Gibraltar's Currency & Banknotes 1898-2011
by Richard J. M. Garcia, 109 pages, soft cover, 250 x 150 mm, color illustrations, English, ISBN 978-1-919663-09-8, US$24.95 (airmail postage included), braid@gibtelecom.net

Richard Garcia’s latest book addresses a topic that has never hitherto been studied, that of money in Gibraltar from 1898 to 2011. The choice of dates was deliberate. Gibraltar adopted sterling currency as the only legal tender in Gibraltar in 1898. It was in 2011 that the Gibraltar Government assumed sole responsibility for the design, printing and production of banknotes, taking over responsibilities that until then had been the preserve of a Secretary of State in England. A lot happened in between.

The book is not just about banknotes: it sets out to place Gibraltar’s currency in a social history context, looking at how Gibraltar was changing and developing and how these changes were reflected by our banknotes and coinage. It is the fruit of research in the Government Archives and in the Treasury. It explores a number of areas including:

• Why Gibraltar adopted sterling currency in 1898. The accepted reason for this has hitherto been that it was the result of the inflation which accompanied the war of 1898 between Spain and the United States. This was not, in fact, the case.
  • Why Gibraltar chose to issue banknotes in 1914, at the time of the outbreak of World War I, and the procedure that was followed in arriving at the design of the banknotes and printing them, without previously having consulted London.
  • The financial crisis that arose on the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936.
  • What happened in Gibraltar during World War II in terms of demand for currency notes in the light of the evacuation, the feared invasion of Gibraltar, and the build-up of troops in Gibraltar.
  • The impact of the Spanish blockade of the 1960s and the eventual closure by Spain of the land frontier with Gibraltar and the withdrawal of Spanish labour.
  • The introduction of decimal currency in 1971.
  • The introduction of Gibraltar circulating coins.
  • The reasons for the subsequent issue of higher denomination currency notes.
  

There are 52 colour illustrations in the book. The design of the front and back of every design used for a Gibraltar banknote is depicted, including the rare notes of 1914. There is also a complete listing of all 73 currency notes issued by Gibraltar, indicating the date of issue of the note and the signature on it.

The book is a companion to the article written by Richard Garcia and which was published in the Gibraltar Heritage Trust journal, tracing Gibraltar’s currency from 1704 to 1872, when Spanish currency was adopted as Gibraltar’s only legal tender.

Tags: Gibraltar

Coins and Banknotes of Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia
Zlatko Viščević, 1173 pages, soft cover, 192 x 120 mm, black and white illustrations, Croatian and English, ISBN 978-953-56890-0-3, US$52 / €40 plus shipping, www.hrvatskanumizmatika.net

Download the free sample chapter: Coins and Banknotes of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

Reviewed by Owen W. Linzmayer 7962

As author Zlatko Viščević mentions in the introduction to his impressive new catalog, collecting banknotes from the area of the former Yugoslavia can be quite challenging due to the large number of notes issued over the years. Compounding the problem is the Serbo-Croatian text on these notes and the complicated history of the region, both of which may be unfamiliar to many collectors. This new catalog doesn’t attempt to explain the tumultuous politics of the past three centuries, but is an invaluable addition to the reference library of anyone who specializes in collecting notes from this part of the world.

The first edition of this catalog was published in 2007. The second edition covers regular and commemorative notes issued in the intervening years, goes into greater depth in the descriptions, and now also includes special, fantasy, and private issues. In short, if you already own the first edition and like it, you’ll definitely want to buy the much-improved and expanded second edition.

Coins and Banknotes’ title spells out exactly what’s inside. The first half of the book is devoted to coins, the second half to notes, with chapters for the seven countries in each section. Within the chapters, the coins and notes are listed chronologically by denomination, which makes it easy to locate a particular piece and track changes over time, but at the expense of presenting complete families with common or complementary designs.

