Star Coin - Brunei 1886

This is the one coin that I will never get tired of. Everytime one of these babies come up on ebay, I buy it, well almost everytime. I have a price limit of around USD50 which is still a bid high compared to about B$45 which you can buy from the local dealers here.

This coin was part of a million coin minted in Edinburgh. Someone convinced Sultan Hashim that he needed a new coin by suggesting that he pay for the minting and he will take half of the mints. The British was appalled when the coins came into the market. As soon as the British ran the government from 1906, the first act was to ban all these coins.

United Arab Emirates 200 Dirham 2004

Happy New Year 2008! I do hope you enjoyed last year's postings of stamps and currency notes. This year I hope to do more and blog more often about stamps and currency notes which I have collected as well as the news about some of these.

I was happy last March when I got my 500 dirham note from United Arab Emirates. I was on the way back from Iran when we stopped by Dubai. I went up to the money changer and said I wanted a 500 dirham note, how much was it... Anyway when I got that 500 dirham note, I thought my UAE Dirham collection was complete. It was sometime last month when I discovered that UAE had 200 dirham and 1,000 dirham notes as well. Aargh...

Anyway, one of my wife's niece's husband was a pilot with RBA and I asked him when he will be flying out to London and to help me get those notes. Anyway he hasn't been flying to London lately but he had a 200 dirham in his wallet and I changed for that first. The 200 dirham was issued together with the 100 dirham in 2004. Here is the 200 dirham note for you to enjoy. I still want that 1,000 dirham note.