• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Revenant

Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    578

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    82

 Content Type 

Journal Entries posted by Revenant

  1. Revenant
    The other day I was watching "Storage Wars: Northern Treasures" on Netflix, mostly using it as background noise while I took care of feeding the boys breakfast in the morning and keeping everyone happy while Shandy is working on the boys have been feeling under the weather.
    I was temporarily distracted and not really paying attention to the TV when Shandy, who had come down for breakfast, told me to look at the TV. A couple of the "geniuses" on that show had found a bunch of circulated Zimbabwean notes in a mattress in circulated condition and they were going nuts over them. They were getting really excited and I'm just thinking, in that condition, most of the notes are just worth a dollar, maybe two, as a novelty. There's too many of most of those notes in uncirculated condition and even the uncirculated notes are cheap - usually $4-5 each. There's just not much demand in the market for circulated notes because of that.
    Still, kind of interesting and funny to see.
    Shandy picks up on these things now, now that she's had to endure a solid year of me talking and obsessing about them after she made the - perhaps, in retrospect - foolish choice of trying to give me one as an anniversary gift and re-igniting my interest in building the set in January 2019.
  2. Revenant
    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 the traveller’s checks is a bit more of an open question and I’m weighing options…
    Since I only had 1 of these before this (A P-15) that one note had to do the heavy lifting in the signature set with information on that 6-check set and about that particular example.
    https://notes.www.collectors-society.com/registry/notes/UserNoteDetail.aspx?UserNoteID=20885&UserCollectionID=1264
    In the competitive set I split it with the series information in the set description and just the information / discussion on that note in the competitive description for that note. I’m going to continue that practice in the competitive set, but, in the signature set…
     
     
    I have three options I’m considering…
    1) Have the information on the set and that specific note in the description for each of the 6 notes I’ll have in there.
    2) Have the information on the set on the P-15 as now but don’t repeat it on the other 5 (P-16 to P-20).
    3) Have two P-15s in the signature set, use the first to discuss the set and have the 2nd with a feature about that note P-15 note and have the P-16 to P-20 just talk about those notes.
     
     
    On a different but related front, I’m considering using the certification numbers for some of the traveler’s checks I wasn’t going to use as place holders to put in some images of the 5 2014 bond coins I’ve sent in for grading. Speaking of which, my 13 Zimbabwe coin submission is official “received” at NGC today, but with current advertised wait times I don’t expect to see those grades or coins until mid to late August, when I’ll be in a new home hopefully! I'll probably have more to say on the coins in the NGC journal soon.
     
     
    Having gotten these grades back, the question occurs, "Would I do it again?" Or rather do more? Clearly, I'm thrilled that I did these two sets but do I think I'd be willing to hunt more examples of the P-16 and P-18 to chase a full gem uncirc set? ... and I don't know!
    If these first two sets had done a little less well - like if I had at least one pick # where the best I had was an AU 55 I think there'd be more of a case for trying again to finish an uncirc. set. But with an example of each in at least 63 EPQ it is harder to have confidence that grading more sets / notes would get me an improved set. I have seen unstamped, clean, examples only get a 63 EPQ.
    To make things a step worse, many of the people that sell these things have multiples of each and the pictures / scans always look good, but I think in many cases you’re seeing scans of some of the nicer ones and what you’re seeing might not be what you get. And on top of that many of the prices on these can be surprisingly steep. I got very lucky on these. I found a seller willing to sell a full 6 note set for $30 - $5 each - and pick the nicest examples to send me on top of it. I’ve seen many sellers that want $14-$40 per check or more… and that can get expensive in a hurry! If I knew a place where I could go and look at these in hand and have more confidence in what I was getting it might be easier, but, with buying these raw online, there’s just too much uncertainty.
    All in all, I did too well with these for the cost / benefit / risk equation to seem favorable for more. I don’t think that will change unless someone else comes up with a set that can challenge the one I have now. But, if an already graded P-16 or P-18 pop up in a better grade than what I have I may be a bidder!
    Of course, if they'd all come back as AU 55 or below with this batch of 12, I wouldn’t be sending anymore after that for a very different reason.
     
    Now that I know the fate on these I need to make myself get on sending in those two P-3 (a "d" and "e" I think) notes and some (probably 7-8) gas coupons. I need to put in a question to PMG though I think and see if those can all be on one invoice or two. I also have a mechanical error I need to send in with them - a P-23f posing as a P-23e. As good as it felt to see "100%" on that 2nd dollar set, I think it's going to feel even better to see 100% on a first dollar set. I don't think I would have ever imagined that when I started this in 2015. I never would have dreamed that I'd build that set to what it is now when I just picked up a few (11) notes for it in Dec 2015 and Jan 2016.
     
    That's all for now. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I has no notes yet.  
  3. Revenant

    Well, see, it's kind of like "Rose Red."

