Revenant

So you have me somewhat curious because at this point you have to have a $2 and $10 note in your possession but you aren't listing them yet. What you up to, Mike!?! Lol

I hadn't seen it but I'm not surprised. I wouldn't say a 70 is NBD. If you look at all the 100 Trillions graded back in the day and the relatively small number of 70s, a 70 is still relatively rare and hard to get. Even so, I'd rather have a 68 or a 67 for a much much lower price. I think its probably buyers remorse and hoping to get out of it without losing their but... I don't see it working out for them. The long term (5 year) trend on these is down for everything except maybe the 100 Trillion and I do not expect these to be investments. When the newness wears off these will probably be pulling $15-20 for 66 and 67 EPQs, just like the 3rd and 4th dollars. I'm only buying the new series now because the prices are reasonable enough and I want them / I'm impatient.

Glad it worked out for ya!

Perhaps proving that I have no self-control or perhaps that I just lie to myself a lot, about 30 hours after saying I was going to try to not buy anything for the next 3 weeks I bought something. I was looking around on eBay and saw this. I'd been wanting a $1 FRN note for a while for two reasons: 1) I wanted one for the "Currency of my life" signature set I want to keep working on as time allows and 2) I wanted one for my Zimbabwe signature set. That 2nd one might seem fairly odd - I'll now have about 5 US FRNs in a set about Zimbabwe - but I feel like that set needs FRNs in it to cover the period from around April 2009 to 2016. This is the period after the 4th dollar was officially suspended but before the bond notes (pegged to the US dollar) were released. During this period the US dollar and Federal Reserve Notes were the defacto currency of Zimbabwe and many people / banks had accounts denominated in US dollars. There were other currencies used at the time under the "multi-currency system" but all indications I've found say that the US dollar, as the world reserve currency, was far and away the dominant one of the group. This note arguably is kind of a "meh" grade - it feels strange to call a 66 EPQ "meh" but I just know that 67s and 68s are quite common for modern notes. But the note was priced accordingly and at $19 it was cheap enough for me to treat it was random impulse buy. More importantly, there were two things about this note that really sold me on it. 1) It's a 2009 dated note, so its for the "right" year for the purposes of the set. 2) It's AA block - and AA is the prefix used by Zimbabwe for most of the 3rd and 4th dollars and the first series of the Bond notes and the New series notes. Unlike the 4th dollars, the new notes and bond notes have been in production and circulation long enough to have AB, AD, and BB blocks among others. I've never seen a 4th dollar with anything other than an AA prefix. Yeah, I guess there are a few ZA prefix replacement notes but that's different. If I ever found or heard of a legitimate AB prefix 4th dollar I'd be shocked half to death at this point. The note also happens to be relatively contemporary with the Great Financial Crisis of '08 and has the signature of Good ol' "TurboTax Tim." I see there being at least one more $1 FRN purchase in my future because I have a different set of wants for the "Currency of My Life" Set. While I might include this note in that set as well, I'd like to have a 1988 note from the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank - just because my wife and I were both born in Texas in 1986 and the 1988 series seems to be the first series from after we were born.

I finally finished up the last description I wanted to write for my Venezuelan Bolivar Fuertes set and posted all of the new text to the set. I did most of the writing for these weeks ago but then life came up and my focus shifted back to the Zimbabwe notes again and I never finished them and I wasn't sure they were "just right" yet. I finished the first one and said "good enough" - get them posted and work / polish from there. It had reached the point where it was bothering me to have all of that 80-90% finished work sitting on a Word file while the set sat bare. So now its up! Also: My wife apparently ordered my birthday present yesterday. She was trying to keep it quiet but then Ben saw her and wanted to "help" and gave it away in a big way. I'm thinking there's at least 1 Zimbabwe note that makes up part of the present. I guess we'll see. Given this, I'm trying to commit to making no coin or note purchases until she gives me my present in 3 weeks / 22 days and I know what that is and can proceed in that knowledge - but there is one big / important Zimbabwe note that I'm seriously thinking about just biting the bullet on because of what it would mean for the set, even though part of me does think I might be overpaying for it just a little. I'm increasingly feeling like it might be worth overpaying for. I guess we'll see how it all comes out.

Well, 1) The sellers should have never put these up for sale at the same time. That's immediately toxic for the selling price of something that depends on supposed rarity. 2) I've long thought that the $5 probably had two people put in sniper bids higher than they were expecting thinking there wouldn't be another bid that high. I would not be surprised if there was some buyers remorse there. Values on all the 2nd and 3rd dollars are way down in the last 5 years. Only the 10,000 and the 20, 50 and 100 Trillion have held up in value. Even there, it's mostly the 100 Trillion. I expect these will not hold up well overall once the newness fades. That's why I'm not paying much more than they'd cost to grade.

