I'm *internationally* poor! · 10:58pm Sep 13th, 2019
The mind does interesting things when it's feeling too stressed to write. In my case, it's decided to clean a little. Some odd bits of dusting here and there. A couple of ancient teddy bears are now in the washer, awaiting the next cycle. And then I reached my coin jar.
No, not the really big one, which is intended to hold every spendable U.S. coin I get until next August: that's the futility jar, and will be used for never reaching Belleville. The foreign coin jar, where I stick everything I can never spend because I am, at a minimum, a few hundred miles away from being able to do so. It's much smaller. Any value its contents might have at an exchange kiosk are negated by the kiosk fees, plus just try to find someone who'll exchange foreign currency. Plus I'm pretty sure some of the countries no longer exist, while the rise of the Euro has invalidated some of the oldest pieces.
Y'know what I've never done? Tallied everything in it to see how much I have or in this case, don't have. Because I can't spend any of it. Ever. But it's a fun question of sorts. How broke am I for loose change, when measured against the rest of the planet?
Let's find out.
Here's what was in the jar, broken down by nation. These are just the coins I could identify. I'm also rejecting a whole bunch of random arcade and parking tokens. Numbers in ( ) before the unit represent quantity of that coin if I had more than one: after is the minting year if I could make it out. Just in case we have any numismatists in the pack.
So why tally all this? Why not? My brain is trying to do something other than stress, and this is what it landed on. I wound up with fifteen coins (mostly kanji or Arabic characters) which I couldn't identify at all. But for the rest... this is what I have in non-American metal currency.
...whee?
Maybe you'll tally your own jars and tell everyone what you've got in the Comments section. Maybe those outside US borders will offer to swap useless-to-them coins for the ones they can actually spend. (Tricky. Mailing money isn't easy, plus international postage.) Maybe a coin collector will take me to the cleaners. ("It's worth three million dollars and that idiot swapped it for a nickel!") Or maybe I just got a silly short story idea out of this. Which happened, so the activity wasn't wasted.
But in the meantime... here's what I've got.
And if any of it starts to look like A Lot, look up the exchange rates. And then it won't.
Yes, some of this is at least enough for a candy bar in the host country. But that DR money...
Antilles
5 cents
10 cents
Argentina
(2) 10 centavos (1992, 1995)
Aruba
(2) 5 cents
(2) 25 cents (2006)
Australia
1 cent
5 cents
10 cents (1976)
1 dollar (2001)
Austria
5 schilling (1980)
50 groschen (1961)
Bahamas
(19) 1 cent (1998, 2010, 2015)
(5) 5 cents (2000, 2005)
(3) 25 cents (2000, 2005)
Barbados
(2) 1 cent
5 cents (2012)
(4) 10 cents
Belgium
1 franc (1952)
20 belcie (1987)
Bermuda
1 cent
5 cents (1997)
(8) 10 cents (1979, 1997, 1990, 1999)
(4) 25 cents (1988, 1995, 2007, 2008)
1 dollar (1997)
Bolivia
50 centavos (1991)
Brazil
5 centavos (2005)
50 centavos (2015)
1 real (2013)
Bulgaria
20 stotinki (1996)
Canada (Not bothering with the years, with two exceptions)
(69) pennies (I am vaguely aware that Canada discontinued the penny. By sending them all here.)