    By Revenant,


    Hyperinflation Notes and Sets
    Anyone remember that (now, somewhat) old movie "Rose Red?"
    Remember that line, "It's finished, when YOU say it's finished"?
    I feel like that's the case with any major collecting project / journey. It's over when you decide you're done - but, it can keep going as arbitrarily long as you want it to!
    And I'm realizing that's going to be the case with the Zimbabwean set... and I'm just not sure I'm done yet. 🤣
    I posted some months back about horrifying my wife with the comment that there were more varieties I could go for and replacement notes and specimen notes... and the RBZ still hasn't given up! Just updated my P-104 description because they say they have some fight left!
    I was also thinking I could add some more SA Rand denominations that would have been in Zimbabwe at the time and maybe some of the other currencies in use during the multi-currency period.
    I'm not nearly as super-gung-ho as I was in 2019/2020 - trying to build a Pick set - but I'm still very interested in continuing to grow and build, update and evolve that set... and, like Rose Red, it may never be finished until I am. 🤣
    On a related note... I've been watching some 5 L and 20 L gas ration coupons for a while where the seller had them listed for $1.99 but with a $5 shipping charge. I knew from prior experience from this seller that they'd combine shipping for +$1 per additional item, so if I bought all four of these things I could get them for $16 or about $4 each. I just had a hard time convincing myself to do that. I'd often thought about tacking them on to another, larger order but I always forget - case in point, I could have added them to that $124 bolivar order for $12, $3 each... Anyway...
    I saw another seller listing some 20L coupons for $4 + free shipping and I just pulled the trigger. I don't even know what possessed me to do it. It was $8+tax and I just decided in that moment that I wanted it and I was going to get them after months of hem-hahing. I think it was about being able to just snap up a couple for under $10 and not make a bigger outlay all at once.
    Anyway... If I like the quality / condition the seller has some 5L,  and10L coupons for $5-5.50 that I may offer them $3.50-4.00 for to get 2 of each. They also have some of the 50L coupons, which seem less common, for $8. I think I'm going to stick to coupons with the RBZ seal and not the Amby ones... for now.
    I still do not know if these are even things PMG will grade. I may touch base with them on that, but I still like the idea of having some of these, even if they stay in a small flip-style currency album from Hobby Lobby.
    If PMG will not grade them I may use the cert#s for some of my extra traveller's checks to let me backdoor the coupons into "Gradually, then suddenly."
    But... yeah... I've officially gone beyond "notes" by getting those 1-use, cancellable checks and now gone beyond "currency" in the catalogue by buying things that don't have assigned pick numbers and gone beyond "currency" to expand into coins I'm working on submitting. The many times I've broadened the scope of this set to include something that absolutely was not part of the original plan... Like new rooms / wings on a house? 🤔
  4. Revenant

    Ordering some Cheques for future grading

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Traveller's Checks
    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 that grading credit and rounding out the set a bit / filling out the new holes I added in January. 
    I've known for a while what this purchase would be. I've wanted to load up on some of the traveller's cheques (P-15 to P-20) for a submission but I didn't want to pay $8-9 + $5 shipping per check for these. I had found a seller offering sets with all of them from 15 to 20 for $22 each and he had multiple sets. This auction didn't promise uncirc or a-unc checks like some other listing but the condition looked okay in the image and I'm not sure I need these stamped and canceled checks to grade 60+. I could be quite okay with examples that grade a little lower and have a bit more "character." That said, I did go ahead and ask if he'd be willing to look and give me the nicer examples he had.
    He responded saying he had some nicer / better condition sets he'd been holding back and, for $30/set, he'd give me the 2 nicest examples of each one that he has. I agreed and he said they'd ship out no later than today. I figure $16 + tax is fair for his time and attention (responding to me in the first place and not just grabbing from the top of the pile and calling it a day).
    I'm looking forward to getting these soon. I'm going to be looking at these for any fun dates. There was a graded P18 for sale a while back that had been stamped Oct 18th - painfully close to my birthday of Oct 19th. I pointed out to Shandy at the time that if that had been stamped the 19th I would have needed to get it - budget or no. Lol It would be so cool to have one that was canceled on 10/19 or another important / significant date to me - like the birthdays of my sons or my anniversary.
    I'll be scanning these but also trying to get them sent out to grade soon. I'm going to try to not let this linger for months like I have with and NGC submission - which will be going out by registered mail soon once I find a good box and get it over to the PO.
    I'm also again considering buying some lots of Zimbabwean coins and submitting some of those - maybe keeping the less promising ones in my binder of 2x2s - more on that soon I hope.
  5. Revenant

    I guess there's something about GREEN.

