Numies & Notes: Then & Now (:

Here I go again, completely missing the new topic. When mipiano says pens, I write about CDs. When she says books, what do I do? Of course, I bring out my collection of old and current banknotes and coins. Always going in the opposite direction. But she won't be mad at me, I know. 🤭

Numismatics, I think that's what collecting old coins is called, right? And when it's more of a general love for different banknotes and coins, old or new, it does not really matter, what would that fall under? Anyway, we do not even have to give it a specific name.

Some of this money is mine. I brought some of it from Bosnia, Croatia, Turkey, Macedonia and other places. Some pieces were given to me as gifts, and some of the older ones were collected by my grandfather, my mom's dad. ❤️

I have also found quite a few old coins in old houses, inside old closets and display cabinets. Everything I came across, I decided to keep and preserve.

When it comes to these banknotes, I am especially fond of the ones with animals on them. They are from Tanzania, brought from Zanzibar by my fiancé's sister when she traveled there two years ago. Aren't they beautifully designed? The colors, the illustrations, the font, everything about them is just lovely.

As I am writing this, I am checking how much they are actually worth. These 2000 and 5000 Tanzanian shillings come out to 79 and 197 Serbian dinars, which is about 0.78 and 1.96 US dollars. Hmm, I would probably get completely confused handling money over there. It would take me at least ten days to get used to it and create some clear calculation system in my head. xD

There are, of course, also Turkish lira, which are especially dear to me, because I love the Turkish language, music, TV series, films… and Istanbul. I often joke that since the Ottomans were in Serbia for five centuries, maybe I have some Turkish roots, too. Then my family tells me not to be silly, saying I am blonde and pale as cheese, so it is more likely that some German people had a role in it. 😁

But not to go too deep into history. These 5 and 50 Turkish lira are about 12 and 115 Serbian dinars, which is roughly 0.11 and 1.14 US dollars. I think I would manage the calculations there much more easily than in Tanzania. When we were in Istanbul a few years ago, if I remember correctly, 1 lira was around 5 or 6 of our dinars.

Now we come to the old Yugoslav banknotes, from what the older generations call a beautiful country that no longer exists. I was born in 1997, so I remember a little bit of the time before Montenegro separated from us. Before that, as part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, there were: Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia.

A million Serbian dinars today would be about 9,957 dollars, but back then, they were basically worthless. The money was printed in billions, yet for 8 billion dinars at the time, you could buy, for example, a single daily newspaper. It is unbelievable… I really cannot even imagine that.

And here are 2 pesos from Argentina and 10 Macedonian denars. These banknotes are especially interesting to me. The Argentine ones feel different because they are somewhat narrower, longer and a bit flimsy under your fingers. The denars are shorter, somewhat plastic-coated, and they have this transparent part near the peacock, if that is actually a peacock. xD

Are you familiar with any of these so far? Have you had the chance to see these banknotes, either in person or maybe online somewhere?

Now we come to the coins. I won't go into much detail here; I'll just let you take a look quietly, without my chatter, and see if anything looks familiar or maybe even if you have something similar in your own collection.

There is even a ŽTP Belgrade token (Railway Transport Enterprise) among all these coins as well as a little smiley coin for a car wash. There are old and new dinars, para, lira, kurus, convertible marks, rubles, forints, euros, cents, francs…

These next ones have always fascinated me whenever I went through this collection, flipping the coins from hand to hand, because they are very light, like a feather… and also easier to lose.

I do not really have that many of these like other people do, but when I start looking closely at all the different coins and the years they are from, I realize it is not such a small treasure after all. 🥰 Holding them in my hands, I can almost feel the journeys they've taken, the people who have used them, and the stories they carry. It's funny how something so small and ordinary can make you feel connected to the past, to different countries, and even to strangers you’ll never meet. Somehow, these little pieces of metal and paper feel priceless.