Monninen1
Joined: 23-Oct-2017
Posts: 887
Posted: 6-Sep-2018, 20:17
#
Posted: 6-Sep-2018, 20:17
#
In history, some weird places have issued coins. Some "states" with about 5000 inhabitants for example. (Please, no fantasy issues)
Here are a few examples of weird ones:
Crimea
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/crimea-1.html
Cocos keeling islands-
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/cocos-1.html
Greenland, thule kap york
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/groenland-3.html#c_groenland6674
Cities such as riga and Turku
Siberia - im still wondering why they struck coins for use in Siberia.
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/siberia-1.html
Do you know some weirder ones?
phfoticus
Joined: 26-May-2017
Posts: 1442
Posted: 6-Sep-2018, 21:30
#
Posted: 6-Sep-2018, 21:30
#
British Antarctic Territory -- I wonder what percentage of these coins ever saw circulation in Antarctica?
Jarcek
Numista team
Joined: 22-Dec-2014
Posts: 12183
Posted: 6-Sep-2018, 21:52
#
Posted: 6-Sep-2018, 21:52
#
Quote: "phfoticus"British Antarctic Territory -- I wonder what percentage of these coins ever saw circulation in Antarctica?
None.
Icenlandic and Greenland mining colonies are very scarce and intriguing. Some weird are medieval cities, which minted only few coins.
Catalogue administrator
Monninen1
Joined: 23-Oct-2017
Posts: 887
Posted: 6-Sep-2018, 22:00
#
Posted: 6-Sep-2018, 22:00
#
Quote: "phfoticus"British Antarctic Territory -- I wonder what percentage of these coins ever saw circulation in Antarctica?
Probably ~0-10.
Siberia coins were minted because of coin shortage. I also learnt that that "Siberia" means "Sleeping land"
neilithicman
Joined: 22-Nov-2017
Posts: 945
Posted: 6-Sep-2018, 22:46
#
Posted: 6-Sep-2018, 22:46
#
Lundy springs to mind.
Dude buys his own island and mints his own coins called the "Puffin"
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/lundy-1.html
What? Me Worry
Monninen1
Joined: 23-Oct-2017
Posts: 887
Posted: 6-Sep-2018, 23:07
#
Posted: 6-Sep-2018, 23:07
#
Quote: "neilithicman"Lundy springs to mind.
Dude buys his own island and mints his own coins called the "Puffin"
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/lundy-1.html
The first micronation to mint coins!
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/corvay_abbey-1.html#c_corvay_abbey3694
These were used in a monastery?
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces127305.html
Then there are the ones used during sieges
CassTaylor
Joined: 30-May-2014
Posts: 8551
Posted: 7-Sep-2018, 00:51
#
Posted: 7-Sep-2018, 00:51
#
Quote: "neilithicman"Lundy springs to mind.
Dude buys his own island and mints his own coins called the "Puffin"
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/lundy-1.html
"Penny" was probably too mainstream for his liking.
If you're bringing Lundy up, I'll introduce the other three micronations issuers; Hutt River, Sealand and Seborga.
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/principality-of-hutt-river-1.html
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/sealand-1.html
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/seborga-1.html
The first two pretty much have the same origin story as Lundy (basically someone's vanity project
), but the veneer of legitimacy conferred on Seborga by history makes the last one more interesting IMO. It was sold to Savoy in 1729, but this sale is disputed by the "secessionists". Read more here:
https://en.numista.com/forum/topic69852.html
Monninen1
Joined: 23-Oct-2017
Posts: 887
Posted: 8-Sep-2018, 20:23
#
Posted: 8-Sep-2018, 20:23
#
January First-of-May
Joined: 10-Apr-2016
Posts: 887
Posted: 8-Sep-2018, 21:25
#
Posted: 8-Sep-2018, 21:25
#
Siberian coins are an interesting story - basically, the copper from the big Siberian mine at the time contained something like 1% silver (plus trace amounts of gold), which was enough to substantially change the official melt value of the resulting copper, but not enough for separation of the silver (and gold) to be sufficiently profitable with mid-18th century technology.
The "solution" was to make special coins from that copper, whose face value was proportional to the official melt value, so for the same face value the coins were somewhat smaller than their mainland Russian counterparts.
Eventually someone figured out that this wasn't actually that good of an idea (it helped that advances in technology finally made extracting that 1% of silver profitable), and the issue of special Siberian coins stopped (though the Suzun mint that used to make them continued operation, now making regular-issue Russian coinage, for the next several decades; I don't recall when exactly they finally closed down, but they did make it to at least the 1840s).
Monninen1
Joined: 23-Oct-2017
Posts: 887
Posted: 8-Sep-2018, 21:31
#
Posted: 8-Sep-2018, 21:31
#
Quote: "January First-of-May"Siberian coins are an interesting story - basically, the copper from the big Siberian mine at the time contained something like 1% silver (plus trace amounts of gold), which was enough to substantially change the official melt value of the resulting copper, but not enough for separation of the silver (and gold) to be sufficiently profitable with mid-18th century technology.
The "solution" was to make special coins from that copper, whose face value was proportional to the official melt value, so for the same face value the coins were somewhat smaller than their mainland Russian counterparts.
Eventually someone figured out that this wasn't actually that good of an idea (it helped that advances in technology finally made extracting that 1% of silver profitable), and the issue of special Siberian coins stopped (though the Suzun mint that used to make them continued operation, now making regular-issue Russian coinage, for the next several decades; I don't recall when exactly they finally closed down, but they did make it to at least the 1840s).
Thanks for sharing the story! That is interesting.