    By Revenant,


    Note Storage
    So those boxes my wife got me come in 4 colors - black, blue, red and green. She got me black and blue. I ordered myself a red which is coming soon.
    However - it would seem that getting green just isn't so easy! Almost every seller I found is sold out of Green.
    The only seller I found with them was 1] changing more than anyone else was for the boxes (about $30 where most were charging $20-25 after shipping) and 2] charging a premium for Green (Red was about $29, blue was about $30 and green was a little over $31).
    So what's up with green?
    The first thing that springs to mind is that it is essentially PMG's chosen color and that might make it preferred by some but I also know PMG isn't the only grader. I see other companies used in my Facebook and Redit groups - I just personally have never gotten anything other than PMG for graded notes.
    It's also the main/ dominant color of money and "the greenback," if you are an American or collect US notes.
    I'd love to have all four colors represented on my shelf because I'm a weird, collecting freak - maybe just a couple of steps shy of being a hoarder - but I'm just not willing to pay 60% more for a different color. 🤷‍♂️
     
  6. Revenant

    A 2009 AA Block $1 FRN

    By Revenant,


    Federal Reserve Notes
    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.
  7. Revenant

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

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Traveller's Checks
    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. 
  8. Revenant
    The P-2e is an interesting note (one of a few 1994 issues, along with the P-1d). It is a somewhat rarer variety than the P-2d, but when you look at the two, on the surface, they look pretty much the same. The difference between the P-2d and the P-2e (and the difference between the P-1c and the P-1d) is that the earlier issue uses the first version of the Zimbabwe bird watermark while the later issue uses the newer, second version of the Zimbabwe bird watermark that was used in later issues, including the Series 2 notes.
    Zimbabwe started rolling out the Series 2 notes in 1994 and 1995 (and retired the $2 denomination, replacing the P-1 note with a $2 coin). So, between their replacement mid-year of the prior issues with the old watermark and their subsequent replacement with completely new designs, these notes were not in print long.
    Pictured below for comparison is my P-2c, from 1983. I don't have a 1994 dated P-2d at this point. We'll see what the future holds there.

    The P-1c is fairly common and cheap, seemingly almost as common and inexpensive as the P-1b, and it’s just a watermark that separates it from the P-1d – which is one of the rarest and most desirable notes in any Zimbabwe note collection. 
    I can say that with the P-1c and P-1d because I have seen P-1c notes come up for sale in 67 EPQ and sell for less than $30 in most cases 3 or 4 times now. I have hardly ever seen P-1d notes and they tend to go for more in the $120+ range.
    It’s harder to make this argument, for me, from what I’ve seen, with the P-2d and the P-2e because I’ve now seen two P-2e notes sell for $51 or less, but I have not yet seen a P-2d come up for sale.
    This makes it difficult in most cases to try to shop for a P-1d or a P-2e on the internet, in raw, ungraded condition, because sellers typically don’t include pictures where they’re holding the note up to a light to show off the watermark and it’s the watermark that makes literally all the difference - the dates and signatures are the same.
    From a registry perspective, these notes are interesting in that they are competition drivers that play an outsized role in making sets competitive (or not) in the 1st dollar category. And they seem to be more scarce on the market but their prices aren’t much higher in practice - I’m sure because there aren’t many 1st dollar collectors compared to 3rd dollar collectors and there aren’t all that many 1st dollar collectors that are crazy enough to build full variety sets or to try to hunt down the rare varieties instead of settling for the more common ones - most people probably would not care to pay extra for a P-1d and would rather just get a P-1b. The notes are nearly identical.
    A P-2c in 66 EPQ gets 45 points but a P-2e in the same grade gets you 357. I paid about $30 for the P-2c and paid about $51 for the P-2e. More, but not 7 times more.
    A P-1b gets 37 points in 66 EPQ but a P-1d gets 584 - which can make it hard to compete in the category if someone else has a P-1d and you don’t.
    The point values on these notes seems to be more reflective of their relative rarity and not necessarily their price - and we all know, per NGC/PMG that the scores are not based exclusively on price. But you also can’t draw many conclusions about relative scarceness or desirability because these things are rarely graded in general and the more common varieties are generally not worth enough after grading to justify the grading fees - so their relative numbers in the pop reports are not at all indicative of their relative commonness overall.
    This dynamic has made me keen to try to go for some of these rarer varieties when one comes up for sale and the seller is asking something close to a reasonable price. But the problem sometimes becomes that the seller is asking what I do not particularly feel is a reasonable price. And, when the thing sits unsold for months, it suggests to me that the others out there that buy these things also don’t feel like it’s all that good of an ask. But, when you’re dealing with something that only comes up for sale very infrequently - especially already graded in a very hard grade - it can be extremely hard to argue this point with the dealer or get them to come down off those asks. And then the things just sit in inventory for a year or two or three.
     


  9. Revenant

    New 2020 $20 too!

    By Revenant,

    I did a bit of reading last night and found out that the new $20 notes were announced at the same time as the $10 notes, but, where the $10 notes went into circulation in late May, the $20 notes weren't supposed to go into circulation until June. This time delay is probably why the $10 notes are starting to hit eBay but the $20s aren't - yet. I figure, assuming they aren't delayed, we'll see the $20s for sale to US collectors by early July.

