Social studies is the most unusual money in the world. The most unusual money. The most unusual in terms of material

Money accepted in modern society is not always coins and banknotes. Many nations still use wooden boards or metal plates as currency.

Unusual paper money

Disney dollars

wine money

The fact that wine labels are used instead of accepted money in Yakutia became known thanks to Maxim Gorky’s essay “About the Unit”, in which the author shared his impressions about this original currency - colored labels from such wines as Sherry, Cahors, Madera, Port wine, on which Semyonov put the seal of the People's Commissariat of Finance and signed the face value.

Tribute to the footballer

The most unusual coins

Paradise flavors

Butterfly from Cameroon

Silver pyramid

guitars

Ural owl

Dinosaur skeleton

The Sistine Chapel

Money of unusual shapes and sizes

Rai Stones

It would seem that the times of beads and mirrors as banknotes are long gone, but is it really so?

In the paradise of the Pacific Ocean, on the island of Yap in Micronesia, locals use huge stone disks with a hole in the middle as money. Their diameter ranges from 1.5-6 m. The value of such a banknote is determined by its size, as well as by how many people suffered during the transportation of the stone.

The fact is that there are no such stones on their native island, so local residents have to canoe to the neighboring island of Palau, where there are still a lot of stone disks, and deliver “money” home.

Inhabitants Palau watch this process with irony, rejoicing that they have their own currency and do not have to work so hard to get it.

Disney dollars

These are the favorite banknotes of all children. They are only used in Disney theme parks, resorts and cruise ships. The value of the Disney dollar, created back in 1987, is equated to the value of the US dollar.

Coins of Africa: Kissi money

Some peoples of West Africa until the twentieth century used twisted iron sticks 33-36 cm long. They were called kissi-penny and were often used during funeral ceremonies.

Obviously, such money was not very valuable, because it was often used in whole matings. A cow, for example, cost 100 bundles of 20 twigs .

The most big coin on the ground

Until 2011, the largest coin in the world was a Canadian coin worth 1 million Canadian dollars. It weighs 100 kg and is 99.9% pure gold.

But in October 2011, the Australians surpassed the Canadians. A giant Australian coin issued by the Partha Mint weighs over a ton. The thickness of the golden beauty is 12 cm, the diameter reaches 80 cm.

The smallest coin in the world

Silver quarter Tara Vijayanagara in India is the smallest coin on Earth. The tiny coin is 4mm in diameter and weighs only 1.7g.

The amazing money of Somalia

In Somalia, instead of coins, they use these geometric figures of a cone (water), a ball (earth), a pyramid (fire), a cylinder (wood) and a cube (metal).

This country is famous for other unusual coins in the form of cars, guitars and motorcycles.

Rare fiber coins

Due to the war in 1944-1945, metal reserves rapidly decreased in Japan. Therefore, some coins were made from red and brown cardboard-like material.

In the city of Moose Jo in Canada, after the First World War, they used ... wooden money. At that time, metal was such a rarity that money was issued in the cities from the most accessible materials, including wooden planks.

The Mongolian 500 tugrik coin depicting US President John F. Kennedy has a small button. By clicking on it, you can hear the historical phrase of the President: « I'm proud to be a Berliner! »

In one of the smallest countries in the world - the state of Palau in 2007 they released unusual coin. This is a silver dollar depicting the Virgin Mary holding a small vial of holy water from a holy site in Lourdes, France.

These round coins made of heavy-duty plastic depict the planets of the solar system. Such strange money was made at the National Space Center and the University of Leicester specifically for space tourists.

In many countries of our planet, the usual paper and metal money has not yet taken root. It would seem that the times of beads and mirrors as monetary units have long since passed, but is it really so?)

Earlier we already talked about the Most Unusual Money and the Most Beautiful Money in the World, today you will learn about the strangest examples of currency that have ever been bailed and even still used. So, in 10th place in terms of strangeness among modern and not very currencies are the Vietnamese Green Marks. With this money, the Vietnamese cannot pay for everything they want, they can only buy some specific things. The whole catch is that on the edges of each banknote there are special tear-off coupons that the owner can only exchange for the thing that is indicated on them. For example, if the Green Mark is issued for the purchase of clothes, then only trousers, coats, socks, etc. can be bought for tear-off coupons, and a strictly defined number of them is given for each item.