Each note type listing contains the denomination, catalog number, cross-references to Pick numbers and other specialized catalogs, reduced-size illustrations of the front and back, description of design elements and security features, and finally a list of varieties, with checkboxes for tracking your collection. Each variety is assigned a six-level rarity rating, and has values in euros for up to four levels of condition. Some notes also have auction results at the bottom of the page, though the values and results don’t always agree. Occasionally there are inset illustrations of details which determine varieties. These are useful in most cases, but sometimes the differences aren’t obvious due to the small size or lack of color in their reproduction.

Specialized collectors will appreciate the comprehensive lists of prefixes, as well as the inclusion of specimen and replacement notes in the variety tables, not to mention the assortment of “irregular issues” (color trials, partial proofs, etc.) and private/fantasy notes covered separately. While there isn’t much explanatory text regarding these issues, anyone interested in pursuing further research can consult the bibliography of source books and web sites at the end of each chapter.

The longer passages of prose in the catalog are presented in both Croatian and English, but the descriptions of the notes and their varieties are in Croatian only, which is a little frustrating if you care about such details and don’t want to rely upon Google Translate. Fortunately the English text everywhere else in the book is good enough that it’s easy to overlook the minor typos and understand the gist of the intended meaning.

One complaint I have about the catalog is its size. This is a bulky, compact tome measuring a whopping 55 millimeters thick, and heavy enough to break a toe if dropped on a foot. I would have preferred the coin and banknote sections split into two separate volumes, both printed in a larger format. As it is, the small black and white illustrations don’t do justice to the beauty of the notes, and the tiny text is hard to read if your eyesight isn’t perfect.

With this second edition, Zlatko Viščević has created a solid reference for collectors of notes of Yugoslavia and its constituent republics from 1849 to 2011. Coins and Banknotes delivers a dense helping of numismatic information at price that can’t be beat.

Tags: Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia

The 18th edition of Krause’s Standard Catalog of World Paper Money carries a list price of $70, but this 1,160-page black-and-white paperback without PDF version on CD-ROM can be ordered from Amazon for only $44.10 with free shipping. Of course, I’d prefer everyone purchase a subscription to my own catalog, The Banknote Book, but if you are inclined to buy the latest SCWPM, please support BanknoteNews.com by ordering from Amazon.

Simply put, the 18th edition of the SCWPM is another dog’s breakfast from Krause; a few nuggests of new material mixed into a warmed-over mess of dubious content from past editions. While there are a few entries for notes dated as recently as 2011, the updates are uneven. Qatar and United Arab Emirates, just to name a few, are missing new note types which were issued four years ago. There are literally hundreds of new note types and varieties issued over the past few years which haven’t made it into this new edition (The Banknote Update contains 70 pages of images and info missing from the 18th edition of the SCWPM). Of those that have been added, very few are illustrated, and the descriptions of same are extremely bare bones, often containing erroneous information, such as incorrect dates.

The many mistakes I uncovered on a cursory examination of the new catalog leads me to believe that Krause doesn’t bother verifying information submitted by contributors, and almost certainly hasn’t compiled high-resolution images of notes to double-check details such as dates, signatures, and security features. How else can you explain listing substantially revised note types as varieties of older issues? For example, several of Nigeria's current polymer issues are listed as mere date and signature varieties of paper notes.

Krause continues to employ the practice of assigning Pick numbers to “expected new issues” which history has proven often aren’t forthcoming and leads to vestigal listings in the catalog that take years to remove, if ever. Case in point, Nigeria's Pick 31, a non-existant 2-naira note dated 2006, which has been wrongly included in the catalog since the 15th edition. It's joined this year by South Sudan’s 50-piaster note, listed as Pick 4, even though this denomination was never issued after being dropped in favor of a coin. Given its poor track record of cleaning up its past mistakes, Krause should adopt the simple rule, “When in doubt, leave it out.” Much better to be incomplete or a bit late than to be flat-out wrong.

Don’t get me started on the values for the other denominations from South Sudan, none of which reflects true market values, and most of which are far below face values. On the flip side there are many countries where notes are valued at large multiples of the current going rate. Don't believe me? Search for "CV" (catalog value) in eBay listings. You'll find thousands of listings where the sellers are tacitly advertising that the SCWPM valuations are grossly inflated.

