Chinese 10 Yuan Second Series

This Chinese 10 Yuan was part of the second series of the Renmimbi. It was issued in 1955. I am not very familiar with the Chinese currencies but I remembered when I was in Nanjing in 2008, this particular 10 Yuan note was the most elusive. I even found a shop which sold the complete set of the Chinese Renmimbi except this particular note was not in that box. The shop assistants told me that this note was not easy to get. When I came back, I searched for it and eventually found this one.

This one came as if it h as not been used. I am not sure whether this is genuine as most photographs I have seen of this note showed used notes. The only thing I can tell is that this one has a watermark which is visible when you hold the note to the light. Does that prove it is genuine?

Brunei $100 Hassanal Bolkiah B Series

This Brunei $100 Hassanal Bolkiah B Series is probably one of the harder notes to find. The B Series came out in mid 1980s to replace the Hassanal Bolkiah A Series which came out in 1972. However the higher value notes were prone to sophisticated counterfeiting. In fact when I was the Deputy at Tabung Amanah Pekerja in the early 1990s, I recalled during those early days we had not yet placed a currency violet light checker yet. One of the notes were received was actually a counterfeit. It was soon after that every single counter were fitted with the currency detector.

This particular used note (graded probably EF or XF) was sold to me at $130 by a local dealer. Since this is one of those those harder to find notes but at that price, it is not that bad. However on the internet especially on ebay the price would be much higher.

Azerbaijan's Manat

 

I have never been to Azerbaijan. The closest I have been probably is when I was in Russia and when I was in Iran. Then sometime last February I was informed that there will be a meeting on Intercultural in Azerbaijan and I was secretly hoping that I could go but it clashed with another meeting which I had to attend in Tehran.

However our Deputy Minister went to represent Brunei Darussalam and I asked her to keep all the Azerbaijan's money and exchanged with me. When she came back, she gave me the set and those six are currently the currency notes used in Azerbaijan. The back of the notes are standard - Azerbaijan's map. So only the front depicted the various cultural aspect of the country. The notes are all of different sizes from 1 Manat being the smallest and the 100 Manat being the largest.

The value of the Manat is also very high. This 186 Manat notes cost me B$299.

Brunei $25 stamp Japanese Occupation

When I saw this was coming up on ebay, I will bid for it but I doubt very much if I will ever win it. This is like super rare and when it does come up, the price was so scary that it was not even worthwhile to enter into the fray. This $25 note only surfaces every now and then. The last time I paid for this was a block of four which I paid almost $2,000 trying to acquire it. This particular piece is a Japanese overprint. That makes it even more valuable and super rare to acquire. But I tried and there was only one other bidder and today I got it and at a price I would not have imagine. This one makes my Japanese occupation only 1 short!

Russian 100 Roubles Note

I was in St Petersburg, Russia sometime last year to attend an APEC Meeting. As usual I managed to find the whereabouts of where to buy old money. I found this one. An old Russian 100 Roubles note. Judging by the portrait, this note was after the Czar period. Unfortunately I don't have enough knowledge about it other than this was one of the bigger Russian note which I found. I think I found another big one. I will have to blog about that other note one of these days.

Brunei Twenty Dollar Notes

The Brunei $20 notes issued together with the Singapore $20 notes are not that easy to find anymore. Issued in 2007 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Brunei-Singapore Interchangeability Agreement, these notes are getting to be rarer and not many use the notes preferring to keep them every time they come acros these notes. I was lucky enough to get these running 11 numbers.

Brunei Numismatic Club

I have not been very active with my numismatic collection lately. I have obtained quite a few sets but I have neither the time nor the energy to make an effort to post on this blog site. However lately, I was approached to be a patron of sorts to a facebook club called the Kelab Numismatik Brunei or the Brunei Numismatic Club. I missed out on their first outing but came out with them on their second outing and thoroughly enjoyed myself. For those who are interested in joining the club, here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Kelabnumisbrunei

I have managed to obtain a number of items from members and hopefully will continue to do so at a much more reasonable prices compared to the ones on EBay. The members are very helpful and of course being local we do know each other well. But there are also from other nationalities who are in the club as well.

Hope to see you there. And I hope to be able to keep this blog more alive from now on.