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About this journal

A journal mostly about my collection of Zimbabwe banknotes - the only banknotes I collect for the time being that are interesting enough for me to think people might want to read about it. But there will be periodic discussions of US Small Size Federal Reserve Notes and Silver Certificates and you may start seeing more about Venezuelan Bolivares.

I have a very strong interest in Hyperinflation notes so I'll probably continue to expand into new series of Hyperinflation notes now that my Zimbabwe collection is going to increasingly be at a more mature and static state going forward.

Entries in this journal

And... it's Blank on the back.

I just thought I'd share this as a journal now that it's here and I can get higher res images: it was stamped as “PAID” on Oct 26 2004 (which happens to be just a week after my birthday, the year I turned 18). It was also marked as “Zimbank Waste” on “11-10-2004,” which, depending on whether you use US or UK conventions for dates, either October 11th or November 10th of 2004. Even though I’d normally expect them to use the UK convention, I’m tempted to say they used the Ameri

Ordering some Cheques for future grading

So I've had my mental health break - I don't think I bought a single piece of Zimbabwean currency or pseudo currency in the three month period of December, January and February. I don't think I've gone anywhere near that long (or even 1 month) since Jan 2019. But I'm feeling a bit recharged and refreshed now having spent some time messing with other things. I think getting the plaque in the mail has helped stoke the fire and get me motivated to move forward with buying some things, using th

Okay.... So I may be walking back some of those ideas...

So, I knew going into this and in making my other post that the old Travellers checks are pretty out there and common and available... As long as you don't insist on them being uncanceled / unused... (Geeeze! That is a heck of a lot of money!) But I'm finding that the Cargill Checks (P 13-14 and P 24-27), may just only be available much more rarely and at prices I am just 100% not willing to pay for them, short of me winning the Mega Millions. However, the more

The new checks are in...

The seller was on the ball about getting these mailed out and they look pretty good for things that were supposed to be used once and thrown away nearly 20 years ago: I'm on the fence at the moment about whether I want to 1) Submit the P-15s or not since I have one of these graded already and 2) Do I want to submit both of each or pick one and go with it / hope for the best.  There's a part of me that says "Gradually, Then Suddenly," only needs one each of these and that I could use so

Wow. PMG is on it!

My submission of checks arrived at PMG last week and I was expecting, based on their response late last week, that the notes probably wouldn't be in the system until the end of this week or early next week. I was shocked when I checked, mostly for a laugh, and saw that they were showing as "Received." This has me freaking out a bit. I'm realizing I might get an answer on these a lot faster than I'd thought. So, where I'd been chill about this and thinking I'd find out eventually and t

Scheduled for Grading!

My notes are now Scheduled for Grading. I is excite.  That is all.   I love the "Emergency Issue" note on the label for many / most of these issues. They're such a bizarre product a bizarre moment in the history of a nation. I'm going to break these out into a special set of emergency issues (P-13 to P-32, or what I have of those) and the gas coupons (when and if I can get them graded), because I really want to put a spotlight on these things, apart from the larger whole

Grades on the Checks!

My grades came back for the 12 Traveler’s Cheques (2 sets of 6) and the 3 Hole-filling 2nd Dollar Bearer Cheques… and I am thrilled!!!! They did significantly better than I’d been allowing myself to hope for. I’d been thinking I’d be extremely happy if Fenntucky Mike was right, and they all came back with grades in the 61-63 range. I was mentally bracing to get a bunch in the AU50-55 range. Instead, I got the following. I’m not a note grader. I don’t at all know how to grade these and

Choosing a treatment for the Traveller's Checks in "Gradually, Then Suddenly."

I had told myself that I wasn’t going to work on descriptions for the new checks until they got here, but it has been a week since I got the good news on the grades and I’m getting twitchy waiting for them to get here. Maybe with tomorrow’s mail! I really want to see these in their new PMG holders in person! So I’m working on the descriptions! The P-40, P-45, and P-46b all have descriptions up now that are consistent with the approach I’ve used in the 2nd dollar set but how to deal with th

My new P-17, and going deeper down this rabbit hole.

I didn’t get a chance to dig into this as much as I wanted to during the move, so this post has been somewhat “on hold.” In late July I noticed a seller had a P-17 note for sale - a 64 EPQ - starting at $12 + shipping and it popped up in my saved search email. This doesn’t sound like something that would get my attention normally since the two I graded myself got 64 EPQ and 66 EPQ and so I don’t really “need” this, and it doesn’t upgrade my set. HOWEVER! This P-17 was stamped 18 Oct 2004. T

The questionable future of the "STAMP CANCELLED" designation

When I bought a P-15 note off a dealer a while back it just had "Exceptional Paper Quality," no "Stamp Cancelled" designation. So I was surprised when I submitted my 12 traveller's checks and all 12 got the label. The new P-17 I just got, which has a cert# indicating it was submitted after mine were submitted and graded, does not have the designation. So, I'm really not sure what this means... I'm not sure if they just forgot to include it on this one (which I think
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