Leading up to my birthday a couple of weeks back I became aware of a 100,000 Bolivar Fuerte (VEN-100) note coming up for sale and ending on my birthday. On the big day the note hadn’t got any bids. I showed it to my wife, and she told me to just bid on it and call it an extra birthday present if I won.
I bid. I won unopposed and took it for $24.99 after shipping. Normally I don’t know if I would have popped on a 66 EPQ at that price but the VEN-100 is one of the more desirable notes in the set it seems – much like the 100 Trillion of the Zimbabwe notes - and I wanted to fill a hole in my set. As it is, this is one of the highest point-getting notes in my Venezuela set now.
While I was waiting on that to come in the mail I saw a VEN-93 100 Bolivares Fuerte note come up for sale, this time in 68 EPQ. This note had a starting bid of $28.99 on it but I thought it could still be very worth it if I didn’t have many opposing bids and I got to get a great note to fill the last hole in my Fuertes set. I did end up winning it – on November 3rd, election day. The auction ended at 6 AM. I don’t know why the seller does this but they do, so I woke up to find out I’d won.
Having won that, I say that there was a P-102a* (66 EPQ) and a P-106 (67 EPQ) up for bid ending within a few hours to a few days. They were from the same seller and the seller combines shipping, so I decided to wait and see what I could get. I snagged both for $19 each.
They were paid for all together, but I won the auction for the P-93 first, so I think this counts as keeping my promise to finish the Fuertes set before starting on a Soberano set. The also gives me something to put into the Soberano set so now I can stop feeling guilty about bugging Ali and PMG to make a category so I could have an empty set.
Somehow I managed to load up on all the "100" notes in rapid succession with this, which is a little funny.
I really like the Soberanos. The Fuertes notes look nice but the Soberanos are very bright and colorful and even my wife commented on it with the VEN-106.
Maybe more on this but the VEN-93 and the VEN-100 drive me nuts. The VEN-100 was the only one where they didn't put all the zeros on it and, with the coloring added in, the VEN-100 looks a LOT like the VEN-93. See the VEN-99 below for how the VEN-100 should have been handled:
My Fuertes set is now complete but I don't get a 100% complete registry set out of it because PMG wants to include the old Bolivares notes that were issued after the change in government / constitution in 1998 but before the redenomination to the Bolivares Fuertes. So they're in this registry set but these notes have a different ISO currency code, they're part of a different series and look completely different. And I have no near-term interest in picking them up.
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