Greetings. There's a lot of stuff in my room just laying around that needs to be put away. Some of those are foreign paper money that had been given to me probably by my sisters. Like with many other things, I had been procrastinating on this one but finally got around to doing it.
I thought that since I'm pulling out my collection, I might as well share some interesting pieces because, after all, I do advertise myself as a collector. Let's start with the victory note that's on the cover image.
This note, with "VICTORY" printed on the back, celebrates the end of World War II and liberation of the Philippines from Japanese occupation.
A note from the provisional occupying government.
Our next piece is another WWII era banknote, the $1 Hawaii note.
Notice the special brown seal (as opposed to the normal green). This one also has "HAWAII" printed on the reverse.
These notes were printed in such a way that if the islands were lost to Japan, they would lose all value and be considered worthless. Notice how it doesn't say "In God We Trust" on the reverse yet.
The phrase was not added until some point in the 1950's.
It's too bad we don't use bills like these today. The blue seal means that you used to be able to take it to a bank and get your money's worth in silver! For that reason they are called silver certificates. There are also gold certificates (with a yellow seal) but I don't own any of those.
Every collection should have a two-dollar bill! Most people keep the ones the bank gives you (new ones with a green seal) for good luck. Red seal notes aren't printed anymore. You could say that this was when money had real value since the red seal meant that it was backed by gold, though you couldn't exchange it for gold.
If you look at the serial number, you might notice a little star. This means that when it was printed, the original note in the sheet must have been defective. It was burned and replaced with a new note with a new serial number (because it is too expensive to recreate the original) and a star. These rare gems are called star notes.
Next are some honorable mentions!
This set of 3 are old notes from China.
This little guy was the whole reason I had to pull out my collection today, haling from Japan.
Those were the highlights of my banknote collection! I hope you enjoyed seeing the old notes and different colors and such.
Thanks for stopping by!