Revenant

I saw the title and I just knew the 100 Trillion would come up. Most zeros ever printed on a note! My collecting inevitably involves big denoms but I prefer hyperinflation series, instead.

My guess would be there was a 2nd signer in the middle but that denom wasn't issued / printed during that person's brief tenure. The RBZ notes have the signatures of the governor and you have some sub-picks that have a signature for a governor that was only in office a few months, making those types relatively rare.

Side note, but I do agree that most of the a/b/c notes are signatures but you don't get some where it's a change in watermark or a change in another security feature.

Way to go. I remember the feeling when my Zimbabwe set hit 100 notes - although some of those where US dollars that I include for my narrative on dollarization - and then it passed up 100 Zimbabwean notes later.

It has hit the United States at this point and is estimated to arrive here on Saturday. Pretty fast as usual. And, yeah, sticking to my guns for now on VEN104. If we get to the end of the year and are coming up on the awards deadline I may buy a cheap hole filler just to have the set complete though. That might make me cave. We'll see.

I doubt it. Venezuela was super dependent on the oil and gas industry. By the end it was basically 80-90% of their government revenue, and the oil exports tanked. Because they weren't maintaining the equipment, not only did the value of the exports fall when the price of oil tanked in 2014, but their output dropped by 50-60% if not more. Zimbabwe still has a few export industries - the most important of these is probably the gold mining industry, which brings in foreign money - usually US dollars. I expect gold mining and raw materials export is probably a big part of where Zimbabwe is still getting foreign cash these days. You also have to remember that the economy had "dollarized" until 2019. When they introduced the RTGS they force-converted all the US dollar bank balances of the population into RTGS and used that to effectively seize or nationalize a lot of US-dollar savings in the country. I suspect at least some of that helped with the printing of these notes, among other things. They seized the reserves for the RTGS dollar in Feb 2019 or thereabouts and the new non-bond-notes released in November 2019 IIRC. Edited to add: The $200 million and $50 Million dollar credit facilities that funded the Bond Notes and Coins also didn't come from the US or even the IMF. They came from the African Export-Import Bank.

In other news, Mike pointed out to me that the $50 note, the P-105, finally dropped after about 6 months of talk. That statue on the note is the statue / monument to the unknown soldier, which is in the National Heroes Acre (which is actually about 57 acres). This is also where the "Eternal Flame of Freedom" / "Eternal Flame of Independence" is - you see that show up in a few different places, including on the old P-3 notes I'm grading soon, the P-99 (&P-101) and the P-97. No clue yet who this person is supposed to be. I like the color on this one though. It looks similar to the old P-40s - only talking about the color here. Those notes (bearer checks) look nothing like this. You get different values on this thing depending on what you reference. Some articles put the value at US$0.59-0.60 based on prevailing official bank rates and some put it at US$0.35 based on black market rates. Other black market rates I see would put it at about US$0.13-0.14. In either case, it isn't worth much. If they had any sense they would have skipped these completely and done $100, $500, $1000 and $5000 IMO but they're afraid that releasing new notes too fast will spook people with memories of 2006-2009. But inflation is still running at 106% (down from ~800%). They are again allowing the US dollar in parallel with the ZWD so you're back to dollarization. The new note still won't buy a loaf of bread - it takes two of them. You still need a huge wad of bills to make any reasonably sized purchase. People are already worried about the fact that they are seeing 1 or 2 new, higher denominations every year. People simply aren't this dumb. They're already talking about the fact that more, higher, denominations will probably be coming in articles announcing this one. The RBZ might be thinking that releasing new denominations slower is going to make people less alarmed and have them not remembering 2006-2009, but, they remember. The kids know about it. The fear and the awareness is there. This is now the 5th design in the new series and the 7th issue / slot (if you have the P-99 and P-100 bond notes separately like they are in the world catalogue and the registry here). The 4th dollar had 7 designs and denominations and included a $100 and $500 notes. I think we'll get both of those and have the new dollar equal the run of the 4th dollar within a year and we may see a $1000 note and see the new series exceed the run of the 4th dollar by late 2022 or early 2023 at the rate they're going. I guess we'll see how long they stick to their guns and keep denying facts.

