Bhutan The Word's Happiest Country

In the current global Covid-19 pandemic, there are many peoples in the world caught in stressful emotion due to their financial condition as many economy activities need to be stop due to the social distancing measurement that need to carry out to break the chain of the virus infection.

Bhutan is a very unique country that first adopt Gross National Happiness  (GNH) in the world, more about GNH can be found in the Wikipedia link here. Although in the recent year ranking for the most happiest country, Bhutan is not in the top list, but the country is taking the crown before.

In the current world condition, I think many have to learn about the lifestyle of Bhutan to have some inner peace for oneself, I'm not really a vegan, but I think the vegan culture in Bhutan also play some big role in their happiness index.

Photo from internet show the King of Bhutan together with Queen and Prince, and the commemorative banknotes issued in 2016 to commemorate the birth of Prince Bhutan.

Series of China Commemorative Banknotes

This commemorative banknotes issued in 1999 is to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of People's Republic of China, it features Chairman Mao reading "China Resurrected" on 01-01-1949 in Tiananmen, Peking.

This piece of commemorative banknotes issued on 2000 to celebrate the new millennium. With vibrant red and orange hues, this "dragon" note has great eye appeal.

This commemorative banknotes issued on 2008 in conjunction with the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic, this is the smallest denomination commemorative banknotes issued in China so far, but at the time of writing, it carry highest market value compare to other China commemorative banknotes. Feature with the design of the Olympic main stadium where they call it "Bird Nest".

This commemorative banknotes issued on 2015 to celebrates first China Aerospace Day. This was a way to annouce future space exploration and as well as honour China's pioneers on space travel. Feature with very unique satellite design.

This commemorative banknotes issued on 2018 is to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of renminbi.

The Beauty of the Straits Settlement One Dollar Coin

One of the charming view of the Straits Settlement One Dollar coin is its reverse side of coin, which have the total of 3 languages of the denomination letter struck at this side of coin, the denomination of one dollar is shown in English, Chinese and Jawi, even in the British Trade Dollar which the reverse side have about the similar design, their English denomination is putting at the obverse side.

In this post, I'm showing the obverse side of the 1907 Straits Settlement One Dollar coin, which the design is portrait of King Edward VII with the crowned bust facing right, which is the master piece of the engraver George William de Saullers, and for different year you may found Straits Settlement coin with different portrait like Queen Victoria and King George V which both of coin is design as such crowned bust facing left. But there are no one dollar Straits Settlement coin with Queen Victoria portrait which at that era of time the one dollar is using the paper money design.

Commemorative Coins of the Installation of His Majesty Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong XVI

On the 1st August 2019, Bank Negara Malaysia in a press release announce that the issuance of Commemorative coin in conjuncti on with the Installation of His Majesty Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong XVI Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah Ibni Almarhum Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah Al-Musta'in Billah as the sixteenth Yang di-Pertuan Agong on 30th July 2019.

The details on the issuance can be found in the Bank Negara website here.

In this post it is to show some interesting process on the making of this coin.

In one exhibition held at Sasana Kijang Bank Negara recently, on of the column have show the simple process on the making of this coin, in the above photo, there are numbering below each item with the below description.

1. Coin dies for production of silver commemorative coins
Coin dies are the tool for the coins minting. There are two faces of die, observe and reserve

2. Silver Coin Blanks and Nordic Gold Coin Blanks
Coin blank is a disc-shaped metal used to produce a coin. Upon striking process, the image from coin dies will be transferred onto the coin blanks.

Clay
In designing the YDPA  Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah Ibni Almarhum Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah Al-Musta'in Billah commemorative coin, an experienced Coin Designer will properly handcraft the clay, i.e. into the muskat, head-dress and portrait of the YDPA. The clays will be scanned to produce digital files. With using software, the digital file of muskat, head-dress and portrait will then be combined to carve a master dies.

3. Muscat Clay

4. Head-dress clay

5. Clay portrait of YDPA  Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri'ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah Ibni Almarhum Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah Al-Musta'in Billah clay

6. The approved image of YDPA

1903 Straits Settlements One Dollar

One may found that the 1903 Straits Settlements One Dollar coin have 2 types of mintmark, which they call it incuse mintmark and another is raised mintmark.

The mintmark stated is a letter B that found near the crown of the King Edward VII portrait, so why they have this 2 kind of mintmark, first let us have a look how the raised mintmark looks like, here is a photo from the Heritage Auction website which they have the high resolution photo that we can zoom to the crown mintmark area and you can see the letter B mintmark is as below photo.

And I get another high resolution photo from Great Collection website, which we can zoom in to the letter B near the crown and it is looks like the below photo.

So why they have this 2 types of mintmark, which I can't really find a support story in this coin history from Google, but there are one collector mention that originally this coin is mint in raised mintmark version, but after that due to public complaint that the mintage company mintmark should not be a raised type which make it looks like more important than the crown which symbol the Royal status, so the mintage company have to change the mintage version to incuse B mintmark on this reason. But this is just the story I heard which I still can't found any supporting source, if any numismatic have the story behind this mintmark, you are welcome to put it under the comment.

Commemorative note celebrates the 500th anniversary of the discovery of Brazil

Sometime it is interesting to learn some history when you enjoying numismatic, do you know that Brazil is discovered by a Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral back to 22nd April 1500, it is already 520 years back, and on the year 2000, Brazil had issued a commemorative banknotes to celebrates the 500th anniversary of the discovery of Brazil, this note is featuring at the PMG note of the month article which publish on 21st April 2020, the PMG article can be found here.