The 9th line is occupied by the only wooden money in the world - centennials, which at one time were used in the town of Moose-Jo in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. This method of printing money was used by the Germans after the First World War, who tried with all their might to raise the Reichsbank from oblivion and pay colossal compensation to the affected countries. In fact, at that time the Germans printed money on everything, but the most unusual material was still wood.

On the 8th place is the Lewis pound - it was in this English town at one time that the enterprising mayor Michael Chartier was in power, who decided to create an internal currency to promote the small traditional shops of the city, which he simply called the Lewis pound. With such money, local residents could pay for any goods and pay any bills within the city. The city of Brixton in South London followed suit only a year later with the creation of the local Brixton pound.

On the 7th line is one of the strongest currencies in the world - the Disney dollar, the value of which is equal to the US dollar. However, $1, $5, $10, and $50 denominations can only be used at Disney theme parks, resorts, cruise ships, and Disney's private island, Castaway Cay. The currency was created in May 1987

The 6th place on our list is occupied by the Chilean peso, which today will not turn out to be either strange or unusual, but if we return to the not-so-distant 2008, everything falls into place and the peso becomes, if not unusual, then at least a ridiculous currency. The thing is that it was then, in 2008, that the minters made a terrible mistake by writing the name of the country with an error - as a result, 50 million coins with the inscription Republic of Chii (Republica de Chiie) got into circulation.

5th place is occupied by "recycled money" of the Caribbean countries. No, this does not mean that they are made from recycled paper or recycled materials. What then is their "recycling"? The answer must be sought in the middle of the 19th century, when the Caribbean islands, for lack of their own currency, began to melt foreign coins and to mint their own from the resulting metal - that's where they got such an unusual name from. The most unusual "recycled money" was in use in the Dominican Republic - in the center of each coin there was a hole in the shape of a heart

On the 4th line is the Cosmic Pound Sterling - a currency that has never been used on Earth and is still waiting for our technologies to develop sufficiently to become a single space currency in the future, designed to withstand the loads of space travel: "coins" have no sharp corners and are created they are from substances that are absolutely harmless to the human body. The Space Pound was developed by scientists at the National Space Center and the University of Leicester as an alternative to electronic money transfers, which would become impossible in space.

In 2nd place is the silver dollar of the Palau Islands, issued in 2007. It was then that one of the smallest countries in the world made its own currency a bit unconventional. The authorities have issued a silver dollar with the image of the Virgin Mary and a tiny tank containing holy water from the Grotto in Lourdes (France). The following year, a second series of coins was issued to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Apparition of the Virgin Mary in the Grotto.

So, we finally got to the strangest currency. On the 1st line, the huge Rai Stones of the Solomon Island of Yap are firmly entrenched and do not want to move anywhere. It is surprising that in the 21st century, someone still continues to use money, which was first used at the dawn of the market, but the islanders of Yap do use large stone disks with a hole in the middle as a currency, the value of which is determined by the size and, most importantly, by the how many people died in the process of transporting the stone to the island

The fact is that there are no such stones on their native island, so local residents have to canoe to the neighboring island of Palau, where there are still a lot of stone discs, and deliver "money" home

The inhabitants of Palau themselves are watching this process ironically, rejoicing in their hearts that they have their own currency and they don’t have to bend so hard trying to get it) Well, at least there is no capitalism on the island of Yap and the country remains immune to inflation, otherwise the islanders would have to to mine the Rai Stones of ever larger sizes...

The largest and heaviest coin

The largest coin in terms of face value and size is one million dollars, created by artist Stanley Witten. It is made of the purest 999.99 gold and minted by the Bank of Canada by order of the Royal Mint. On one side of the coin is a portrait of the head of Canada, Queen Elizabeth II, on the other side - a maple leaf. Each coin was made by hand for up to eight weeks. The weight of the coin is about 100 kilograms, or rather 99.95 kilograms or 221 pounds, the diameter is 20 inches or 50.8 cm, the thickness is 1 inch or 2.5 cm. Before it was made, the coin from Austria was considered the heaviest denomination of 100,000 euros, the weight of which was 31.1 kilograms. 15 coins were issued and they were distributed among collections in less than a month. African wooden coins