A couple of nights ago I was able to win a new TOP POP (for now) 67 EPQ P-93 note that can upgrade / replace my 64 EPQ that I got last year as a hole filler just to have the set complete. I spent about $36 all in and decided to this rather than go for a $51 68 EPQ 10 Billion note for now. At this point I don’t know if it will arrive here or if mail forwarding is going to send it to the new house by the time it’s all said and done. We have 15 days until we move. Given past experience with this seller I think it will arrive here within a few days of the move. I'm still debating how far I'll ultimately go and how much I'm ultimately willing to spend to upgrade the Zimbabwe set. The few 64s and 65s I have are definitely up for upgrades over time as 67/68 examples come up at reasonable prices, but I'm finding that most upgrades I'm seriously willing to consider have to be 3 point upgrades for $40 or less. This is only about the 3rd time I’ve done a direct upgrade of an existing note in the set - and one of those was bought by my wife without me knowing what it was. There have been 2 or three times though were I had a replacement and got a regular issue in a different grade that earned me more points - or vice-versa. I find anything for $50+ or anything that is only a 2 point upgrade a lot less appealing. I have almost no interest in 1-point upgrades, especially when I already have a 67. The cost / benefit just isn’t there for me as a 67 is already a superb gem Uncirc and a dang fine note for any collection. The ZIM93 is kind of the poster child for why I'm reluctant to buy anything below a 67 or 68 for the VEN104 - I actually think about this note every time I think about giving in and buying a VEN104 in a lower grade. At the time I bought that 64 EPQ I already knew that it really wasn't what I wanted - I already knew that I really wanted at least a 65 or preferably a 66, but it was the only graded example I'd ever seen and I wanted that set to be complete - and it only cost me about $20. Now I've seen at least 3 67 EPQs of that note come up for sale - and it has only been maybe 1-1.5 years. Not long in the grand scheme... but it did feel good to have the 4th dollar become one of my first 100% complete Zimbabwe sets. At least one higher grade, more recently purchased note that is likely to get upgraded at some point is my 66 EPQ P-100. It is a 66 EPQ that is in a set that is full of 67s and I don't see myself buying anything lower than a 68 EPQ for that set in the future, and I may ultimately bite the bullet and build out a full 68 EPQ set of those. This P-93 also probably will not be the last upgrade to the 4th dollar set. I have a P-65 P-94 and P-95 that will probably both get bumped up to 67s or 68s down the line when the opportunity comes up and my P-92, which is a 66 EPQ, may get replaced with a 68 EPQ at some point because 68s of that note can sometimes be had for just $30-35, like this P-93 I just snagged.

Yeah... but I don't see any value there as circulated as they are.

I've wedged images of my gas ration coupons into my signature set using a P-15 certification number. That at least gets images of those into the set.

Probably for the best. Lol it has been getting updates every evening and in the mornings when I decide I'm done talking to annoying clients for a little while.

It's definitely tempting, including just to replace an old tinted holder with a new gen holder. Hope you're liking the re-vamp on the 2nd dollar set.

Normally I might do it just to spend my eBay bucks this month but they changed those to be good for a year now. I think the thing that should really give me pause is the move is coming in less than 4 weeks and I should hold orders until I can switch to the new address for delivery. I'm trying to busy myself with updating my 2nd dollar set and focusing on that activity - which doesn't cost money. But I am seriously considering spending the money to bump my old 65 EPQ 10 Billion to a 68 EPQ.

I managed to find a little more on how long Murambatsvina and Maguta ran and those programs in general and I've incorporated those into ZIM37 and ZIM38. But this lead me to learn from a research paper that apparently they had programs in 1983, 2007 and I think 2011 targeted specifically at curbing prostitution and detaining unescorted women... Debating on whether or not to incorporate some of that information. I wonder if those in the government had enough self-awareness to think that, if there was an up-tick in prostitution, they were probably the indirect causes of it.

I'd have to look into it more for duration on some of them. I tried to include in the comments for most / all when they started. Some were shorter duration (Murambatsvina and Reduce Prices) and some apparently lasted for years (like Maguta).

