I was at the local pub with my wife last night and apparently the conversation turned to coins. One young woman pulled a big silver medal out of her purse and casually passed it around. On one side was a bust of King Rama V and the other side had several lines in Thai script saying something about his trip to Europe in 1897. I was very impressed with this coin and told her it was valuable, possibly worth 50,000-60,000 baht. I looked it up online this morning and saw that a similar coin sold for almost $2,000 recently. Of course, I offered to buy it from her if she ever wanted to part with it. I also encouraged her to store and handle it more carefully. The pictures below are of the coin which was sold at auction recently. Now I will keep an eye out for one of these.
That's a very handsome medal. The Thai script looks neat. The signature of the French engraver, Auguste Patey, looked familiar to me, so I looked him up. Sure enough, he designed some French coins, and the 1908 Thai 1-baht coin.
Well, the only Rama I know of was described by Arthur C. Clark. But this appears to a cool thing, and very attractive.
It is known as the Chakri Dynasty, the Kings called Rama, I through X. King Rama IX died in October of last year and his funeral was this past October, kind of world wide news. One of the things I like most about numismatics is the constant learning experience it causes for me.
Wasn't he the longest-reigning monarch? Aha. Had to go look him up. Per Wikipedia: The article shows this photo taken in 2006 when he celebrated the 60th anniversary of his reign. He doesn't even look like he was sixty years old there, let alone someone who came to the throne as an adult and had already ruled for sixty years! Amazing. When I was in my twenties I had a Filipino coworker who I assumed was about my own age. It turned out he was in his early fifties. Some Asian people age very well, apparently!
I know how to do currency exchange.. I just wanted to point out that not everyone knows what 50,000 Baht is.. Nice medal by the way ✌ peace
As I often tell the Thai folks, "Sa-koal", which might be their way of saying "Skoal", since they don't have the sk dipthong in their lingo. Its all good, mate.