I have 1 69 EPQ in my 3rd dollar set. Its the highest grade I have. I agree that a 70 set would be killer. It might be achievable on a short set like that. Someone might be working on it, but I don't think I could ever pay that and feel good about it short of winning the Mega millions.

If you're willing to get them shipped over from China (doesn't seem terribly risky on something you know is fake) you can get the gold ones on eBay for something like $0.40 each. You could probably get them in time for Halloween - assuming there is a Halloween this year. Seems like it could be fun. They honestly make me think of the golden tickets from Willy Wonka.

Those are interesting and neat - good to have, even if they aren't part of the signature set. A collectable that is very adjacent to your Ukraine collection. Not really the same but this makes me think of some novelty notes that some enterprising person in China made that continue the silliness of the Zimbabwe denominations with "quadrillion," and "quintillion." Some have "Octillion" and "Vigintillion" - A vigintillion is a 1 followed by 120 zeros. These amuse me but they're dangerous because some people don't realize that Zimbabwe stopped at 100 Trillion and they don't know that these are not "real." They also make gold and silver "foil" versions of the 100 Trillion note, which I honestly find to be some of the most deeply ironic things ever. One of these days I think I'll have to buy one of these just for the pure novelty of it - and they're sold in groups of 10 for $10. These also get a little difficult with the uninformed, who don't get what these really are. I've actually had to explain to people on reddit that "the blue one" is real and the "gold one" is a (nasty) joke.

Given what I've seen of late, if it has a pick # I think you're probably good. These one-use, cancelled items are interesting but they tend to not be a pretty as the notes. Maybe one of these years I'll have a full graded set of Zimbabwe's traveller's checks. I think that would be something. In some ways I'm happy that this new series of Zimbabwe notes is probably not going to explode into another 27 note run like the 3rd dollars.

I don't know if I can be any help on which is best but that's an interesting bit of history to be sure. Ultimately you'll have to get it from PMG but given that they are government issues I wouldn't be surprised if PMG would encapsulate them.

They both seem to have the lower transmittance that is the hallmark (IMO) of the old gen, green tint holders... Not sample holders, but the following two images were made at basically the same time using the same imaging method (cheap scanner) and the old gen holder image is just so much darker.

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 American one and this refers to November 10th, because this stamp seems to have been placed after the Oct 26th stamp and it just doesn’t make much sense for me for this have been stamped as “Waste” before it was stamped as “PAID.” How something that was redeemed and stamped as waste to be discarded came to be in my collection and encapsulated in gem uncirc condition is a bit of a mystery to me but... it happened somehow! Somebody kept the trash I guess – possibly foreseeing that one day there’d be people like me with an interest in these things, and they kept trash paper and turned it into something that I later paid about US$40 for 16 years later. Life is funny sometimes that way, I guess. Some of the things I find interesting here is some of what is NOT on it. The “Date” line is blank, so they didn’t bother to date it when it was issued to someone. The name of the person it was issued to was also left blank and, even though you were supposed to have to show ID to redeem these, there’s no redemption signature on the check. So there’s no record of when it was issued, or to who, or who it was that redeemed it – at least not on the check itself. That information might have been retained at the Chisipite Sub-Branch in Harare, which is apparently where this check was stamped as waste, but I have a feeling the answer is “No.” My guess is, based on all the blanks, at least by this point in late 2004, they were just dealing with a ton of these increasingly worthless $1,000 checks and they were doing things “fast and loose” to process them all faster. By the time this thing was redeemed, $1,000 in Zimbabwe dollars was barely worth an American quarter or dime – so who would have even cared? It wouldn’t have even bought you bread probably.

Thanks! I'm glad you like it. I have write-ups chronicling a lot of this in a way that splits it (the story from 2016 to 2020) between the $2 bond, the $5 bond, the $2, the $5 and the $10. That part is going to be part of the $10 note description. I'm unofficially holding the description for the $20 note open (once I have one to enter) and I expect that section / write-up to discuss the death of the new 2019 ZWD - what a way to spit on the 1st dollars of 1980 to re-use that currency code. SMH. I don't expect any more notes in this series at this point. If they release a $50 / $100 and try to keep this going they're just sticking their heads up their butts and denying the truth. "It's dead, Jim."