I'm starting to get frustrated and impatient for some VEN 104s to pop up in good grades. There's a 65 EPQ and a 66 EPQ that keep getting relisted and going unsold because... no one wants those. Anyway... I'm getting tempted to just snap up that 66 just to fill in the hole in my Soberano set that keeps taunting me but I know that's a mistake. The rest of the set just came together so fast and so easy and now that one gap is taunting me and graded examples of the new 2021 notes still haven't hit the market yet to distract me... I want a 67 EPQ or a 68 EPQ. I just paid to get a 68 EPQ of the 102a to replace a 66 EPQ 102a*. I just put money into bumping a 66EPQ VEN91 to a 68EPQ in the competitive set... I don't want to buy any more 66 EPQs right now! Even if it is cheap! I'm probably ultimately going to try to make all the 66 EPQs in my Venezuela competitive sets 68 EPQs, but I'm going to try to get different varieties to simultaneously build up the signature set in a fun way. I'm not going to start actively chasing variety sets, but if you're upgrading anyway, why not at least get different varieties so they build-on / expand what you have instead of just making redundancies? I have money to spend and stress shopping to do... If these notes don't pop up soon I may start upgrading Zimbabwean 3rd and 4th dollar notes and then the wife is really going to be looking at me sideways...

I spent some time writing on my Word File last night and this morning I posted up some new descriptions for P-37 to P-49 that talk about things like Operation Maguta, Operation Murambatsvina, Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle, Operation Reduce Prices, Operation Chikorokoza Chapera, and Operation Mavhoterapapi. I'm hoping a lot of this will add a lot of the historical context and backdrop with the set and extend some of that discussion from the 1st dollar notes (P-1 to P-12) and bridge the gap with some of what I have on the 3rd, 4th and New dollars.

So, apparently "Operation Sunrise" has been used as the name for military operations in WWII and the Vietnam War, but it was also the name given to the RBZs and Zimbabwe's "plan" in 2005 to bring inflation under control by cutting 3 zeroes off the currency and make the 2nd dollar in the 1st redenomination. I say "plan" because I don't know why they ever thought it would work. But the release of the 2nd Dollar Bearer Checks were the first part of Zimbabwe's "Operation Sunrise." I've always tried to make my main competitive sets for my Zimbabwe collection do a decent / respectable job of standing alone as individual sets an not just as competitive chunks of "Gradually, then Suddenly." I think I've mostly achieved that with the First Dollars, the 3rd Dollars (and sub sets thereof), the 4th dollars and the "new" / modern Z dollars, but I think the 2nd dollars lost out and got the short end of the stick with presentation. I've been doing a bit of work to go back and fix that - building out the set description better and finally taking more advantage of the fact that note descriptions in competitive and signature sets can be different to allow me to make the 2nd dollar set "stand alone" better. As part of this re-vamp I'm renaming the set "Operation Sunrise." I feel like that has to be one of the more ironic names. That set / series wasn't the dawn of a new day. It just be came the first in a long series of failed attempts at a reboot of the national currency. On that note, I've also changed the name on my New dollars set from "Zimbabwe Dollars Reborn" to "Zimbabwean Zombie Dollars," because that currency is surely the monetary version of the walking / shuffling dead.

The price on everything is going up... assuming you can get it at all.

You'd have to pay shipping to them but, if you really want to end the temptation PMG will reholder a mechanical error for free.

I think the system would have taken it and you probably would have gotten away with it until or unless someone complained or the set got serious attention for an award and someone was really looking. That nite isn't that different than the real deal and it even has the same denom from the looks of it. But you've done yourself no favors by blabbing.

That's a hard game to play just because most of the people that are selling these things are selling bulk / have several and the image is just representative. There's no real telling what exactly you'll get.

Short of getting the Caltex coupons, which people seem to want moon money for, it seems like I have a pretty solid representative set of them at this point.

Yeah. With the coupons and the coins, my Zimbabwe set would pretty much immediately expand to 150 slots with about 140 filled.

The ones I have have been mostly $3.50-5.00 each for nice ones fresh from the book. So, not much. Some ask for $10+ but I just don't buy from them. I would love the "want" option because that would also let me directly incorporate my soon to be 14 coin collection and have everything in one place painlessly. It's a little sad that we've never gotten cross-platform options in the registry. That could lead to some truly epic sets and online presentations for them.