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in 2005, the first wooden (maple) coin was made, which is the official means of payment. The value of the coin is 5 francs. It depicts a gorilla and is written in French "Let's protect the animal world." The weight of the coin is 2.4 grams, the diameter is 40 mm.
The smallest and lightest coin in the world

This 1/4 Jawa silver coin was issued in Nepal in 1740. Its mass is only 0.002 grams.
The smallest banknote

The Romanian 10 bani, printed at the beginning of the 20th century, is considered the smallest banknote in the world. It was issued in 1917 by the Romanian Ministry of Finance. The 10 bani banknote measured 27.5 by 38 millimeters.

The largest paper banknote

The 1 guan note was issued between 1368 and 1399 by the Ming Dynasty in China. It measures 23 by 33 cm, which is larger than an A4 sheet. And the largest modern banknote is a denomination issued in 2007 in Thailand. It consists of three banknotes in denominations of one, five and ten baht, united by one payment sheet, the size of which is 147 by 228 mm. This banknote, in addition, is the largest current banknote of 16 baht, which is still legal tender.
The most expensive coin in the world

The $20 double gold eagle coin was issued in 1933. Immediately after the cessation of its release, the previously sold coins were bought from the population for a price 2.5 times more than the face value. All coins were redeemed, except for three pieces. Two are now in the museum, the third was stolen and nothing was known about it for a long time. Only in 1996 did the coin surface from a private Egyptian collector. In 2008, the coin was sold at an auction in New York for $7,590,000 to a buyer who wished to remain anonymous.
The largest banknote in the world

This is the Hungarian banknote issued after World War II - the sextillion (billion trillion) Hungarian pengő of 1946. Pengyo, the currency of Hungary from 1945 to 1946, "marked" the highest inflation rate in the entire history of the circulation of banknotes.
The largest current denomination in terms of its purchasing power

This is a $10,000 bill issued since the end of the 19th century. Of course, these banknotes, which have been printed since the 80s of the 19th century, then had an incredibly large purchasing power, several tens of times higher than now. But even today, more than a hundred years later, these banknotes, which have already depreciated many times over, still have the greatest purchasing power on Earth. True, this bill is a means of payment only in the United States.
The largest banknote in terms of purchasing power for domestic settlements of the country

It's £1 million. The banknote is currently out of circulation. It was printed for making calculations within the Bank of England. To date, only 2 such banknotes are in private collectors. Its auction price for 2008 was £78,000. But the 100,000 US dollar bill is still used today. It is valid only in settlements between banks, the US Treasury and the Fed. The bill is not for sale to collectors.
The most beautiful coin

The most beautiful on the planet is the Mexican coin, issued in 2005 from silver with images of the national coat of arms of Mexico and the calendar of the Aztec tribe. The decision to assign this status to the coin was made by members of the World Conference of Mints, which was held in May 2008 in South Korea. The value of the coin is not specified. This outlandish coin attracted the attention of the jury not only with its amazing beauty, but also with the complexity of the execution technique. Indeed, it is very difficult to depict the Aztec monolith “Stone of the Sun” weighing 24 tons, which is also called the “calendar”, in all details on a small coin.
Stamps-money

These are non-postage stamps, the purpose of which is to replace change coin in its absence. First issued in the United States during the North-South War of 1861-1865. Sometimes they were used as postage stamps, but this happened rarely. Usually on reverse side stamps-money adhesive layer is missing. And in Russia, a real boom in the issue of stamps-money fell on the years of the First World War and the Civil War.

But in the Principality of Monaco, stamps are still issued, which are accepted as a means of payment. This is due to the fact that internal mail is free there, and postage stamps are only used when we are talking about external correspondence.
Morzhovki

This is the colloquial name of checks issued by the Arkhangelsk branch of the State Bank in 1918 - 1920 and served as a means of payment in the Northern Region. In relation to the pound sterling, Arkhangelsk checks had a rate of 40 rubles per 1 pound.

