Good buddy of mine showed me this interesting little piece of 10 Shillings Japanese Invasion Money (JIM), issued in 1942, asking if I can help identify the history and origin; and if possible to grade it.
Take a look :
Fig 1 : A short snorter of JIM 10 Shillings
This piece has some writings on it and they are commonly referred to as "short snorters". To quote Michael Marotta's definition from "The Numismatist" - "Short Snorters are pieces of paper money circulating during the war and/or in a combat zone signed by friends or comrades." They are in essence an improvised scrap book of sorts during World War II. These artefacts usually commemorates events, location, people, dates etc.
Fig 1 : Tan Sri Dato' Sri Dr. Zeti Akhtar Aziz. [Source : globalaccessibilitynews.com]
Malaysians can look forward to having a new central bank governor in less than 30 days' time. The
current governor Tan Sri Dato' Sri Dr. Zeti Akhtar Aziz, the 7th in line since the central bank was established in 1959; will be stepping down by end of March 2016 when her contract expires.
With 16 years at the helm, she is the longest serving BNM Governor yet. She is also the first woman to be appointed for this prestigious but challenging job. To her credit she was won many accolades, awards and recognition from renowned international organizations such as EuroMoney, University of Pennsylvannia (Wharton) just to name a few. In 2011 Bloomberg reported that she was considered as a potential candidate for the International Monetary Fund (IMF). If anything, she has put Malaysia on the financial services industry map.
Over the past year, we have received several calls about the United States $100,000 Gold Certificate (banknote) with the portrait of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, asking us to estimate the value of the piece, hoping that it will be worth millions and they can sell it and solve all their financial problems.
Well, we've got bad news ...... if that piece is real, you can be ARRESTED for owning it!
According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing under the U.S. Treasury, this was indeed printed in the 1930s and ONLY used for transactions between the Federal Reserve Banks and its branches, it is NOT meant for general circulation at all. The size of the note is 157 mm x 66 mm or 6 3/16 in x 2 5/8 inches. There were only 42,000 pieces of these printed and ALL of them have been accounted for, it remains the property of the Government of United States.
As such it is ILLEGAL to own any of such pieces.
If you see any of these, they are either STOLEN PROPERTY or REPLICAS/COUNTERFEITS. Both of which can get you into serious trouble.
Fig. 1 : US $100,000 Gold Certificate, 1934 Series, Obverse
Fig 2: US $100,000 Gold Certificate - Reverse
One of the piece is on display at the National Museum of American History, under the Smithsonian.
We DO NOT buy or sellany of these, therefore please stop calling us about this piece.
Thank you & Happy Collecting, just don't collect the illegal stuff like this one!
A collector from Johor sent us an interesting piece last week. This is a fine example of an ink transfer of the obverse on to the reverse of a Malaysian 1976-81 50 Ringgit banknote signed by bank governor Ismail bin Ali (Pick# 16 / BNM-B16 / KNB16 ). This piece was printed by Bradbury & Wilkinson of Surrey, England.
Fig 1: Ink transfer to the reverse of the 50 Ringgit banknote
As you all know the portrait of the Agong (or King) is suppose to be on the obverse :
Fig 2 : The obverse of the same banknote
And how can such incidents happen during the printing process? Here's how : below is a simple illustration of the normal printing process, in which the printing plate for the portrait is a the top drum (Drum A) and as the paper goes in between the drums, the plate on drum A is pressed against drum B and the image of the portrait gets transferred to the paper.
Fig 3 : Normal printing process
Now image transfer happens when there is a momentary break in the paper feeding and as a result the image on drum A gets transferred to Drum B, as shown below :
Fig 4 : Momentary break in paper feed, image of top drum is transferred to bottom drum
And when the paper feed resumes, the wet ink on drum B gets printed to the bottom of the same paper. The image transferred will fade as more paper gets fed into the printing drums :
Fig 5 : Ink with image on drum B is transferred to the back of the paper
The image on drum A is a negative, when transferred to drum B, it will be a positive and final transfer to paper will result in a negative image.
Hope this will provide some clarity on how such ink transfer can happen when banknotes are being printed.
Ever wonder who prints the US Dollar bills? It's NOT the U.S. Mint as most of you think. That task goes to the "U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing" or fondly know as the "BEP".
