 

Nice writeup, @Zeppo Shanski!

I recently purchased a whole bunch of Greek notes, so starting off with this 1926 1000 drachmai. Obverse features some Greek dude.
I wonder why there is an overprint of "Bank of Greece" when it already says "Bank of Greece" directly above...



Reverse features the Lion Gate of Mycenae, flanked by two "Mushroom columns" of a typical Minoan/Mycenean style

 

Greece was the first foreign country I collected - great country to collect for a number of reasons. Alot of good designs with important cultural significance on them, terrible financial history which means a whole lot of issues and reissues and revaluations so you got new designs... the 1000 note above is an example, great ABNCo design, and if you can get past Stavros saggy pigeyed punchdrunk mug on the obverse (and on too many other Greek notes, only design flaw on the lot of them), the rest of the note is great, nice design, color, and the reverse is great.

By the way that note issued in 1928 not 1926 under the Bank of Greece (the original says National Bank of Greece). They obviated the third sig at bottom. Bank of Greece is a central bank, National Bank of Greece is a private bank. NBG could issue notes until 1928, when... central bank took over. Hence, the old design, issued with the overprint.

I think notes designed after the change to the central bank stopped using old Stavros. Below is a 1926 of mine, one of the last issues under the National Bank. Again, there is old Stavros... nice back though with old Greek coins, one of the things that drew me to their currency in the first place.

 

Thanks for the GREAT info about Greece! I never knew any of that; I just thought the notes looked pretty good.

To be honest, I generally prefer South American ABNC notes over Greece. One would think that with their artistic history Greece would have some stellar notes, but in my opinion they are somewhat lacking in that area.

I also haven't really gotten any Greek notes before since the ABNC ones are generally pretty expensive. However, a few are SUPER cheap, such as this 500 drachmai dated 1932.

The obverse features a rather odd looking Athena Parthenos. Most representations of her look rather different, especially the only near-contemporary copy of the Parthenon Parthenos, the Varvakion Athena. The Varvakion has a somewhat chubbier look to the face. The ABNC version looks sort of Baroque and a bit too skinny. But other than that, the colors are GORGEOUS




Reverse features a stretched-out representation of the design on the exterior of one of the incredible Archaic golden Vaphio cups. The engraving quality is pretty awesome here, and even has some really nice Minoan-style swirlies for the border

 

MEC2 Zeppo & hotwheels,
Very nice presentations and history.

Thanks

 

I actually have a couple of these, but for the life of me i couldnt tell you
Where i got it or paid...LOL

 

Funny enough, neither do I... I have several of these older Cambodia notes but I simply don't remember where from. Maybe it was a gift from my father or something, he knows I collect notes...

 

This Greek 5000 drachmai note is a bit weird. It has an odd texture to it.
Obverse features the Winged Nike of Samothrace between two workers.
The story with the Nike is interesting. It was originally a naval victory monument, but nobody knows what it actually looked like. When found, it was missing one wing, both arms, and the head. So all that was left was a torso and a single wing.
The make the missing wing, they plaster casted the remaining one and so the two are essentially mirror copies of each other.
They found a fragment of one of the hands, but not much else exists from the statue.
The reconstruction is simply an estimate based on other existing monuments, small-scale replicas, descriptions, and coins.
Nevertheless, the statue remains one of the most famous and well-known examples of Hellenistic art in the entire world, despite its rather poor state of preservation.




Reverse features a very Soviet-looking "workers paradise." Guess Greece was into that for a while.

 

A few from the "stash"

 

And for you military currency folks:

 

What I like about those old ABNC Mexican notes is that they are apparently still legal tender! Just divide the denomination by three zeros and you can theoretically still use them.
Not that 1 peso gets you much these days, much less 0.001 peso...

 

Found this just lying about:

 

That's insane. I wonder how that ever left the print...

 

Oooops, here's the face of the previous post ($10 error)

 

Today's new pickup is one that really starts me well down the road of getting nationals with interesting names... this $5 1929 from Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania. Later renamed Jim Thorpe, how can you not go for a great oddball name like Mauch Chunk?

 

What an insane name... Pretty awesome it's on the note though!

Here's a 1000 drachmai series 1970.
Obverse features the famed Artemision Bronze of the High Classical Era. This statue is one of the very few complete, life-sized bronze sculptures to survive in the entire world. There are literally just a handful of comparable statues in existence.
This statue has been variously attributed as either Zeus or Poseidon. There are no identifying features anywhere on the statue, and the pose is somewhat ambiguous. It could either be Zeus holding a lightning bolt or Poseidon holding a trident.
To me, a lightning bolt seems more reasonable. I doubt Poseidon was the type of guy to javelin-throw a 6-foot long trident.


Reverse features a Greek lady and a view of Hydra City.