    I said in my post about the new $10 notes that there seemed to be some clear attempts to call back to the original $10 notes from 1980 but it's even more clear with these new 20s
    While the design is clearly different, the color choices are very similar with greens, blues, and teals / aqua. Then you get to the art on the back. Both notes have an elephant - or the front half of an elephant - and Victoria Falls. Yes, they've clearly updated the art, but the inspiration drawn from the older note is very clear.

     
  10. Revenant
    Over the weekend I just started seeing these pop up for sale in eBay auctions and new sales / offerings popping up that offer these as part of a 3 note set with the 2 2019 issues, so I'm guessing these are freshly released and they're just now making it out to the dealers. So I guess I might get to see all the designs that were supposed to be released as part of the bond note series afterall. I was really expecting them to tack an extra 0 onto these if they released them and have $100 and $200 notes instead of $10 (and maybe, later, $20) notes. Even with the official exchange rate the government is trying to peg these at (25:1 with the US dollar) these new notes are worth less than half a US dollar - not much. If you use some of the exchange rates people have been using, these are worth less than a US nickel. They are pretty though, and in some ways this feels like another attempt to make a call back to the 1st dollar series. The Original $10 notes, the P-3, issued starting in 1980, was primarily red, like these notes.

    On another note, I got a P-99 $2 bond note - an actual 2016 Bond note and not a new 2019 banknote - last week. Last night I won an auction for a P-100 $5 bond note, so, once that comes in I'll have both the bond notes for real this time, and both the 2019 issues, and I'll just need to get this new 2020 note (and anything else they come up with this year, like a $20 note if they release it) to stay current on the new issues.
    Other than trying to keep up with the new issues and the new developments I'm still emphasizing going back and building up my 1st dollar set with new varieties as I can get them.
  11. Revenant
    The notes I ordered about a week or so ago have arrived and they’re starting to clear our quarantine period so I’m finally getting to take a closer look at what I bought… and the are not 2016 bond notes.

    The bond notes actually say “Bond Note” and that’s the one modification / omission these 2019 issues make (other than the date) that separates them from the Bond notes.


    I’m laughing to myself because this is 100% my bad for not noticing. The seller’s listing listed them as “P NEW 2019.” The pictures and the labels said 2019… I just was assuming and taking for granted that all the notes that looked like this were the same and were all bond notes and I’d been completely unaware of the fact that the government / RBZ actually did release these like they said they would but they re-used the design of the bond notes – something they never did before.
    I talked about this with the 3rd and 4th dollars. When the 4th dollars were rolled out (even though they were VERY short-lived, even by Zimbabwe standards) the government significantly changed those designs and made sure that the new notes had color schemes that were very different than the 3rd dollar notes of the same denomination to make darn sure that no one would get the two mixed up or use them interchangeably.
    I never would have expected them to do this.
    That said, even though these aren’t bond notes, they’re basically identical, and I’m finally getting to look at these designs in person, with the note in hand, and, dang, I think these are pretty. This really just makes me even more bummed that the $10 and $20 notes keep not getting released. I would have loved to have seen what they had planned for those. How dare the people of this poor, long suffering, country get in the way of my collecting fun, right?!? First World Problems, man.
     
     
  12. Revenant
    Somewhat inspired by ddr70's recent post about lowball sets, I thought I'd share this today, just for a laugh.
    My new P-5b, P-7 and P-9 notes finally came out of quarantine today and I finally got the certification numbers to add to my set(s).
    With the addition of these notes, my 91-92% complete set now finally beats Muzzer42's 8% complete set... by a whopping 3 points.  

    Muzzer has a P-1d note in MS66 EPQ. The P-1d is the rarest and most valuable variety of the P-1 note. It's the only P-1 variety that I don't own.
    I'm "winning" so hard he could go out at any time and buy any non-P-1 1st dollar note on the cheap and be beating me again.  
    MKMITTAL79 continues to curb-stomp me with a 16% complete set that combines the relatively rare P-2e and P-3b. I still don't have any P-3 (only one I lack completely) and I have the much more common P-2c.
    Now that these notes are out of quarantine I need to get them and my new 68 EPQ P-6 CD-prefix and get some pictures up soon.
    Signature link for my main 1st dollar set (check it out if you want and haven't already):

