Sorry about the scarcity of blog posts … I have been working on the Real Banknotes website for quite a while and, with the exception of China, all banknotes, values, and nearly 10,000 images have been added. I don’t know when I’m going to get a chance to take a crack at the listings for China, but I’m quite happy to have gotten to this point.

Anyways, a little while back I was on a Canadian banknote binge. I paid quite a few dollars for quite a few banknotes. One of the last that I purchased from that country was a two dollar bill from 1923, featuring Edward the Prince of Wales: pick 34e. Ofcourse, Edward ended up king and was featured on the entire 1937 series of Canadian paper money. However, this banknote is from when his father, George V was still running the show. Anyways, this banknote is only in VG condition, but at least I didn’t pay an arm and a leg for it.

Canadian $2 dollar bill from 1923 featuring Edward, the Prince of Wales

I recently purchased a banknote that I cannot identify. I bought it for $7.64 on eBay, but cannot figure out the pick number. I’m thinking its a special issue Russian banknote, but you can never be sure with those Russian occupied states. Can anyone help me out? What pick number is this note? Was $7.64 a good deal?

Unknown Russian paper money from 1919: 10,000 Rubles

I don’t actually possess very many banknotes from Thailand, though they are quite readily available on eBay. Maybe that’s what inspired me to spend a few of bucks on this 1975 500 Baht banknote, featuring (as always) King Rama IX wearing some traditional Thai robes. The banknote was listed as scarce, though I call bullsh*t on that, as an uncirculated version is only worth $20 as per the Krause catalog (2008 edition). For more values for this banknote go here (values near the bottom of the page).

Thailand p86a: 500 Baht from 1975

The French Antilles are described as three ‘French overseas departments’ made up of Guiana, Guadeloupe, and Martinique which issued a common currency from 1961-1975. All of these banknotes seem to always be in F condition or worse, so I wasn’t too concerned when I saw this one. My winning bid was $30.99, which is pretty par-for-the-course as far as this ‘country’ is concerned. It seems as though all of these banknotes are quite valued, regardless of condition.

French Antilles 1 Nouveaux Franc from 1961 (p1)

Prior to the 1945 Dollar Issue of Ethiopian banknotes the currency was entitled the Thaler, no doubt an Africanized version of the word dollar. The denominations ranged from 2 Thalers to 500 Thalers, with 100 Thalers being the second highest denomination. Quite to my surprise my bid was a winner on eBay, and I ended up landing the famous ‘Elephant note’ from Ethiopia. I have yet to see a 500 Thaler banknote up for auction on eBay, so I am very happy to have this second highest denomination as part of my collection. Definitely a huge investment potential in this one. As a matter of fact, the seller contacted me after the fact, and told me, in a sportsmanlike manner, that he was quite disappointed with the closing bid because he had just see a similar banknote sell for nearly eight times what I had paid for it at a banknote auction.

Ethiopia p10: 100 Thalers from 1932