The need for local banknotes was caused by an acute shortage of credit notes with a face value of less than 500 rubles. To solve this problem, in February 1918, the State Bank issued official permission to issue banknotes of 3, 5, 10 and 25 rubles. Walruses got their common name thanks to the images of a polar bear and a walrus among the snow and ice floes on the front side of a twenty-five-rouble check, which differed from other checks in its large size.
Siamese silver bullet coins

They were produced in Thailand, formerly called the country of Siam, one of the most powerful states in Indochina, from 1782 to 1868.

Bullets were used in Thailand instead of money until the end of the 19th century. Such coins were made by bending a small ingot of silver into a ball, on which the name of the king who issued the coin and the name of the dynasty to which he belonged were minted. 1 coin weighs about 15 grams, its diameter is about 14 mm.
colored coins

Most often, colored coins are issued for collectors. But there are similar banknotes that serve as a means of payment. So, in 2004, the Canadian Mint issued about 30 million silver coins 25 cents, in the middle of which a red poppy is depicted against a background of a maple leaf. The coins were issued in honor of the 117,000 Canadians who died during World War II. Indeed, in Canada, the poppy is a symbol of memory.

In 2006, Canada minted the second issue of colored coins. The 25 cent coin was intended to raise awareness about breast cancer. The reverse of the coin contains an image of a pink ribbon in the center. The obverse depicts Queen Elizabeth.
oval coins

Most farthings made of copper from the time of the kings of England, James I (1566-1625) and Charles I (1600 - 1649) were oval in shape. These extraordinarily light coins, 15 mm long, served as change money from 1534 to 1700.

But such money was common not only in Europe. Before the currency of Japan was called the yen, the coins of this island nation had oval, rectangular and other shapes. One of them, Koban - gold coin period of the Edo period, was equal to one tenth of an oban. Yes, and the yen, as you know, got its name because appearance coins that have round shape because “en” means “round” in Japanese.
Wine money of Yakutia

Wine labels after the October Revolution played the role of money in Yakutia in 1919-1921. They were issued by Alexei Semenov, who later became the People's Commissariat for Finance of the republic.
The history of the creation of this money is quite interesting. In pre-revolutionary Russia, wine was bottled without labels, they were issued separately, as a confirmation of the quality of the drink. Therefore, for the illiterate population of Yakutia, the multi-colored pieces of paper that Semenov found in one local warehouse fit perfectly. The authenticity of the banknotes was confirmed by the painting and seal of Alexei Semenov.

We are used to the fact that banknotes are just banknotes, a tool to pay in cafes, shops and gas stations. Sometimes, against the backdrop of another popular vote for a new banknote design, curiosity awakens in us, and we begin to consider what is depicted on them (in a normal situation, the eye is blurred and it is not interesting to study banknotes). Something similar sometimes happens during a trip abroad: once in a new country for yourself and having received a portion of banknotes in an exchanger, sometimes you involuntarily freeze with the thought: “Wow, how unusual!” "Around the World" tells about the most interesting banknotes in the world.

The largest banknote

RM600

The fight for the right to be called the largest denomination in the world is unfolding in Asia. For 19 years since 1998, the note of 100 thousand Philippine pesos (22 by 33 cm) has been the leader in measurements. But in December 2017, Malaysia decided to celebrate its independence anniversary by printing a 600 ringgit banknote, which turned out to be even larger (22 by 37 cm). Its face value in translation into our money is about 10 thousand rubles. The world's largest banknote depicts the rulers of independent Malaysia since 1957.

The smallest banknote

50 Moroccan centimes

For some reason, this record is considered less prestigious. In any case, in modern world no country seeks to stand out by issuing the tiniest banknote. The championship has been held by Morocco since 1944 with a banknote of fifty centimes the size of postage stamp(42 by 31 mm). Nevertheless, its creators were not too lazy and made a full-fledged design for the banknote with the image of the Moorish citadel - the Kasbah of Uday. Before the introduction of the Moroccan banknote, the smallest denomination was 10 Romanian bani, printed in 1913.

most valuable banknote

10,000 Brunei dollars

The competition “who will issue the most valuable banknote” is something like a friendly derby, like Dynamo and CSKA in football. Here, fellow rivals are Brunei and Singapore. They actively trade with each other, train soldiers together, and even have almost the same currency. In 1967, the countries entered into an agreement to establish a constant exchange rate: one Brunei dollar for one Singaporean. This rule is still in effect, so there is a certain difficulty in choosing the most valuable banknote, because a 10 thousand dollar bill exists in each of the countries. However, despite the one-to-one rule, the Brunei dollar is valued a little more on the international market.