     
  13. Revenant
    I read last year that Zimbabwe was going to have ANOTHER new currency coming to replace the RTGS dollar but then life and work got busy and I never really went back to look into the developments.
    I've been making updates to my set(s) lately though and looking into the getting the P-99 and P-100 Bond notes and this got me thinking about the fact that I haven't been seeing or hearing anything about new notes or a new currency even though it's been about 6 months now.
    It seems like they haven't released now physical paper money but they did roll out a "new" currency to replace the RTGS dollar..,. and it's called... The "Zimbabwe dollar," currency code ZWD! Which happens to be the same currency code used by the "1st dollar" that replaced the Rhodesian currency in 1980.
    So, this gives us:
    1st Dollar, ZWD (1980-2006)
    2nd Dollar, ZWN (2006-2008)
    3rd Dollar, ZWR (2008-2009)
    4th Dollar, ZWL (2009)
    Bond Notes - 1:1 USD peg (2016-2019)
    RTGS Dollar, ZWL (2019) … because, I guess just calling it the 5th dollar would just be sad and they even re-used the old currency code...
    Zimbabwe Dollar, ZWD (2019 - Probably DOA)
    Some people clearly just don't know when to give up...
    ZWD, to ZWN, to ZWR, to ZWL, and finally back to ZWD.
    We are full circle - and they still have crazy-high inflation.
    Wow.


  14. Revenant
    The hyperinflation that ripped through Zimbabwe in the first decade of this century / millennium was an economic and societal catastrophe. The currency was officially and fully demonetized in 2015 but the nation of Zimbabwe is continuing to try to dig its way out of the devastation caused by the hyperinflation and other disastrous government policies and programs.
    It is somewhat ironic, and I’m sure more than a little chagrin inducing for the people of that country, to think that the 100 Trillion dollar note and some of the others in that series have become such a popular novelty item and that the 100 Trillion notes are now worth $100-350 to American collectors.
    However, I’ve recently come across / learned about something that seemingly adds quite a bit of insult to this injury.
    Since the genuine notes have become so popular and expensive, not everyone wants to pay that much for them. And, the joys of capitalism being what they are, someone seems to have stepped in to fill that need / void.
    Some person or company in China has been mass producing these gold colored copies of the 100 Trillion dollar note. They’re plastic and covered in a gold-colored foil - there is no real gold content. They do not have serial numbers. They are not and never were real notes and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has nothing to do with them. They’re on eBay going for $8-10 for lots of 10 of them - so super cheap.
    I see the gold coloring as mixed blessing. Since they’re gold in color and shiny, where the true 100 Trillion note is mostly blue, no one is ever going to make the mistake of thinking that these are the original 100 Trillion note. There's also a silver version out there that I think does a better job of replicating the look of the original notes but it's basically the same as the gold version in terms of what it is and where it comes from. I think some of the sellers on eBay don’t do a good enough job of emphasizing that these things are from China and not any kind of official issue and that Zimbabwe / the government thereof wasn’t involved in making them, but what can you do there?
    On the other hand, because the coloring is all wrong, having one of these in hand doesn’t give you a feel for what the original looks like or feels like.
    I also find the gold color tacky and gawdy to the extreme. There’s just something so peculiar about taking something that became famous for being part of the last gasp of a dying currency, something that is famous for being 100 Trillion Dollars and, yet, somehow, still being too worthless to buy a loaf of bread and making it gold-colored. It’s like the person that made these just fundamentally failed to understand this event and what these things were and what they mean. These things are not a sign of or indicative of affluence or prosperity or opulence, as you would expect with something made golden. They’re associated with a terrible chapter of that nation’s history - a period of deprivation, scarcity, fear, want, hardship and loss.
    I can’t imagine what a native of the country who lived through that decade would think of these things and I don’t know if they’d laugh or cry.

  15. Revenant
    One of the things I've always found interesting in the Zimbabwe series is that the first notes in the 3rd dollar series (from $1 to $1000) were released on Aug 1 2008 and the 4th dollar notes (from $1 to $500) were released just 5 months later in Jan 2009. But 1 4th dollar was worth 1 TRILLION 3rd dollars. So they couldn't have people confusing the two note series, which were circulating very much at the same time. It would not have been good if there was even a reasonable chance that someone might think one of the "old" 3rd dollar notes was a 4th dollar note. So, when you look at examples of each for the different denominations, you can see how hard they were trying to make sure there was not confusion.
    $20 notes...


    $500 notes:..


    I think the most striking thing for me is the coloring and the changes to where the denominations are, but, if you're paying attention at all, you're not going to mistake one for the other.
     