The only people who should consider buying the 18th edition are banknote dealers, because like it or not, currently Pick numbers are the most common shorthand method used to track inventories. If you need to know the Pick number/letter which has been assigned to a new note, the SCWPM is the only game in town. But if you're a collector who cares about having an up-to-date catalog with beautiful notes rendered in full color, accurate valuations, complete signature tables, detailed descriptions, and so much more, I humbly suggest you try The Banknote Book instead.

The International Bank Note Society (IBNS) has awarded its 2011 Book of the Year, for a book published in 2010, to The Standard Catalogue of the Provincial Banknotes of England & Wales by Roger Outing. The announcement was made at the Annual General Meeting of the IBNS in Memphis, Tennessee, USA in early June.

Already considered an essential guide for collectors of English and Welsh paper money, Roger Outing’s book covers a wide range of bank note and banking information. While the book carries on the pioneering work of Geoffrey Grant’s The Standard Catalogue of Provincial Banks and Banknotes, there is much more to Mr. Outing’s work. The main section of the new work is an alphabetical listing of issuing banks by town, which also incorporates the multi-branch joint stock banks. This is followed by a full listing of the London private and joint-stock banks; most of which never issued banknotes, but the comprehensive coverage is a boon for bank historians, as well as collectors of cheques and other financial ephemera. A further section lists all non-bank issuers by town of origin – mostly collieries, ironworks and the like, which issued notes in the early years of the nineteenth century. The final section covers Skit Notes, an area not previously researched in detail. Skit Notes were often prepared for advertising, entertainment or political purposes, and quite often were designed to look similar to genuine notes. While only items issued prior to 1900 are included, there are still details of some 63 ‘issues’.

The Standard Catalogue of the Provincial Banknotes of England & Wales is an impressive work – not only is the information of great value, it is very well presented. A large format, hard-back publication of 520 pages, with over 850 colour illustrations, the book has been prepared to a high standard by its publishers – Token Publishing of the United Kingdom. This catalogue and price guide is a wonderful example of the investment of time and effort into the research of paper money and the IBNS congratulates Roger Outing on a valuable achievement and contribution to the world of paper money.

Tags: England, Wales

Moneymakers: The Wicked Lives and Surprising Adventures of Three Notorious Counterfeiters by Ben Rarnoff (Order from Amazon.com)

This 396-page hardcover was a bit of a disappointment for me, perhaps because I am very interested in the subject of counterfeiting from a technical perspective and this book focuses more on the forgers themselves and the economic state of America during the times in which three “most successful counterfeiters” operated, starting in Colonial times, then the early 1800s, and finally during the Civil War. Also, I found the attempts to draw parallels to the recent Wall Street scandals a bit of stretch, as was the author’s portrayal of these criminals as Robin Hood figures merely helping out the ordinary citizens by producing money the banks couldn’t or wouldn’t supply in sufficient quantities to meet popular demand.

Check out other book reviews and news on the Books page of this site.

Tags: United States

Anyone interested in the increasingly popular field of polymer banknote collecting should definitely purchase a copy of the Specialized Catalogue of World Plastic Money, written and compiled by Peter Bauer and Thomas Krause, the expert behind the Polymernotes of the World web site and a frequent contributor to BanknoteNews.com. The 6th edition was published in April 2011 and costs only 20 euros plus S&H for the disc which contains an installer for the PDF-based 406-page catalog.

Tags: Polymer

Krause Publications has released a new 13th edition of the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money, General Issues, 1368-1960. I haven’t gotten a copy yet, but according to the press release, key features of the book include:

• 25,100 bank note varieties with current values in three condition grades.
• Enhanced note and color descriptions, allowing users to quickly identify varieties.
• More than 8,000 quality photographs to assist with identification.
• Historical details, grading definitions and numeral charts.

Like it or not, the SCWPM remains "the bible" for our hobby because its Pick numbers are almost universally used to identify notes. If you intend to get a copy despite its flaws, please support this site by buying the latest edition using this link.