(17) nickels
(44) dimes
(38) quarters (one 2004 bullseye, one 1967 centennial)
(6) dollars
Cayman Islands
(3) 1 cent
(4) 10 cents (1992, 1999)
25 cents (1982)
Chile
100 pesos
China
5 fen (1987)
(2) 1 yi jiao (2007, 2011)
5 wu jiao (1997)
Columbia
10 pesos (1989)
20 pesos
(2) 50 pesos (1990, 1993)
(2) 100 pesos (2009, 2010)
(2) 200 pesos (2006)
500 pesos (1997)
Costa Rica
5 colones (1989)
Croatia
50 lipa (2002)
Cuba
25 centavos (2001)
Czechia
1 koruna
5 koruna
Denmark
(2) 10 ore (1971)
1 krone
Dominican Republic
5 centavos (1989)
(2) 10 centavos (1984)
(3) 25 centavos (1965?, 1967)
(2) 50 centavos (1990)
(11) 1 peso (1990, 1992, 1998, 2000, 2002)
2 pesos (1993, 2008)
(6) 5 pesos (1997, 2002, 2005)
10 pesos (2003)
El Salvador
25 centavos (1994)
East Caribbean States
5 cents (2002)
(2) 10 cents (1995)
(3) 25 cents (1981, 2007)
Ecuador
(2) 1 centavos
(3) 5 centavos
(3) 10 centavos
(4) 25 centavos (2000)
Egypt
1 piastres
Ethiopia
10 santeem
Euros (no point bothering with the years on this one either)
(22) cents
(40) two-cents
(16) five cents
(8) ten cents
(3) twenty cents
(2) fifty cents
(4) 1 Euro
(2) 2 Euros
Finland
5 pennia
France
(2) 20 centimes (1977)
(4) 1/2 franc (1970, 1984)
2 francs (1980)
Germany
(7) 1 pfenning (1992)
2 pfenning (1985)
1 mark (1956)
Greece
1 drachma
10 drachma (1984)
Guatemala
10 centavos (1997)
Guinea
1 peseta (1969)
Guyana
1 dollar (2002)
(2) 5 dollars (1996, 2002)
Holland
10 cents
25 cents (1971)
Honduras
5 centavos (2005)
20 centavos (2012)
Hong Kong
(2) 20 cents (1976, 1997)
1 dollar (1998)
5 dollars (1980)
Hungary
2 forint (1996)
5 forint (2000)
India
(8) 1 rupee (1993, 1996, 2001, 2009, 2013, 2014, 2017)
(7) 2 rupees (1993 World Food Day, 2003, 2008, 2013, 2015)
5 rupees (2016)
10 paise (1988)
25 paise (1986)
50 paise (1975)
Indonesia
100 rvpiak (1973)
Ireland
(3) 1 erie (1978)
Israel
(3) 1 new sheqel
(7) 10 agorot (four menorah, three palm tree)
Italy
5 lira (1953)
(4) 50 lira (1970, 1972, 1991)
(3) 100 lira (1957, 1958)
200 lira (1988)
500 lira
1500 lira
Jamaica
(2) 1 cent (1971, 1974)
5 cents
25 cents (1996)
(6) 1 dollar (1995, 1996, 2003, 2008)
Jordan
5 fils
Kuwait
(2) 100 fils (one silver, one bronze)
Mexico
10 cents
(6) 50 cents (1984, 2006, 2012, 2017)
(15) 1 dollar (1994, 1998, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2014)
2 dollars (1998)
(2) 5 dollars (1998, 2012)
Morocco
(2) I dirham (1974, 1987)
New York City
(10) 1 subway token (Go ahead and laugh. If they still worked, it would be a $3.00 value. Each. And NYC is effectively its own country anyway.)
1 Diamond Jubilee subway token
New Zealand
1 dollar (1990)
Norway
(2) 5 ore (1979)
10 ore
Pakistan
(2) 5 rupees (2003)
Palestine
1 mil (1935)
Panama
(2) 1/4th balboa (2001, 2008)
1 balboa (1996)
Peru
(2) 1 centimos
(3) 10 centimos
20 centimos (2000)
50 centimos
Philippines
(8) 10 sentimo (1963, 1967, 1971, 1978, 1997, 2006)
(5) 25 sentimo (1996, 1998, 2001, 2013)
1 piso (1991)
Poland
1 groszy (2008)
(3) 2 groszy
(2) 5 groszy (1991, 2016)
(2) 10 groszy (1979)
(3) 20 groszy (2009)
(2) 50 groszy (1991, 1992)
(2) 1 zloty (1992, 1994)
2 zlote (1994)
Portugal
20 escudos (1987)
50 escudos (1989)
Russia
(3) 1 ruble (1997)
2 ruble (2012)
(2) 10 rubles (2017)
Saudi Arabia
50 halal?