VOC Silver Duit Coin

VOC is a big and famous company during 17th century, which they call it Dutch East India Company, whereby VOC is their Dutch name of Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, I'm first come across the name of VOC is when I read about the well-known history of "Tulip Mania" which the story did mention VOC many times.

At that particular era, Dutch, like British also had colonize a very big part of world, so they also have their very own coinage history for each place they had been colonize before. The VOC Coinage history can be found here, and the coin they produce which they call it "Duit" at that time, the Duit history can be found here.

Recently found an interesting introduction on this VOC Silver Duit in a Facebook numismatic group. The author had mention that in Malaysia and Singapore, we normally found the Duit is copper coin, and the Silver Duit is later brought it to here from foreign country.

When the VOC Silver Duit appear, numismatic collector have many type of suggestion on this coin, some think it is proof coin, some think it is specimen and some think it is normal circulation coin, this is because NGC and PCGS is grading those coin as MS, only a few of them is getting SP (Specimen) grade.

Recently the author check the PCGS population , and found that PCGS is amending some of the MS graded VOC Silver Duit to SP, and furthermore PCGS had included a special note of "Ag Presentation" which clearly mean this Silver Duit is not the normal circulation coin.

Sarawak 1953 One Dollar

In my very personal view, the design of 1935 Sarawak One Dollar is consider one of the most beautiful design for the one dollar paper money issued before the independence of Malaysia, which compare to the Strait Settlement and Malaya one dollar paper money.

As a numismatic lover, I still can't afford to have a piece of this one dollar even in fine condition type, this very high graded piece of photo is found in the Heritage Auction website, can let us have a close look at it, it is simply the master piece in that era of time.

It also have the 1929 variant which have the similar design but in purple and orange colour, and the 1940 variant which is same design and same green, mauve and orange colour as you seen in the photo.

China 1980 2 Yuan with PMG Chinese word label

PMG will always provide certain special label with special logo for certain theme of commemorative banknotes, for a Chinese word that appear in the first PMG label, it is said to be the variety of the 1980 China 2 Yuan, with word of 荧光之王 and 绿钻 appearing on the label.

From the below photo from PMG website, you may found there are quite a lot of variety in 1980 China 2 Yuan, those with Chinese word label is the one with pick 885af where the "f" is stand for florescence.

PMG news article can be found for this subject in the link here for English article, and here for article wrote in Chinese.

Morgan Coin Dollar

The USA Morgan Dollar coin is one of the numismatic lover choice of collection, even in Malaysia market, the serious coin collector will have some pieces of this Morgan Dollar coin in their collection, for newbies that who wish start with this coin, they may found the price range of this coin may be very wide, and what is the guide to check if they don't over paid for one coin.

Basically most of the Morgan Dollar coin is uncirculated, and the issue year range is from 1878 to 1921, with minted in 5 different cities, which each have their unique mint mark, the price of one coin will be depend on if the year of issued is key date or not? The mint city like the mint mark CC on a Morgan Dollar which mean it mint at Carson City will have higher value than other mint mark, and of course the higher grading point will be good value added.

Wikipedia have a very details of the history of this coin which you can found here.

And the price guide you may check at the PCGS website here or at the NGC website here.

Personally I also like a website call Coin Study which they introduce this coin in the link here.

Photo source is from NGC website.

Happy World Table Tennis Day

6th April is the official World Table Tennis day, as a table tennis fan, I'm wishing all table tennis fan a very happy World Table Tennis day, although this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic which cause all the celebration need to be cancel and obtain social distancing at the moment, I wish to celebrate it by sharing the commemorative coin issued by Bank Negara Malaysia in 2016 in conjunction with the World Team Table Tennis Championship organized by Malaysia that year.

Those coin specification and issue quantity info can be found at the Bank Negara website here.

Malaysia RM60 and RM600 Commemorative Banknote

One the 14th December 2017, Bank Negara Malaysia had announce that they will issue the RM60 and RM600 commemorative banknote in conjunction with the 60th Anniversary of the Signing of the Federation of Malaya Independence Agreement, this issuing is making the headlines of every local numismatic collector, for those who may not know the history, issuing quantity and specification of this banknotes, you may visit the link here for more details.

And the RM600 banknotes obtain the crown of largest banknote in the world by the Guinness World Records, here is the link on the Guinness World Record website.

And for those who like the banknotes to be certified and grade by PMG, you may found their grading point population as below link,

For RM60 PMG grading population, the link is here.

For RM600 PMG grading population, the link is here.

And last but not least, there are 3 in 1 uncut sheet for RM60, which the PMG grading population is under the column of 57a at the link for the RM60 PMG grading population link.

Is it a last million number error note or a specimen note?

In the coming Monetarium Auction to be carry out on 4th April 2020, under the lot 548, is featuring a piece of Malaysia 6th series ND (1986) One Ringgit, with the prefix serial number CC0000000, those who have the interest on this note can found the bidding link here.

The question is now we consider this piece of banknote a specimen banknote or a last million number error banknote?

Normally a specimen banknote have a specimen mark on the note, and normally it will carry the first prefix in this case may be AA, but CC prefix is consider the middle prefix, so collector are guessing if this consider the last million serial number that print in error without the number "1" in it?

This may be very interesting topic to study but at the moment I don't have any idea or good answer for this question, those who interested on this banknote can click the link in first paragraph to proceed for the bidding, any you may browse other item in that auction to check if there are any collectable items suit your interest.