India’s horrible November experience with a paper currency withdrawal provided no wisdom to the bureaucrats of Venezuela, who by all indications, have made their Indian counterparts look good by comparison. Venezuela’s recall and demonetization of its near-worthless 100-bolivar notes, worth 2 cents on the black market, has been a disaster.
One of the biggest hobby stories of 2016 made headlines in the mainstream media for weeks. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, pressured by a massive and long-running social media effort by Women on 20s and others, ordered that abolitionist Harriet Tubman be depicted on the next generation of $20 Federal Reserve note.
Pending parliamentary approval, the Central Bank of Iran will change the official Iranian monetary unit from rial back to toman as it replaces all the nation’s current bank notes with a new currency series.
India's sudden withdrawal of the 500- and 1,000-rupee notes from circulation has been botched so badly that it is destined to become a case study in how not to do a currency withdrawal and replacement.
Viola Desmond, known by many as the Canadian Rosa Parks because of her decision to sit in the whites-only section of a Nova Scotia movie theater in 1946, will be the subject of the next Canadian $10 note.
Adolf Burger, one of the two remaining survivors of Operation Bernhard, the counterfeiting workshop at the Nazi concentration camp in Sachsenhausen, died December 6 in Prague. He was 99. The last survivor of Operation Bernhard is 95-year-old Hans Walter, who lives in Ohio.
Heritage Auctions’ Dec. 7 to 9 world paper currency sale resulted in a total of $1,292,350 (including buyer’s fees) in sales for 1,092 lots. As expected, it was dominated by offerings from Asia.
This Hunkpapa Lakota tribal leader’s portrait appears on the Series 1899 $5 silver certificate, making it probably the most familiar image of a Native American on a piece of U.S. paper money.
The market for good and rare notes is maintaining its momentum, as shown by the results at a recent Lyn Knight auction and the lots available in Heritage’s FUN convention sale in January.
Thanks to the White House press office, the White House Historical Association and Nexus Studios, $1 notes have a new use that is anything but monetary in nature. A free app for Android and iPhone or iPad called “1600” is a new way for Americans of all ages to learn about the president’s house and what happens there.