I can't make journals right now and I'm getting errors when I try to update my note descriptions, but I'm working on a major re-work / update to my New ZWD set to factor in current events (and make note of the Sep 2019 death of Mugabe). I have the following written up in my master Word file and i thought I'd share: The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe announced in mid-May 2020 that new $10 and $20 bank notes would be released at the end of May and the first week of June, respectively. A Boeing 747 arrived in Harare from Leipzig Germany on the morning of May 14th 2020 and unloaded 66 tons of bank notes – think about that! 66 tons of cash! While the RBZ doesn’t disclose who does their printing, it is speculated, based on this, that the Leipzig Branch of Munich’s Giesecke & Devrient is making these notes for the RBZ. An “official request” from the German government compelled the firm to stop making banknotes for Zimbabwe in 2008, but the company has been doing printing for the country since 1965, when it was still Rhodesia. Inflation (in ZWD) reached 785.55% in May 2020, according to official statistics released by Zimstats. The government stopped trading on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) on June 29th in a move geared towards protecting the currency – which was still taking a beating and described as being “in free fall.” The closure lasted for more than a month and trading did not resume until August 3rd. In late June 2020 the government increased the salaries of civil servants by 50% and gave them a “Covid-19 Allowance of US$75 (I think this is monthly). Yes – the allowance they were paying to these government workers was in US dollars, not local currency. Even if you use the official exchange rates (75 ZWD to US$1), the salary for these workers is only US$40, meaning that this “allowance” is worth more than their salaries. If you use unofficial rates their pay would be much lower in US dollar terms. Government pensioners were to receive a US$30 monthly Covid-19 allowance, tax-free. Officials have called the measures “transitory” and blamed it all on Covid-19 – not their fault, of course. A member of the central bank’s monetary policy committee, Eddie Cross, called the announcement “crazy,” and said he didn’t even think the country had enough US dollars / money in the bank to pay for it. He also called it "retrogressive" as it violated a “dedollarisation” program which was already facing resistance. Prior to this, the country had already started paying mine workers in US dollars and was now expanding this to the largest group of workers in the country. Cross believed this would lead private workers to demand the same. Jonathan Chew of Imara Asset Management Zimbabwe said the current multiple exchange rate system might be able to limp along a while longer but that this would ultimately lead to a “redollarisation” of the economy (a return to using the US dollar as the de facto medium of exchange and currency of the country).

I imagine you're probably right, and I may do just that one of these days, but I've had my hands full enough. I don't really know anyone but the RBZ that really expected the new ZWD to be anything other than basically DOA, especially since it was essentially their 3rd "currency" / "quasi-currency" in the last 4 years and the 2nd in the year 2019 - it was announced only about 6 months after they announced that the Bond Notes - which were supposed to be 1:1 pegged with US dollars - were "converted" to the "RTGS dollar," which was a "ZWL" currency code. Fiat money is always going to be faith based - which is fine, as long as people trust the government. But there was zero trust / faith in the RBZ (for good reason) and that is just going to get worse every time they fall on their face like this. This new ZWL/ZWD/series of currencies was a goner the minute they abandoned the peg to the US dollar - and trying to re-peg to the USD at a devalued rate wasn't going to do it. The ship had sailed at that point. There only hope is going to be to peg to something more "real" that they don't control in order to impose the promise of discipline and restraint. Or that was their only hope with the Bond Notes. Now that they've shown how casually they're willing to de-peg I don't even know that that will save them now. I may have to change my set from "Zimbabwe Dollars Reborn" to 'The "Z" is for "Zombie."'

I think they have graded the Cargill checks before and, if they are grading the Traveller's checks again, they'll probably grade those now. The gas coupons??? I don't know... I don't know if they were ever grading thsoe.

I think they called the new one a gen-4 holder.

There are certainly people that collect holders - for PMG and NGC - but they're a very small niche thing / group. Most people care about what's in the holder. A few others like me sometimes get a little type-A about wanting all the holders on coins / notes in a set to match or closely match. Even there though, for me, I only care if that set / collection is very important to me / one of my main sets / projects.

It arrived in the mail today. I have to follow my own rules and not open it for three days but I'm getting closer to having it anyway!

Yup. I'll be honest in that I'd gotten my hopes up that I could walk away with it for $25 + tax + shipping when it went into the final minute with no other bids and I was a bit disappointed when it spiked from $24.89 to $37.77, but I wanted it and I was prepared to go higher if that had been needed to get it. It just adds something to the overall set I've built that I've wanted for a while. This is only the 2nd one of these checks that I've noticed come up for sale that was PMG graded. The other one was a P-18 graded as a 63 that came up at a time when I just couldn't justify bidding on it. Well, at this point you've definitely looked into this aspect of it and these notes than I have. I may steal some of this for later. I understand the appeal that some have of getting the ones that weren't redeemed / canceled and which are very clean looking as a result, but I also think that the stamps and such add a lot to the story and the context of what it is, as you just pointed out. I'll be looking forward to having it in hand myself, checking out the stamps more and looking at the back. Sadly, knowing this seller, it'll be close to two weeks before I have it and it'll have to sit unopened for 3 days in our quarantine pile - I have to follow the rule too if I want the 4 year old to respect it! The new $10 note hit the mailbox today, a little early, so that can come out on Tuesday. That'll help tide me over.

