Saturday, November 24, 2012

Singapore's 1916 Christmas Buys

Wow.............the spirit of Christmas is in the air already! How time really flies since my last article in June..............


Ever wondered what can you buy in 1916 for $10.00.....................................

 
The correct Currency Commissioners' names are Frederick Seton James, Arthur Meek Pountney and Charles James Saunders and not what some so called experts perceived.
 
 
Managed to acquire this piece a couple of months back for a "song".........I really had to sing to pacify me missus that paying a few thousand Singapore dollars was not an act of insanity!!


Well, these are a few things that having $10.00 during Christmas time in 1916 can buy:



 

 



These advertisements were extracted from various December 1916 newspapers
 
 
Happy Memories and Wishing A Very Merry Christmas and Prosperous 2013 New Year to you folks out there...................till 2013 then.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Plastic Fantastic ~ Singapore's Only $50 Polymer

How Singapore started her journey into the world of literally plastic money, starting with these articles from The Straits Times dated June 14, 1990........................................






The long anticipated date of release, July 24 1990,  finally arrived......................






The commemorative note comes with these envelope and deluxe folder:


envelope cover


front of deluxe folder

internal face of deluxe folder

back of deluxe folder





This pamphlet was not issued with the commemorative note but was available over various bank counters...............wonder how many collectors knew about it and managed to collect them too. Could this end up to be a more valuable collector's item than the note itself ? (wishful thinking )



and finally the commemorative notes.......................................................................ta rah!!


Whatttt......................errors already!!!


Yuupp..........look at the notes carefully and see if you can find the error!
(for the benefit of those who hates solving puzzles................................. the commemorative date of  '9 August 1990' is missing in the second consective note.....Major Error I would say)


The reverse face of the banknote:

 

                                    The rest of my commemorative collections:




  





This special serial numbered note was sold in an auction complete with the commemorative envelope and sticker label. 






These are some of the 4.8million pieces meant for circulation............ I wonder where.............NEVER seen any in circulation except............






     What again.......... another major error ........can spot the error?  This time you go spot it!


 
These notes with J prefix were printed as replacement notes(to replace error notes that have been spotted during the printing process and removed before delivery to the currency board).

The peculiar thing about these notes is that almost all have been folded with at least three creases and looks like that have been used around a long time in circulation.

I wonder how come...............does any one have the answer



Wahhhh....even the replacement notes have errors too.....this type of error is called reverse image wet ink transfers.


Another classic reverse wet ink transfers.............................



 this time it concerns the serial numbers appearing on the reverse of this replacement note.


Whew! at last.....................................THE END!


Oh! wait will these be the only plastic Singapore $50 ?

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Multiples of Brunei 1973 Second Series Specimen Banknote ??



This specimen banknote A/3 000000 was recently acquired from a Malaysian collector, don't know whether it was from the set which came from a 1995 Spink auction in Singapore:
Extracted from Spink Singapore Auction catalog of June 1995

  Coincidently, my newly acquired specimen banknote also matches the template banknote in prefixes and serial numbers with Steven Tan's latest 19th edition catalog and goes all the way back to my first catalog from him, the 8th edition from 1987:

19th Edition

                                                                           8th Edition

 Extracted from the Standard Catalogue of Malaysia-Singapore-Brunei Coins & Paper Money with kind courtesy and permission from Steven Tan.

Question: Are there multiples of these type of Specimen banknotes bearing the same prefix with zero numbers? Can anyone help provide the answer?

Saturday, January 14, 2012

New Year Greetings again..............................

Wishing all my Chinese friends and fellow collectors...............................................................  
                              
                             A  Very, Very Prosperous and Happy Chinese New Year!
                       May you get the banknotes you want at a bargain and sell with reasonable gains!!



This ang pow has a picture of a 1961 $10 'duit kerbau' banknote with a so called Chinese auspicious serial numbers. A stack of it was recently given to us by a friend, who had kept it for a long time.I wonder who printed this ang pow and whether are there any no other ang pows depicting banknotes? Anyone care to share?


Recently, I managed to acquire this serial number A/1, 1961 $10 'duit kerbau'............after selling my only A/1 AU piece to a good friend many, many 'donkey' or "kerbau" years ago for peanuts as they say..........S$35.00 YES!YES......S$35, Singapore Thirty Five dollars. This piece cost me more than 10 times of what I sold for!


Was it worth it? You tell me..................





Another very interesting point that I want to share with fellow collectors................

At the last Mavin International auction the following set was put up for bidding and the reserve price was S$75,000.00 (about RM183,750.00)

and sadly for the owner it was not sold, thereby probably costing him to pay auctioneer fees of about S$3,750.00 (may have cried lah! ...having to pay the commission for nothing)



Now the interesting part...............................roll back about 23 years to the year 1989 and this what it is all about:


An international coin & paper money auction & exposition "NUMISMEX '89" jointly organised by Merit Direct Marketing P/L and Spex P/L  held an auction at The Oriental Hotel Singapore on 31st August, and this very same set was put up for bidding with a reserve price of US$500.00 and sold for US$1,400.00 + 10% commission ( about S$3,350 or RM9,000....1989 exchange rate)............now I want to cry lah!! so cheap, cheap, cheap!! don't know how to bid!

So the moral of the story or article?

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Belated Happy New Year!

            A very Belated Happy New Year, 2012 again to all my friends and collectors out there!


This year began well for me as I managed to get a rare signed banknote from an American dealer, this particular note was mentioned in my last blog article.................





and only just yesterday, an uncut piece of this banknote graded by PCGS as NEW 61,




was sold for:  


This translates to about SGD6,350.00 or about MYR15,360.00, and in the mid 1990s a better piece of this series of uncut sheet was going for about SGD800.00.

May this piece of good news bring cheer and happiness to all banknote collectors that the banknote market is alive and well despite all the depressing world current economic situtation.