Check out other book reviews and news on the Books page of this site.

Tags: Misc, World

Apples Are From Kazakhstan:: The Land that Disappeared by Christopher Robbins (Order from Amazon.com)

This 296-page paperback book is a fascinating look at a country most Westerners barely know. The English author Robbins does a wonderful job of weaving his personal experiences in this former Soviet republic with rich historical background, from ancient times to repression under Russian rule in the last century. Of particular interest to banknote collectors is the chapter in which Robbins recounts the secret—and ultimately successful—plan to introduce tenge banknotes in 1993 to avoid being at the mercy of Moscow when it replaced the Soviet ruble with the new Russian ruble.

Check out other book reviews and news on the Books page of this site.

Tags: Kazakhstan

World Paper Money Errors by Morland C. Fischer (Order from Amazon.com)
250 pages, soft cover, 230 x 150 mm, color illustrations, English, published by Zyrus Press Publishing, ISBN 978-1-933990-25-5

Reviewed by Owen W. Linzmayer

While there are several catalogs covering United States paper money errors, this book is the first attempt at a systematic approach to describing, documenting, and pricing errors on world banknotes. As such, it’s an important new addition to the world’s numismatics knowledge base, but it suffers from some shortcomings I hope will be addressed in future editions.

Author Morland C. Fischer does a very good job of explaining the various types of errors found on banknotes and has distilled them down to an eight-point FEN (Foreign Error Note) ranking system in which higher numbers correspond to more significant errors. Reasonable people might disagree over whether a missing overprint is more dramatic an error than an inverted back (FEN 4 and 7, respectively), but the codification of the taxonomy of errors is a welcome improvement to a subjective field of study.

The bulk of the book is devoted to illustrating the various error types, each broken into their own chapters. I found the introductory explanations of how specific types of errors happen in the production process particularly interesting. The book has color illustrations throughout, usually with the front and back of the error note at 50% actual size, along with a non-error note for comparison. This allows you to see the magnitude of the error and appreciate the artwork and intended design of the reference note, although some illustrations would have benefited by close-ups or annotations to highlight the affected areas of the note. There are lots of examples from many different countries and time periods, which is good overall, but it’s overkill for some types of errors, such as missing serial numbers, which are easy to understand without repetitive illustrations.

Personally, I would have liked to see more plate errors—also known as engraving errors—because I find man-made errors more intriguing than machine mistakes. As a writer and editor myself, I’m amused by the fact that central banks sometimes fail to catch embarrassing typos until after printing and issuing millions of notes into circulation. Alas, there are only a dozen such errors discussed. Entirely lacking are any examples of errors in security features, such as when a thread intended for one note appears in another, or the wrong watermark is used.

Anyone who has contemplated buying an error note will do well to first read the chapter on “pseudo” errors. At first glance these appear to be errors, but may have been intentionally created by unscrupulous collectors/dealers by miscutting individual notes from sheets or using chemicals to alter notes, for example. Sometimes they aren’t errors at all, but rather printers’ waste, proof notes, or remainders. Buyer beware.

Ironically, the author is not immune to making errors of his own. For example, he mistakes the front and back of Ukraine’s 20-hryvan note of 1992 (Pick 107), includes a 1,000-shilling fantasy note from Somaliland without mentioning its dubious origin, and the last few pages of the book are incorrectly set in fonts of varying size, resulting in a jumbled appearance. However these are all minor quibbles; for the most part the content is solid and unassailable.

My main complaint with this book is that author tries too hard to make the case that world error notes are undervalued. He provides a number of possible explanations for the disparity in prices between comparable errors on US and foreign notes, yet ignores what might be the most obvious explanation of all: differences in the values of the corresponding non-error notes. For example, he laments that a foldover error on a United States 10-dollar note dated 1969C (Pick 451d) is worth $1,000 - 2,000 whereas a similar printing error on a Mexican 500-peso note (Pick 69) is valued at $200 - 300. But when you consider that the SCWPM lists non-error examples of the former at four times the value of the latter, the price disparity between the errors doesn’t seem so significant nor unwarranted.