There is an interesting booklet of 36 pages, in downloadable PDF form, that chronicles the history of the U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving since the Civil War in 1860s. It is a different entity from the US Mint, which produces the US coins. Both agencies are under the US Department of Treasury.
If you want to understand how banknotes or "Dollar bills" are produced, this booklet will give you a good idea how it's done.
When BEP first started out, those banknotes were printed by private firms and then sent to the BEP in sheets of 4 to be hand cut and trimmed. Those days, the signatures were hand signed ! Sheets of 32 which we are all familiar with came much later. There is also an timeline that summarizes the history of BEP, from 1861 to 2005. Lots of interesting information, complete with many photos that gives good insight into the business of making money. The booklet is free and you can access it here.
Numbers has been as source of fascination in many different cultures around the world. Believers will tell you that certain numbers mean certain things, in different cultures and numbers make people do very strange things.
Take the number 13 for example - it is considered an "unlucky" number in most Western cultures. This belief has different origins depending who you ask. Some say that 13 pence was the hangman's pay; while Judas was the 13th disciple of Christ and the list goes on. Somewhere along the line Friday 13th is also regarded as a bad day and triska-deka-phobics (i.e. people who fear the number 13) will refuse to drive or go out on those days. Buildings in the West do not have level 13 as well.
This is a summarized banknote grading guide in a tabular form. Makes it easier to used because the factors that affect grade is clearly spelled out. The contents are summarized base on the International Banknote Society's (www.theibns.org) adjectival grading description. This was presented at the recent the "Introduction to Numismatic Grading" course conducted in Kuala Kangsar.
If you have any questions about the course or numismatic grading, do email us at help@alphanumis.com or Whatsapp +60 12 318 3042.
If you would like to get a FREE large version of this table (A3 size) in PDF, please email us.
The value of having a good catalog as a guide in building your banknote or coin collection cannot be underestimated. Not having one is akin to driving blind folded. For the past few decades Krause Publication's "Standard Catalog of World Paper Money" or SCWPM series of banknote catalogs has been the "go to" book for every world banknote enthusiast. So much so that one cannot be considered a serious banknote collector if he/she does not posses at least one copy of the SCWPM on his/her bookshelf! After all, SCWPM has been around since 1961, it boasts a whopping 21,000 items in their listing with 13,750 banknotes illustrated. Given its long history, the dominance of SCWPM as the leading authority in banknote catalogs has been undisputed, until now.
One thing about collecting error notes is that it is fraud with many dangers. We had one such case recently. A collector who recently acquired a piece of famous "kerbau" 10 Dollar error note ("kerbau" is Malay for buffalo) and he asked me to take a closer look at it and let him know what I think. Here's the high resolution scan :
Figure 1 : Malaya British Borneo 10 Dollars 1 March 1961, Pick #9
The bottom right serial number appears to have been over printed i.e. the "9" has been over printed with a "0".
Almost exactly 6 months after its inaugural auction of banknotes with special serial numbers, the much anticipated auction was held today at the same venue, Sasana Kijang in Kuala Lumpur.
This time there was 178 lots up for grabs, compared to 231 for the first auction (53 lots or 23% difference). The buyer's premium is at 15%. The official schedule :
8:30 am Registration Starts
10:30 am Session 1 - RM1, RM10 and RM50
1:30 pm Session 2 - RM5, RM20, RM100
The auction did start at 10:30am this time around, registration was comparatively smoother than last time, mainly because the crowd was not as big as the first time and also perhaps people know what to expect already.
A collector from up north sent me an interesting banknote to grade. It is an 11th series Malaysia 1 Ringgit note, signed by BNM Governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz. A first glance it does look like a very uncirculated piece with very good eye appeal.
The past 2 days has seen a lot of sudden buzz around the Malaysia 12th series 10 Ringgit banknote that has a different color Rafflesia on the reverse. This interesting event was triggered by Dickson Niew's blog article. Dickson, the prolific numismatist cum blogger (Did I get that right Dickson?) provides an interesting insight into the origins of the mysterious "Black Rafflesia", commonly referred to as the "BR" note in social media circles. The article can be found here.
The note in question ....
This note has been a subject of much discussion on local social media groups on numismatics since the second half of 2014. Much of the controversy revolves around the issue on whether it is a genuine piece or a "post-mint-job".
