World Coin News June 2022

Heritage Auctions’ World and Ancient coin sale at the Central States May 5-7 auction included 18 lots that sold for more than $100,000 and 37 that reached at least $50,000. It featured selections from the Regent Collection, a trove that is among the finest assemblages of Australian rarities to reach the market in years, if not ever. The Regent Collection enjoyed enormous success, claiming the top two results in the sale and four of the top five. Among the highlights: The finest of just six known examples of the George V gold Sovereign 1920-S MS64+ NGC, which is widely acknowledged as the “King” of the Australian Sovereign series and led the event at $552,000. This magnificent specimen is from an issue that initially was underappreciated as a rarity, due to its…

The hunt for illicitly obtained coins deemed to be the cultural patrimony of another country is intensifying. From a law and order perspective this is a good thing. From a legal perspective who gets to decide what coins are sufficiently important to be labeled as cultural patrimony by a country, and who gives that country the right to demand such patrimony be theirs to claim is in question. On March 18, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced new import restrictions on what CBP described as ‘Albanian coins’ as part of a laundry list of import restrictions on anything and everything that may be found in what is today Albania originating from between 300,000 B.C. and 1913. Albania became an independent nation in 1913, having previously been part of the Ottoman Empire. According…

Coins and bank notes have been useful tools through which political messages and protests have circulated since ancient times. The EID MAR gold and silver coins issued by Marcus Junius Brutus in 43 to 42 B.C. brags about his participation in the assassination of Julius Caesar. Brutus paid the price for this propaganda message, later committing suicide rather than being captured by his political enemy Marcus Antonius. Today the Feminist Anti-War Resistance movement is finding Russian coins and bank notes a useful way to protest Russia’s war on Ukraine from inside Russia while avoiding being arrested for protesting the invasion. Some of the coins and bank notes are distributed anonymously, while some individuals aren’t afraid to have their name associated with such graffiti. On Twitter @jonnytickle recently featured a Russian bank note…

India is weighing the cost of printing bank notes versus using a digital currency as a true currency. While bank notes are universally accepted as being a form of currency alongside coins, crypto currencies are still only recognized as another form of value, but not as money itself. As a form of value that isn’t money itself, crypto currencies must be liquidated into physical or “paper” coins or bank notes at some point to realize their true value. It is true crypto currencies may be the next best way of transferring monetary value from one place to another, just as physically moving gold coins from one bank to another was eventually replaced by first large denomination bank note transfers and later by electronic methods. According to the Indian company Proassetz Exchange Director…

Where do you draw the line? Exonumia products are produced and marketed both by privately owned and by official government mints. How should collectors treat a metal replica of a currently legal tender bank note that has been issued by a government mint? There are Series 1976 $2 U.S. Federal Reserve bank notes that someone colorized outside the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, then sold at a premium. There are metal replica’s of other U.S. bank notes that are marketed without any legal entanglements, but none of these are federal government issues. Singapore is an independent city-state with its own circulating coins and bank notes. Bank notes are issued for circulation in denominations of S$2, S$5, S$10, S$50, S$100, and S$1,000. The S$10,000 bank note is legal tender but hasn’t been recirculated…

Should changes come about too quickly these changes can cause confusion. The Philippines is currently introducing a new polymer composition bank note. The Philippines is also circulating ringed bimetal coins of the same value as is a circulating bank note. The acceptance of both the coin and the note are an issue in the Asian country. The New Generation Currency bank notes first introduced in 2009 were meant to increase security against counterfeiting as well as improve the durability of the notes. Bank notes were issued in denominations of 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, and 1,000 pisos. New Generation Currency Coins were introduced in 2018 in denominations of 1, 5, and 25 sentimo and 1, 5, 10, and 20 pisos. The 10-sentimo coin denomination was eliminated at that time. In July 2019…