Singapore
(2) 10 cents
20 cents (2013)
(2) 1 dollar (1988, 2010)
Somalia
5 schillings
South Africa
20 borwa
Spain
(4) 5 ptas (1975, 1996, 1997, 1998)
50 ptas (1992)
1 peseta (1966)
(2) 10 pesetas (1984, 1985)
Suriname
25 cents (2015)
Switzerland
10 helvetica (1984)
(4) 20 helvetica (1982, 1998, 2007)
Taiwan
50 new dollars (2003)
Turkey
10 kurus (2017)
50 bin lira (1999)
Trinidad & Tobago
(9) 1 cent (1966, 1979, 1991, 2003, 2012)
(2) 5 cents (1980, 2003)
(5) 25 cents (1966, 1993, 1997, 2002)
United Arab Emirates
1 dirham
25 fils
United Kingdom
(2) Half-penny (1959, 1982)
(42) 1 pence (1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2013)
(4) 1 new penny (1971, 1973)
??? Georgivs v dei penny? (Too worn to determine year.)
2 pence (2002)
(2) 2 new pence (1971, 1979)
Threepence (1940)
(19) 5 pence (1990, 1991, 1992, 1997, 2004, 2014, 2015)
Sixpence (1954)
(2) 10 pence (1992)
(4) 20 pence (1982, 2007, 2012)
1 pound (2002)
Uruguay
(2) 1 peso
Vatican City
50 lire (1958)
Venezuela
25 centimos (1989)
Grand Total: no one cares.
Some days, you just feel like sorting through endless Chuck E Cheese tokens.
Wow some of those European coins are collector pieces since the Euro is now their only accepted currency. That could bring you some emergency funds via EBay if you do some homework beforehand.
I know rupees have been currency long before the Legend of Zelda series, but I can't help but imagine a fist-sized sapphire worth seven cents with a bunch of emeralds each worth a fifth as much jammed in there with the loose change.
This might actually explain a lot about Rarity's aesthetic choices...
5120695
I doubt they'd come to all that much, since lots of people in that country probably didn't bother to turn in loose change or something. Shipping would also be an issue.
5120700
Currently, one India rupee is worth -- $0.014. Just short of a penny and a half.
This is what I meant by 'It may look like a lot...' (And on a similar note, the DR pesos total out to all of $1.07.) I'm pretty sure you could get more by selling farmed Hyrule currency.
5120705
Pretty much. The only things which really caught my eye -- keeping in mind that I didn't check the exchange rate on Pretty Much Everything -- were the sixpence and threepence.
Holy crap, dude. :D Your collection has much greater breadth than mine!
Though mine weighs around ten pounds, which makes the little bank I keep it in extremely dense owing to its size. D: Hence why I will not be joining you in this endeavor. (I've got some cool arcade tokens too though.)
5120710
In chat, I established the rule of 'The more interesting the coin looks, the higher the odds of it being a laundromat token.'
I did find two Namco coins, though. With Pac-Man on them and everything. No idea how they got in there.
What the hell is an erie? I’ve lived in Ireland all my life and never even heard of it. As far as I know, we’ve only ever had pounds and euros as our currency.
5120714
These. They're no longer in general use.
That almost sounds like the premise for one of your one-shot. Celestia looking through her own collection of coin to pay for something without blowing her budget?
5120717
Actually, it was a Mature story idea.
...no, really.
5120720
*surprised rapid blinking*
... Alright! This is suddenly very intriguing! You have my attention.
It was just Twilight finding a coin among the late fee payments which she can't identify. Not Equestrian currency, not from any known nation. Strange shape and iconography. She has to find out where it came from and what it's for.
Peep show booth token.
For reasons, I now have a scene from the original Sabrina running through my head.
Okay, wow.
It can't be just you are PHENOMINALLY well-travelled, since some of those coins, like, haven't existed for YEARS. I very, very dimly remember half-pennies (I would have been four when they were taken out of use in 1984) and threepenses stopped being legal current eight years before I was born and sixpense while I was a baby - I don't ever recall seeing one. (And I was under the impression you were younger than me!)
