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Finishing up the Bolivares Fuerte and Starting the Soberanos.

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Revenant

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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:

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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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I don't know, I kinda like the reverse of the P100 better, to much red saturation for me on the 99, the obverse could do with out all that shadowing around the portrait. Regardless, very cool looking notes.

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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

I love it when things fall into place. Combining shipping really makes a good deal even better. There just seems to be an endless supply of graded foreign notes out there in mid-high grades, these are great for filling out sets and on the pocketbook. 

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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.

It's hard to ask for a new set when you have nothing to put in it, I know. I've been thinking about the registry construction for some of my sets and for moderns, let's keep it similar to the coins and say 1955 to present, I feel that creating sets for each issue seems to be the most logical to me. Prior to that you almost have to categorize banknotes by government or historical event. I will give PMG credit in that for one of the categories I collect in (Ukraine) they took it upon themselves to create three new, what I would have considered custom, sets. PMG is pretty accommodating when it comes to suggestions on how to construct registry sets, at least for sets with few collectors in them or that are little known.

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5 minutes ago, Fenntucky Mike said:

I don't know, I kinda like the reverse of the P100 better, to much red saturation for me on the 99, the obverse could do with out all that shadowing around the portrait. Regardless, very cool looking notes.

In terms of color and overall look the P-100 is much better than the P-99, but the decision to not put "100,000" and print all five zeros comes off as pure, grade-A, laziness in basically re-printing the P-93 while adding "Mil" in a couple places. They should have printed the zeros. They had to add "Mil," adding the zeros wouldn't have been much more. Not putting them on is just inconsistent and confusing. It drove me nuts when trying to shop for P-100s.

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7 minutes ago, Revenant said:

In terms of color and overall look the P-100 is much better than the P-99, but the decision to not put "100,000" and print all five zeros comes off as pure, grade-A, laziness in basically re-printing the P-93 while adding "Mil" in a couple places. They should have printed the zeros. They had to add "Mil," adding the zeros wouldn't have been much more. Not putting them on is just inconsistent and confusing. It drove me nuts when trying to shop for P-100s.

No argument there, printing the full numerical denomination would have been better and should have been done. I wonder how the locals felt about it or if there was much confusion on the ground, the color schemes are very different so it was probably not that bad. Probably stumped a few tourists/visitors though.

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2 hours ago, Fenntucky Mike said:

I wonder how the locals felt about it or if there was much confusion on the ground, the color schemes are very different so it was probably not that bad. Probably stumped a few tourists/visitors though.

I'm sure! It probably still confused the locals based on how much confusion the US had with the golden dollars and the SBAs vs the quarter.

I need to do research to see of this is actually the case but the P-100 feels and looks very much tacked-on as an afterthought. You have 2, distinct six-note sub-sets that repeat the same portraits and designs and then you get Simon Bolivar again with a "100" note that is almost a dead ringer for the old P-93 100 Bolivar note.

I suspect the P-100 was introduced as a throw-away, short-term stop-gap solution when they already knew the 2nd redenomination and the new Soberano series would be coming.

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21 minutes ago, Revenant said:

I need to do research to see of this is actually the case but the P-100 feels and looks very much tacked-on as an afterthought. You have 2, distinct six-note sub-sets that repeat the same portraits and designs and then you get Simon Bolivar again with a "100" note that is almost a dead ringer for the old P-93 100 Bolivar note.

I suspect the P-100 was introduced as a throw-away, short-term stop-gap solution when they already knew the 2nd redenomination and the new Soberano series would be coming.

Makes sense, very strange to have three VERY similar designs of different denominations circulating. At least they changed up the portraits for the Soberano's, well except for the dude with the glasses.

Edited by Fenntucky Mike
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1 hour ago, Fenntucky Mike said:

Makes sense, very strange to have three VERY similar designs of different denominations circulating. At least they changed up the portraits for the Soberano's, well except for the dude with the glasses.

I'm doing some looking into it.

-The series, released in 2007, consisted of just the first six notes (2 Bolivares Fuerte to 100 Bolivares Fuerte, P-88 to P-93).

- The economy and the currency collapsed in 2016

- In December of 2016 they pulled all of the first 6 notes from circulation and replaced them with the new sequence of six notes (P-94 to P-99) - So P-88 and P-93 were not supposed to circulate at the same time / in tandem with P-94 to P-99.

- The currency kept collapsing and the new 100,000 Bolivares Fuerte note was announced in Nov 2017, just three years ago and less than year after the new sequence.

- The Bolivar Soberano was announced in August 2018.

- New, higher denomination Soberanos (P-109 to P-111 I think) came out in 2019.

I think there's enough visual difference between the P-99 and the P-100 for people to not confuse them with each other - especially with the lack of zeros. I would have been more worried about the P-93 and the P-100 but the P-93 were gone by the time the P-100 hit..

https://www-businessinsider-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.businessinsider.com/venezuelas-new-note-is-worth-just-250-2017-11?amp=&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%3D&amp_js_v=0.1&fbclid=IwAR2V3ry-BNM7zkO6QVex0A11n-EvY121zhONXkqI09zb16ayzlouuOMJ-dY#aoh=16047666075628&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From %1%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Fvenezuelas-new-note-is-worth-just-250-2017-11

Edited to add: I had been putting my descriptions with information on the person and the animal on the back on both sets of 6 / all the notes for now, but my original plan and what I want to do eventually is to have the first six notes talk about the historical figures and animals in the design and have the last 7 talk about the history of the series and the historical context, maybe taking some information out of the set description text and moving it into the note descriptions. I'd like for this Venezuela set to be more like my Zimbabwe set ultimately, just smaller and less intimidating.

Edited by Revenant
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