About 2 weeks ago a P-77 came up for auction. This had me super excited because it would have completed my “Millions” set and left me needing only the $10,000, P-72 to complete my 3rd dollar set… but then someone else bid at the end and the price was getting out of hand so I let it go… sadness. Then about a week ago a P-3 came up that would have given me a 100% complete 1st dollar set… and the bidding got so high at the end that I didn’t even bid on it… However, I’ve finally scored some wins that I’m very happy about and I was able to do it because I didn’t blow all of my budget and then some on those other notes. The first win came about 3 days ago. It is a P-21d in 67 EPQ. This gives me a complete pick set (but not a variety set) of the 3 note, 2003 bearer check series (P-21 to P-23). I’ll see when I get it entered but I think this also might just barely give me the lead in the category (by about 10 points) and give me the #1 spot for a while. Should be fun to digitally poke jeyanth7 with a stick like that. Lol The 2nd win came this morning and this is the one I am really happy about - and paradoxically it’s probably one of the most homely looking “notes” in the whole series - and calling it a “note” is really generous because this thing is a check. It is not a reusable, transferable, “check” with an expiration date like the “bearer checks” and “agro checks.” It is a literal, bank-issued, single use, canceled check. I was very excited when this popped up. When I’d asked about these previously PMG had indicated that they weren’t currently grading these and so I’d been thinking it’d be impossible to ever have these properly represented in my signature set. But this check is clearly recently graded and indicates that they’ve changed their mind and they’re willing to certify these now. I’d removed the empty slots for these from my signature set because I thought the were unfillable. I’m not going to add slots back for all of them for now. Rather, I’m going to include this as a representative piece for now and see what develops over time. On the competitive side, depending on what happens in the next few weeks, when I add this one to my set it might be the only one of these listed in the registry and anchoring a #1 ranked set or one note. I had been hoping to snag that P-15 for $25 unopposed - much like I won the P-21d without anyone bidding against me, but I had to fend off a sniper that bid on it with 3 seconds left on the clock. I’d been hoping to go for a 68 EPQ P-30 note tonight but I’ve decided I’m going to have to let that one go - it’s just not in the collecting budget at the moment. I’ll need to convince myself to wait a week or two before I buy anything else. That is a bit of a bummer because the P-30, with the P-21, would give me a complete denomination set of the 1st dollar bearer checks, but there is a 67 EPQ that will end in about 9 days and I may go for that instead - still a good note in a good grade while mostly honoring my agreed collecting budget. I've also decided for now that I'm not going to have slots for all three $50,000 issues in the 1st dollar bearer check series (P-28 to P-30) for now and I'll just add more slots as I get them. I'm pretty happy with and I think the set will feel reasonably complete if I get a P-28, P-29, or a P-30 (most likely a P-30) and I don't necessarily feel like driving myself nuts getting all three in the near term. While I still have some holes I'd like to fill as I'm able, it's getting harder, and I feel like the signature set and the collection overall is getting to a pretty mature state, where it feels pretty complete and new purchases are likely to start slowing down drastically soon. But... I've been wrong about that before. Just thought I'd use some screen caps to show how I'm restructuring the signature set for now. The P-15 and P-21d are going to drop into adjacent slots once they arrive. I am very happy with how my 1st dollar collection has improved and shaped up in the last 6 months. It feels awesome.

Lol. Hmmm... I think you might be stirring up trouble with that photoshopping. It'll actually be 201 points and about 84% complete once the $10 comes in the mail. With more of the $20 notes hitting listings this will probably be the next set / category that I get to 100% complete just because getting the last notes I need for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd dollars has been proving challenging lately.

Yeah. It would have been a bit sad to have those permanently orphaned. I was pretty thrilled when you got that note though. It meant that at least one other person would want and use the category. It's nice when you aren't asking for a new set just so you can sit there unopposed. Not much of an achievement to be #1 if no one else is even in the running. My Zimbabwe set has close to 10 competitive categories now though and it gets interesting trying to balance and split efforts and attention across all of them. Glad you like the job I've done. I wouldn't ever dream of trying to come close to what you're doing in Ukrainian notes. I think the words "never again," are going to be used when this is mostly done. I don't think I'm ever going to pick a fight with another elephant like this.

This probably has made me way way happier than it should, but I am super stoked about this: My new 2020 $10 note should be arriving in the mail early next week and I really can't wait to get it now! This is making me want the $20 super bad - but I'm probably going to have to wait on that because I'm working on other things and if I spend too much this month my wife may injure me.