So I am somewhat impressed with that collection, to be honest.
Heck, if you are that well-travelled, I'll be even more impressed actually; I think you'd have been to more plaxces than my grandad as he spent a lot of his twilight years globe-trotting!
Wow: you’re poor in centavos but obviously rich in experience! Got ya beat in both wealth and poverty though: a genuine mint one hundred TRILLION (how many zeros even is that?) dollar bill from Zimbabwe.
The Australian 1 and 2 cent coins were discontinued in 1990, so you’re doing well to have one of them. They are not worth anything, but you can shine them up and look at the weird animal on the reverse.
5120723
Twilight comes across the Equestrian equivalent of the Roman spintriae? Awkward, mature, comedy gold.
I’m curious how you managed to find so many foreign coins. That seems strange to me . . . I’ve got a few foreign coins, the ones I picked up on trips overseas and kept, even one Swiss Franc I found in France (this was long before the Euro).
Except for the Canadian coins. In Michigan, especially when I lived closer to the border, those things were super common to get in change, and it was kind of frustrating, because vending machines wouldn’t accept them. Most stores would, though, if you tossed them in with a handful of other change.
I’ve also got one Canadian dollar bill, from before they discontinued them. it’s probably not worth much, except as a collector’s piece. Not a very good one; it’s well-used. I’d like to say I got it from a stripper (or for a stripper); sadly, that’s not the case.
I also keep Canadian bills in my wallet to troll Yamagoth whenever he asks for change for a large bill.
You did inspire me to go look in my weird coin box, and while I’m not going to bother to list all the various coins therin, I did discover a Crown Royal bag with $26 one dollar gold coins I forgot I had.
Also, I’ve got a ten billion dollar bill above my desk. I won it, indirectly, by winning a writing contest, thus proving that it does pay to write.
As an Indonesian who immigrated to Canada, you really misspelled rupiah
Btw here's my foreign coin collection
America
(4) pennies from 1984, 2012, 1973, and 1965
(3) dimes from 1996, 2004, and 2013
(4) quarters from 1970, 1995, and 1968
Indonesia
(2) Rp 100 coins from 1997 and 1978
(2) Rp 500 coins from 2003
Japan
(1) coin which I can't read because I don't know Japanese
Netherlands
I had (1) Euro from the Netherlands somewhere but I lost it.
Portugal
(1) 50 Euro cent coin from 2016
5120736
When you say "gold coins"...
That pre-1948 Palestine coin has to be worth something to someone if it’s in even okay shape...
5120738
The ones with presidents on them or Sacajawea, not actual gold coins. I should have been more clear.
I used to get them a lot, for when I worked ren fairs and suchlike; it was always great fun to pull out a giant sack of gold coins to pay for beer and whatnot. Mostly beer, honestly.
That's pretty neat! I don't know Jack about coin collecting except that misprints tend to be highly valued, because they slipped through quality control and weren't supposed to be in regular circulation.
I'd keep interesting nickels. One time when working I ran across a New Zealand one and it has a kiwi on it and I lost my marbles over it, but forgot to go back to the register to buy/swap out for them by the end of my shift.
5120720>>5120722
The punchline is probably going to be who tells her. My money is on either Spike (who came across it innocently and Twilight doesn't believe him) or Rarity (who wants Twilight to believe she came across it innocently.) Or Pinkie, who has an ironically small amount of actual innocence and tells the poor dear the entire story.
5120744
Or Luna. Who claims to have fond memories of such coins, and offers to demonstrate the dance for Twilight.
5120744
Or Twilight going to the peep show to see what it's actually about.
...I cared.
5120735
I've seen signs in stores saying they'll accept American coins as if they were Canadian ones of the same denomination, so you might be able to do it openly. Probably not though, because those signs exist on the basis that the Canadian dollar is usually worth less so they're the ones ripping you off.
How in the world did you get all that foreign stuff?
I’ve got a couple of Mexican coins (they look like quarters), some Canadian money, and a couple Japanese yen (they look a great deal like pennies). But, otherwise, nada -and I worked several years in a motel with foreign guests.