Judging by the passion with which he approaches his subject, it is apparent that the author loves error notes, but his insistence that world error notes are “undervalued,” with “considerable upside potential,” and “could be ready to explode,” comes across as a hard sell by someone with an agenda. I found cause for pause when reading “In some instances, a price may appear to be unusually high. However, prices were chosen to indicate what should be [emphasis mine] the fair market value…Moreover, the assigned price ranges reflect an extrapolation of expected prices over a period of five years from publication.” Pricing non-error world notes is fraught with difficulties (fluctuations in currency exchange rates and differences in foreign/domestic demand for a country’s own notes, for example) which are only compounded when considering far less common—sometimes even unique—error notes and trying to guess what they should be worth far into the future. The book would have greater credibility if it merely reported current free market prices and suggested reasonable premiums a collector might expect to pay for different types of errors.

World Paper Money Errors carries a list price of US$34.95 and can be ordered directly from Zyrus Press Publishing, P.O. Box 17810, Irvine, CA 92623. (888) 622-7823. www.zyruspress.com or purchased from Amazon at a significant discount.

Tags: World

The 16th edition of Krause’s Standard Catalog of World Paper Money is now shipping. I just received my copy and wanted to share my initial impressions.

At 1,112 black and white pages, it's exactly as large as the previous edition, though its list price is now $60 instead of $55, and it does not come with a disc containing a PDF version of the catalog, which is a great disappointment.

Also somewhat disappointing is that values for VG conditions have been eliminated. Now only VF and UNC conditions are listed. While some will decry this change, I think it’s a reasonable change because most modern notes collectors insist on UNC anyway.

More troublesome is that this edition continues the trend of covering only a fraction of the new note types and varieties that have been issued in the past years, and illustrating almost none of them. It appears that the cut-off for inclusion in this catalog was mid-2009, but many, many notes issued well before then failed to make it into print (The Banknote Update contains over 80 pages of images and info missing from the 16th edition of the SCWPM).

In an attempt to appear more current than it really is, the catalog has assigned Pick numbers to a lot of "expected issues." The problem with this practice is that many such notes are never released, inevitably forcing the editors to renumber at a future date, much to the frustration of collectors and dealers everywhere (my cursory examination uncovered a half dozen notes that have been renumbered or deleted between editions). Furthermore, the information (such as dates) in the listings for these expected issues often proves wrong, adding to the general confusion.

Speaking of frustrating and confusing, some listings refer to non-existent signature charts, or the signature chart exists, but hasn’t been updated to include the latest signatures, making it impossible to distinguish between varieties.

I haven't done a thorough check of the entire catalog, but a spot check revealed some obvious pricing problems, such as listing Armenia's 100,000-dram note at $250 in UNC, even though its face value is $263. The 50,000-won from South Korea, featured on the cover of the new edition, is worth $40 at face, but is listed at $50 in UNC. Good luck finding dealers selling notes with negative or nominal mark-ups.

Like it or not, the SCWPM remains "the bible" for our hobby because its Pick numbers are almost universally used to identify notes. If you intend to get a copy despite its flaws, please support this site by buying the latest edition using this link.

Tags: World

On December 2008, the Central Bank of Seychelles published a special second edition of its publication that traces the history of paper currencies in the Seychelles, dating from the period of French colonization to the present.

Entitled “History of Paper Currency in the Seychelles,” the new 55-page booklet, in full colour, should prove useful not only to banknote collectors but also for educational purposes, as it includes a section which describes the flora & fauna appearing on the most recent paper currencies of the islands.

Divided into sections pertaining to marked periods and events in the life of the Seychelles currency, the booklet provides colourful illustrations of the different forms of paper currency used over the years.