  16. Revenant
    Ever since I found out about them I've been scratching my head thinking about what to do - if anything - about the bank issued bearer checks and traveler's checks.
    They have pick numbers assigned to them (P-13 through P-20 and P-24 through P-27). In that sense, it feels like you can't completely ignore them and like they should be part of the collection.
    At the same time, they were issued by banks, not the RBZ, they could only be used / redeemed once, by the person they had been issued to, and they had to be cancelled - so they weren't really currency or banknotes in any way. They were checks.
    PMG, while they graded a few of these back in the day, says they probably wouldn't grade them currently. So, unless you can get someone to sell you one they have previously graded (and they may not come up for sale), you can't even get graded examples of these, even though there are competitive set categories for them (with no sets because the people that own those graded examples don't list them in the registry).
    It also isn't lost on me that the poster I showed in my last post shows P-28 through P-32, the later bearer checks, but doesn't show the bank-issued checks. So obviously the dealer that made that poster doesn't really think of them or market them as being part of that larger set either. The other major dealer I go through for most of my Zimbabwe notes also doesn't deal in these bank-issued notes at all from what I can see.
    So far I've included blank slots in my signature set with notes on the comments, just to acknowledge each group / set of notes with a slot to acknowledge the pick numbers, but I increasingly wonder if I just need to cut them out / allow myself to ignore them.
    In the context of the larger set, they're just odd. It just feels like they both do and don't belong in the larger set / collection.
  17. Revenant
    I got this poster in the mail a while ago. It came in a poster tube on its own. I'm guessing it was a marketing thing and a "thank you for being a customer" type thing.
    I do like it though. I think I might have to get this framed one of these days to go with my note set.
    I like the fact that it includes the 1st dollars and the 1980s era coins. I wish it included the 4th dollars and the bond notes - but I guess nothing can be perfect. There's still just too much emphasis on the 3rd dollars (the "Trillions Series") and the 100 Trillion dollar note..

  18. Revenant

    Tiny Z dollars

    By Revenant,

    When I first started collecting the Zimbabwean 3rd dollars I thought they were all about the same size regardless of denomination.
    When I expanded my set to include more of the first dollars I started to notice that this wasn't the case with them. I was shocked the first time I held a P-1 note. Compared to the higher denominations in the series it is tiny. The shot below shows the $2 note over the $20.

    Then I finally got some low denomination 3rd dollars - P-65 and P-66 - and I realized that this wasn't exclusive to the 1st dollars. The ZWR had it too, I think the picture below was the $1 note and the $100 note.

    This was a really cool feature / realization for me.
    I'd read years ago that some people were pushing to make the different denominations in the US different sizes - it's an access issue for the blind. The argument was that the current bills deny adequate access to the blind and that making the notes different sizes would allow the blind to tell the difference between them without help.
    After reading that years ago, seeing this was just really neat.
    I don't really see any difference between the sizes of anything after about $500 or $1000. I can only assume this was because they either couldn't make the notes any bigger (They are quite big), or because they chose to standardize around a size to make it easier to keep cranking out higher denomination notes.
  19. Revenant
    Looks like, while I've been distracted by the birth of my 2nd son, the government of Zimbabwe and the RBZ have been busy. The announcement came on 2/19/2019, one week after my son was born.
     
    On 2/20/2019 the “Zollar” “quasi-currency,” pegged to the US dollar at a 1:1 ratio, represented by the bond coins released in 2014 and bond notes released from 2016-2018, became the official currency of Zimbabwe – called the RTGS dollar. It consisted of the bond notes and electronic money. The Bond Notes and electronic money would be converted or merged into the new currency with a 1:1 parity and then they would float against the dollar. The name of the currency would come from the country’s interbank online payment platform – "Real Time Gross Settlement," RTGS. 
     
    In the days leading up to the announcement the government and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) were actively denying claims that they were looking to introduce a new currency. Some local economists called the move a “bold and progressive” step. Others saw the move as a sophisticated plan to take control of the US dollar savings held by the population. Shakespear Hamauswa, a businessman and lecturer, sued the government and called the RTGS a “ponzi currency,” used to “monetize the theft” of the US$ balances of the people accumulated in the last 10 years. Nelson Chamisa, the leader of the major opposition group, said, “The monetary policy statement is a disaster that will erode livelihoods, plunge the nation into darkness and uncertainty.” 
     
    It’s worth noting that, while the bond notes and RTGS were officially pegged to the US dollar, in the parallel / black market the “real” exchange rate was more like 4 or 5 to one. Almost immediately after the RTGS was introduced the official exchange rate fell to 2.5RTGS:US$1. The “real” exchange rate at that time was closer to 5.75RTGS:US$1.
     

  20. Revenant
    I ran across the following in my continuing research from my Zimbabwe note set. It’s from the FAQ of a website that sells the notes.


    This made me shake my head, that anyone would still think it’s possible that these things would ever be money / currency again - 10 years after issuance was suspended and 4 years after the official demonization of the 4th dollars.

    The complete failure of the 2016/2017 bond notes evidences the challenge that Zimbabwe is going to face if they ever hope to have a national currency again. The issuance of the bond notes should also provide evidence of another fact - if Zimbabwe ever does make a new currency, it will do so with the issuance of a new series of notes. It will NOT do so by making these old notes currency again. It’s just not going to happen. They can’t re-monetize that massive amount of currency that they printed and have any hopes of the new currency succeeding. If they do launch a new currency the last thing they will want is for people to be thinking about the old currency and associating the new one with that terrible episode in the country’s history.

    The response in the FAQ says it well - these are defunct. These are novelties. These are “quirky collectables.”