5120763
Usually they do that in Canada ‘cause American money is worth more. I remember when I was a kid, Canadian dollars were worth about 60 cents, and they’d happily take American currency at face value at restaurants and whatnot . . . of course, they gave you change in Canadian, further improving their margin.
Here in Michigan, the odd Canadian coin here and there is something you deal with, but if somebody tries to pay all in Canadian money, tough luck Jack. Go to the bank and get it exchanged.
5120765
Yeah, and I said as much. That such exchange is relatively trivial because of proximity is still a salient point. (I know for a fact that there's a bridge to the US in the next town over from where I live)
Huh; interesting. Thanks for sharing the results.
5120768
Heh, yeah you did. I just skimmed. :P
I miss back in the days when you could just go to Canada on a whim and there was a rudimentary at best inspection at the border. Nowadays, it’s a full-on grilling every time I go, and I nearly got deported once.
For The Hoard!
Spike has a problem.
Spike has something special he wants to buy.
Spike has no bits.
Thankfully, Spike has been the collector of the loose change from all the Bearer missions.
Lots and lots of Bearer missions.
All those coins must be worth something at the bank.
Now Silver Standard has a problem.
He didn't get the bank's 'CLOSED' sign put up quickly enough.
That Georgius V Rei coin is from sometime between 6 May 1910 and 20 January 1936 (the reign of King George V of the United Kingdom)
Where did you even get all these
I have a friend who makes jewelry from coins. Would you like me to see if she'd be interested in any of these?
5120748
Just a little sentimental silliness I came up with while running down the clock at work.
Use them as bait to attract tiny dragons.
https://iguanamouth.tumblr.com/post/116689536962/can-you-draw-a-tiny-lizard-dragon-that-secretly
When it comes to Poland, then aside from this:
The rest of money you mention is still valid over here. If I count this correctly you have 5.77 zł... According to the article (a bit outdated, but still more or less valid) you could buy yourself one of the following:
- a pile of bread
- a few eggs
- 1 x hot dog
- 2 kilos of apples
- soap bubbles (? I have no idea...)
- sim started for your phone with infinite internet for a month... that one is obsolete now, but I see you can get a starter with 2GB on it, still not bad
- an (old) book
- two cheap 7.2% beers to numb yourself for a while
Personally, out of all the necessities, I would go with beers
Being a little older than Bleakbane I can remember the old (pre-decimalisation) ha'penny and thrupenny bit very well - there was even an old game called Shove Ha'penny that used the former.
5120735
I’m with you in all respects... nothing worse than trying to buy from a Michigan vending machine and realizing that your exact change depends on a Canadian dime. And I was used to taking the ambassador bridge with no passport or trouble, but then a couple of years ago I went to the Canadian side of Niagra falls (with passport) and the border guard clearly was grilling me in an attempt to catch me in some kind of lie... circling back to variations on the same questions to make me repeat myself, really being a jackass to me for no apparent reason (even with a huge amount of cars trying to get through.)
And I too wonder how Estee ended up with that diverse of a coin jar.
5120734
Or melt them down for their copper. The metal they're made of is worth more than the face value (which is why they were discontinued).
Not gonna lie, about halfway through the list I expected to see something staggering valuable that you didn't realize was valuable. Spanish Dubloon or something equally HILARIOUSLY collectible.
There's definitely some stuff in there you can sell for above face value though.
Oh. So that's what we did to the penny when we discontinued it: we palmed them off on you guys. I didn't know that.
5120712
I've definitely got at least one of those somewhere.
One day, hopefully I can sort everything out and do something with it. :B Like, display-wise.
wow. i've never personally seen any coins except American an occasionally Canadian.
5120712
Those are arcade tokens. Namco operates (or did, I've been out of the loop for over a decade) the Cyberstation, Aladdin's Castle, and Time Out brands, among others.
5120894
Uh, I can't tell those apart from each other. (Maybe it's because of lighting differences, but "more images" didn't get me closer that I could tell.) So what makes these special?