Information for the booklet was compiled by a small group from the Central Bank with the help of the National Archives and several individuals who are experts in their fields. They include Adrian Skerrett (conservationist), Dr. Jeanne Mortimer (biologist and conservationist), Julien Durup (archivist and historian), Kantilal Jivan Shah (historian, naturalist, conservationist, artist, photographer, healer, numismatist and philatelist) and Stella Doway (Senior Museum Curator).

In a foreword to the publication, CBS Governor Francis Chang Leng says: “It is a rewarding feat for readers to explore the different varieties, sizes and designs of the various denominations of the Seychelles rupee notes, which have been issued over the years, not forgetting the individuals who were in authority in the country at the time the notes were printed and issued. Not only is this booklet very informative, but it can also be used as a guide for currency enthusiasts.”

The Central Bank of Seychelles sells copies of this book from its web site, but isn’t very responsive to email inquiries, and only accepts wire transfers which are costly and time-consuming. After jumping through a lot of hoops, I was finally able to obtain a few copies of this amazing book, but these have now been spoken for. Good luck to anyone attempting to purchase directly from the CBS. By the way, the CBS web site still shows the first edition of this book, but I believe that has sold out and that only the second edition is currently available.

Tags: Seychelles

Anil R. Bohora and Gylfi K. Snorrason have just published a new catalog called Banknotes of Bhutan (ISBN 978-81-7525-881-5). This 137-page softcover book is beautifully illustrated in full color throughout, with large front and back images of all notes, and details of vignettes that are thoroughly explained. The book contains everything there is to know about the kings, monuments, and auspicious symbols that appear on Bhutanese notes, as well as the signatories, watermarks, and printers.

I highly recommend Banknotes of Bhutan to anyone interested in this Asian country’s numismatic history. The book costs US$25 + $6 S&H and can be purchased by emailing enterandbuy@yahoo.com.

Tags: Bhutan

Thomas Krause and Peter Bauer have today released the fifth edition of their book, the Specialized Catalogue of World Plastic Money. Ordering information and a free PDF download can be obtained by visiting www.swschwedt.de/kunden/polymernotes.

Tags: Polymer

The Bank of Israel has published a new book, “Banknotes and Coins of Israel 1927-2006.” The fruit of intensive research, the book is published by the Currency Department of the Bank of Israel.
 
The book details the entire series of banknotes and coins issued during the period covered. Each note and coin is presented pictorially, and accompanying text describes both the design of motif and the choice behind it. The publication is unique in its technical detail of the notes and coins––size, cover, security measures against counterfeiting, designers and periods of circulation––as well additional background material including the original photographs which provided the source of the designs of the banknotes and coins. Next to the photos of each coin is an example of the original coin––usually an ancient Hebrew coin––upon which the modern coin was based.
 
The book has a foreword by the Governor of the Bank, Professor Stanley Fischer, and was written by Yigal Arkin, a collector and researcher of means of payments, with scientific editing by Dr. Rachel Barkay, numismatic curator of the Bank of Israel.
 
This colorful, hardback, richly illustrated book has colored margins for ease of reference. The Bank of Israel hopes that such an extensive compendium will provide both a source of information and enjoyment to the public, and will help to increase general knowledge of the banknotes and coins of both the modern-day Israel and of the young state-in-the-making.
 
The book is available in both Hebrew and English and is priced at NIS 98 (approximately US$23).
 
Though the book will shortly be for sale at stores, currently it can only be purchased directly from the Bank of Israel. To buy the book, payment can be either by credit card from the Publications Unit of the Bank of Israel: Tel: 02-6552767; Fax: 02-6552984; email: matikahn@boi.gov.il; or by sending a check (payable to the Bank of Israel) to: The Bank of Israel Publications Unit P.B. 780 Jerusalem 91007.

For more information, buy The Banknote Book: At the time of initial publication, this 21-page catalog covers every note (153 types and varieties, including 3 notes unlisted in the SCWPM) issued by the Anglo-Palestine Bank Limited from 1948, the State of Israel from 1948, Bank Leumi le-Israel B.M. (Israel National Bank Ltd.) from 1952, and the Bank of Israel from 1955 until present day.

Tags: Israel