The most beautiful banknote according to IBNS

10 Swiss francs

Every year the international banknote community (International Bank Note Society, IBNS) selects the most interesting banknote in terms of design. This is its own beauty contest among money. In April 2018, experts IBNS named the best banknote of 2017. The winning country was Switzerland with a vertically oriented 10 franc note. On one side of it there is a hand holding a conductor's baton and time zones, on the back - a Swiss watch mechanism and a railway tunnel, laid through the Alps from Switzerland to Italy.

First IBNS Contest Winner

20 Canadian dollars

The first winner of the competition IBNS in 2004 it became the 20 Canadian dollar note. They are notable for the fact that Elizabeth II is depicted on one of its backs. The Queen of England is one of the most popular characters whose portraits are often printed on money. And many collectors strive to collect all such banknotes. Experts IBNS thought that another queen is good. On the reverse side is a totem - the spirit of the Haida tribe, the Indians who lived on the west coast of North America.

The first polymer banknote

10 Australian dollars

The transition to plastic banknotes is one of the recent trends in the world of banknotes. Romania, Canada, New Zealand and seven other countries have completely abandoned the use of paper banknotes. Dozens of states began to gradually introduce polymer money. And the very first such bill appeared 25 years ago in Australia. It was 10 dollars. From the point of view of design, it turned out not the most outstanding banknote. On one side was the poet Andrew Patterson, on the other, the poet Mary Gilmour. Both authors are beloved by Australians, but not well known outside the continent.

Banknote with the highest denomination

100 billion Zimbabwean dollars

The note with the largest number of zeros is the result of the 2008 hyperinflation in Zimbabwe. The country's government, hoping to somehow cope with the depreciation of the local dollar, issued a series of agro-cheques - banknotes with a huge denomination, which, as planned, could only be used by farmers. But in the end, banknotes went all over the country without restrictions. The largest of the agro-cheques had a face value of $100 billion. With this money you could buy one can of beer.

"Unfinished" banknote

5000 brazilian cruzados

To make a beautiful banknote, it is not at all necessary to draw it to the end, the Central Bank of Brazil proved in 1988. The 5,000 cruzado banknote only has the silhouettes of two Indian women. Next to the unfinished drawing stands the most famous Brazilian artist, Candido Portinari, who is both the character of the image on the banknote and its creator.

Dance of death on a banknote

1000 Swiss francs 1954–1974

Switzerland has given the world many interesting banknotes, but the 1954 banknote series stands apart. Its creators decided to take religious and mythical subjects popular in Europe as a basis. On the banknote of 1000 francs, the Swiss placed the macabra, or dance of death, the motive of which is the inevitability of the end of human life.

A 500-franc note from the same series is much more optimistic: it depicts a fountain of youth, passing through which the old became young men. Saint Martin was painted on 100 francs as a knight - the son of a Roman tribune, who dreamed of becoming a monk, but, obeying the will of his father, chose the career of a military leader.

Polynesian myths on banknote

20 Cook Islands dollars

In Polynesia, banknotes are not only money, but also a reminder of the cultural heritage. Cook Islands dollars issued in 1987 show a nude girl riding a shark holding a coconut. The name of this heroine is Ina. According to the Polynesians, she is the beloved of the ocean god Tinirau. The beauty ended up on a shark after an unsuccessful attempt to swim to the island where her fiancé lived. The predatory fish agreed to help her. But Ina turned out to be an ungrateful girl. On the way, she drank the milk of one of the coconuts taken along the way, and then relieved herself right on the shark. The fish was offended and asked not to do this again. According to the islanders, it was because of this act of Ina that shark meat became tasteless. After some time, the bride of Tinirau became thirsty again and tried to open the second coconut by breaking it on the head of a fish. After that, in some of the sharks, the head changed shape, becoming like a hammer. The good fish did not forgive Ina for the second offense and threw her into the ocean. True, everything ended well for the girl: she was saved by the shark king Tekea, and with his help she got to her lover. And many years later, also on the banknotes of the Cook Islands.