    Even if, by some freak event of cataclysmically bad thinking, they did decide to remonetize these again, they’d probably remonetize the 4th dollar notes, which only run up to $500 - no one is going to become an instant trillionaire from them remonetizing all the 3rd dollars. It just will not happen.

    Even if they, at some later time, gain more popularity and start to become more valuable and desirable to the collecting community, they’ll only be slightly more valuable collectables.

    They’re collectables that I happen to enjoy a lot, so I’m going to keep collecting them and building up my set, diving ever further in the rabbit hole with subtleties, nuances and serial numbers… but let’s be real - you’re not going to get rich collecting / hoarding these things.

  21. Revenant
    Call it a "soft launch" since, for the time being, the only notes in it are going to be Zimbabwean notes that are also part of my set of that currency's notes for my hyperinflation themed set, but I've decided I'm going to make a signature set of notes that feature elephants - inspired by my sons.
    We have a membership to the Houston Zoo and whenever we go or talk about going the animal that Ben usually mentions wanting to go see is the elephants, which he absolutely loves.
    We also chose elephants as the theme for Samuel's nursery / bedding (for Ben the theme was turtles).
    Several of the Zimbabwean notes feature elephants and some of the artwork, like what appears on P-12 and P-98 is quite beautiful IMO. I've also seen / run across some notes from the Congo with some really great elephant artwork.
    Money is too tight right now for me to actively pursue this beyond maybe just setting up the set / or the bones of it, but this is definitely something I think I want to pursue more fully one of these days when time and finances allow it.
    The set will be called "A Parade of Elephants," which is the more fanciful name given to a group of elephants ("herd" is just so "blah").


  22. Revenant
    I wanted to make my best attempt to photograph and show off a funny feature of the Zimbabwe banknotes. Some of these banknotes have security features on them, like color changing / holographic ink, watermarks and complicated color schemes and had them as far back as the early 1980s or the 1990s, much earlier than I remember the United States introducing these to the "greenback."
    The 1983 Zimbabwean notes have watermarks but I don't think the US introduced watermarks to our currency until the mid- or late 1990s.
    One thing that's particularly interesting / funny to me is the "Zimbabwe Bird" watermark that they sued and the fact that it changes between the notes introduced in the 1980s and the notes introduced in the mid-1990s.
    The water marks on the early notes look like this:

    At least some of the Zimbabwean coins from this period also feature this bird and it looks like that on the coins.
    But then in the 1990s, it's like someone grabbed the bird's head and tried to stretch the neck out. All of a sudden the bird looks thinner and that neck just feels strangely long.

    Personally, I think the first design looked a lot better. That later design just looks a bit odd to me and not nearly as nice.
  23. Revenant
    When collecting a series, sometimes the notes / coins / denominations you don’t see are almost as interesting and telling as the ones you do see.

    I remember a few years ago when I first started looking into and trying to collect the Zimbabwe hyperinflation notes… I found the 100 Trillion note first and very easily. It’s the definitive poster-child of the series after all. I also quickly and easily found the 50 Trillion, 20 Trillion and 10 Trillion notes. Then I tried to search for a 5 Trillion… and a 1 Trillion… and a 500 Billion… and I found nothing. I tried looking for a 100 Billion, and found something, but it was weird looking, and was labeled as a… bearer check? What the…

    Of course, there are no notes denominated as 100 Billion, 200 billion, 500 Billion, 1 Trillion, or 5 Trillion in the 3rd dollar series. The 100 Billion Bearer Check I found, even though I didn’t know / understand what it was at the time, was part of the 2nd dollar bearer check series, not part of the 3rd dollar series, and so, it was almost completely different from what I was looking for. If you look at the progression of denominations used throughout the rest of the series / history of the Zimbabwean dollars, you’d expect all 5 of those denominations to exist, but none of them do. The only note of those five whose absence seems reasonable at first glance is the $200 Billion, as 20/200 denominations were often skipped in the series. The explanation for this is as simple as it is shocking – the hyperinflation in the country was so severe by November / December 2008, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe had to skip all of those and go from 50 Billion straight to 10 Trillion.

    That 5 note / denomination “gap” in the series is probably the biggest and most notable such oddity in the 100-pick series but it’s hardly the only one.

    The 3rd dollar series includes no 5,000 dollar note. The series originally maxed out with a $1,000 denomination. When the RBZ chose to start expanding the series to include higher denominations in late September 2008, they announced the $10,000 and $20,000 notes, but no $5,000 note.

    The 3rd dollar series also includes no $50 note. The 3rd dollar series was rolled out with denominations ranging from $1 to $1,000, but no $50 note, even though the denomination was seen in previous series for the 1st dollar and 2nd dollar.

    The 3rd dollar series, finally, includes no 5 Million or 20 Million dollar notes. Why these two notes where omitted when the $10 Million, $50 Million and 100 Million notes were announced in early Dec 2008 I don’t know.