We have received quite a number of calls and emails recently on how to submit banknotes to alphaNumis to grade and encapsulate. We think it will be better if we explain the process in a bit more detail, in the form of a Q&A in our blog so that you can get a better picture how it's done.
This is a quick run down on the statistics and a brief analysis of the BNM auction yesterday. The are base on the UNOFFICIAL results of the auction. I do hope MNP will publish the realized prices soon so that further analysis can be done.
The much anticipated numismatic event of the year has finally arrived. As I made my way to Sasana Kijang in downtown Kuala Lumpur, there are many thoughts about how the event will turn out and how it will affect the local numismatic market. There has been much buzz on social media sites and many will turn up at the event - either to bid for the items or to just sit on the sidelines and enjoy the show. Which ever way it goes, I think it is going to be a very crowded.
From what I know, and do correct me if I am wrong, such an event is unprecedented; as in our central bank is, for the very first time, running such an auction. The event is conducted by MNP Auctioneers (based in Penang, with office in downtown KL) at the auditorium of Sasana Kijang. The buyers' premium is quite reasonable - at 15% of the hammer price and there are 231 lots up for grabs.
As I arrived just after 9:00am and made my way down the escalator to the foyer of the auditorium, you can already hear the noise. People are already queuing up to register.
Fig 1: Escalator going down to the auditorium
Fig 2. Crowd building up....
Fig 3. Registration counters were packed.
Fig 4. Waiting for their number cards.
As I reached the foyer, I could immediately see all the familiar faces, just about every personality and dealer in the numismatic scene are there; from Steven Tan to Raymond Chang to KN Boon. Folks from the Malaysian Numismatic Society like Dickson Niew were there too. We even have collectors coming from down south, as in from Johor and Singapore, some from the north of the peninsular as well. I did not, however, encounter anyone from Hong Kong or China, which according to some will be here as well.
There was a lot of catching up to do, after all, no where in this country you can find all the dealers and collectors all in the same place at the same time ! I said many hellos to people whom I know and chatted with for hours on Facebook Messenger but have NEVER met them in person.
Fig 5. Guess who's here?
Fig 6. Can't touch this!
According to the itinerary, registration will be from 9:00am onwards and bidding is expected to begin at 10:00am. Due to the overwhelming crowd, the registration took a bit longer and bidding finally got underway at 11:00am. As I entered the auditorium, I took a rough calculation and my estimate that there there are about 250 to 300 people at the start of the session, this is the probably the biggest numismatic auction in this country yet.
Fig 7. The atmosphere of the grand looking hall.
Fig 8. Very spacious hall at audio was good and clear.
Fig 9. Waiting for the bidding to start.
Fig 10. And so it begins ....
Fig 11. Bidding went on for hours.
Fig 12. Good turnout.
The first lot up for grabs was RM1 AB Prefix with numbers AB0000001-10 with an indicative price of only RM200. Now this first lot was a BIG shocker, it came in at RM5,700 ! Subsequent similar lots settled at about RM3,500 to RM4,800 range. This took everyone in the room by surprise, there were gasps and claps at the same time. Amazing.
The next big thing was Lot 61 RM5 AA6666666, that piece comes with a frame and it got bidded up to RM16,000. Unbelievable. Considering that the rest of RM5 pieces were doing RM2000 to RM3000+.
Fast forward to 2:00pm, we are still at Lot 77, only one third of the way thru. At this rate, my calculations show that this should finish at about 8:00pm.I couldn't stay any longer and had to leave for my next appointment, after all according to the itinerary, it was suppose to finish at 2:00pm.
The prices are just incredible - for low serials, at least 10 times the catalog prices.
As I made my way out, I could see that some people have already left, perhaps disappointed that they could not get any of the lots at their target prices. I left the place thinking about what will be the subsequent impact of these new high prices of special serial number banknotes ....
I'll be back with my thoughts and some analysis of this momentous event. I will try to get the realized prices tonight and run thru them.
Stay tuned!
P.S. In the meantime, get ready to answer a barrage of questions from your brothers, sisters, wife or wives, aunties, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, colleagues, friends, your insurance agent, car mechanic, right up to your hairdresser about what is their nice number banknote is worth and whether you want to buy or not. Expect this to be inflicted upon you for a minimum of 6 months.