    One of the things that makes the 2nd dollar Bearer Checks and Agro Checks interesting in the context of the larger series is the inclusion of “25” denominations. The 1st dollars, 3rd dollars and 4th dollars all have “20” denominations – like $20, $20,000, $20,000,000. Only the 2nd dollar series has denominations of $250,000, $250 Million, and $25 Billion. The 2nd dollar series, very oddly, has both a $200,000 and $250,000 note. The 2nd dollar does also have a $20 denomination, but I assume this is only because a $25 dollar note would have been just a little too peculiar to have been taken seriously. There is no $200 or $250 note in that series.

    The king of the oddities may be the $750,000 note of the 2nd dollar bearer check series (ZIM52). This is the only time in the entire 100 note Zimbabwean series that has a “75” fronted denomination. This note makes an interesting partner with the $250,000 (ZIM50) note and $500,000 notes (ZIM51) of the same series. Together they give you a quarter million, half a million, and three quarters of a million dollars for denominations, and this may help explain the inclusion of both a $200,000 and $250,000 note in this series.

    This is just one of those things about the series that I find interesting and maybe a little strange, and I like to think about it sometimes.

    The most likely explanations for the skipped notes in most cases is likely the same as the reason for skipping the $100 Billion through $5 Trillion notes in the 3rd dollar series – inflation had already rendered them undesirable before they could even be issued.

    The budget of the nation may have also played a role. One of the reasons for discontinuing the issuance of the money in 2009 is that the country couldn’t even buy paper / afford to print the notes anymore.  Some of these denominations may have been omitted just because the government / RBZ only had so much money for printing new notes and they elected to go for larger denominations to… get more buck for their buck?

    It’s all a little crazy to think about.


  24. Revenant
    When the set was introduced around 2016 the Zimbabwean First Dollar Set Category (“1980-2004 Issues, P1-P12, Complete”) included slots for all the sub-types, so instead of a slot for P-4 there were 4 slots for P-4a, P-4b, P-4c, and P-4d. They later went back and reduced the set to just 12 slots – one for each pick #. 
     
    I can only assume NGC decided to do this on their own because I don’t think anyone other than myself has ever had a set in this category so it’s hard for me to believe that someone else (a user / member) asked for or recommended this change. 
    I made my set back in 2016 when they were first introduced to the registry. I went about two years without updating or adding to it after that – fatherhood and unemployment sucking up my time. So I didn’t notice the change in the set / slots until about two months ago when I started paying attention and building up the set again. 
     
    Honestly, I like the change. It makes the set a lot more approachable and significantly easier to build – which was probably what NGC had in mind when they made the change. Collecting a full set of the pick #s for the first dollars is easy enough but building a set with all the sub-types would be expensive and hard. In particular, the 1980s notes that list the name of the Capital city as Salisbury instead of Harare (they changed the name of the city in 1982) seem hard to find. They just don’t seem to pop up very often. 
     
    Now, since I just need a P-11 and I don’t have to care about it being a P-11a or P-11b – unless I want to. The set becomes easier to build – and a lot more fun too if I’m being honest. The whole thing just becomes less daunting. 
     
    This change did hit my set a bit in that I’d bough both a P-4c and a P-4d at a time when they could both be listed in the same competitive registry set together. Now you can’t do that – not with a competitive set. But you can do it with a signature set and that’s exactly what I do these days. That is, after all, the beauty of this place with the signature sets. 
     
    My P-4c and P-4d are both in my newly re-done and re-imagined signature set. I may yet have more instances in the future where I have more than one sub-type within a single pick. I think getting some things like that has a great potential to add depth to the set and strengthen it, but it’s great in a lot of ways to feel like I don’t have to. 
     
    Part of the impact of this, at least to me going forward, is that it makes getting a new pick # that I don’t have an example of a lot more appealing than getting, say, a P-5b when I already have a P-5a in a comparable or better grade. I could definitely be interested in one day getting as many of the different sub-types as I can, but I think that will mostly wait until after I’ve acquired what I want and can find of the different pick #s. 
     
  25. Revenant
    With a lot of aggressive expanding of my Zimbabwe set (from 11 notes to 25 notes now) I’m up to having my 1st dollars (P-1 through P-12) and 3rd dollars (P-65 through P-91) both over 50% complete. I also have all of sub-sets or sub-categories for the third dollars (the millions, billions, and trillions) at 50-100%.
    My overall Zimbabwe collection now includes about 25% of the total picks from P-1 to P-98 (P-100 if you include the new $2 and $5 bond notes, which I probably eventually will). Now that I have the 3rd dollars over  50% my next major challenge is going to be building up the 2nd dollar Bearer Checks and Agro Checks more since those are currently barely represented in the set.
    Pictures of the new notes have been lagging since the birth of my son but maybe I'll get to catch up soon.