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NUMISMATICS TRAVELS WELL

By Harold Don Allen, LM 25-1, Quebec, Canada

As I boarded one of American Airlines first 707s for the O’Hare to San Francisco hop all of 40 years ago, I’d chanced upon a first principal of fraternal numismatics: When you venture afar (it’s relative!), such interests should accompany you, for they can add significantly to the memorability of such a jet-lag experience.

On this long-ago occasion, they did indeed. Wonderful folks at the San Jose Coin Club and the Pacific Coast Numismatic Society welcomed me as a guest, speaker, and fellow-collector, and served to add an important numismatic dimension to successive summers of San Francisco Peninsula (Santa Clara University) professional studies. Cherished mementos of such occasions include my continuing CSNA affiliation….and an unlikely San Jose coin shop acquisition: I was privileged to “repatriate” an historic, now seldom seen, $5 “chartered bank” note overprinted for far-north service in Canada’s Klondike gold rush days.

The world has shrunken . . or my horizons have expanded in four decades, and it would seem fitting to share with California State seniors who would remember me, and not-so-seniors who grow numismatically through travel, reading and reflection, some much later, and rather remarkable, jet-age numismatic encounters.

My number one monetary interest long has been folding money. Accordingly, my first port of call in a “remote” land. . . the Netherlands, Sweden. Belgium, of late . . . has tended to be the national bank of issue. Now, central banks the world over tend to be a bit edgy when ordinary folk are about, and expeditiously exchange old notes, or whatever, then usher the likes of you or me off the premises. You understand my surprise, then, when in Kuala Lumpur, the bustling Malaysian capital, a highly-placed central bank hostess insisted that I preview a major on-premises art exhibit, and a senior currency official sent me home with a great armload of currency posters and pamphlets and directed me to one of the city’s two world-class numismatic museums. Those museums (allow a half-day each!) are at Bank Negara Malaysia, the central bank, and at Maybank, a thriving commercial institution.

Current money of Malaysia, when I was there, comprised five attractive, futuristic bank notes (2, 5, 10, 50, and 100 ringgits) and six circulating coinage denominations (1, 5, 10, 20 and 50 sen; also 1 ringgit). The coins, like the bank notes, being issued in the name of the central bank. Malaysia, the modern state, dates from 1967, so one can seek a generation and more of bank note designs, signature varities and such; and three decades of dated coinage, with some changes in size, composition and design, to be found in circulation. All note issues have depicted Malaysia’s founding head of state.

Malaysia, the young nation, reflects a long and diverse history and extends an intriguing and complex monetary past. To this both museums eloquently attest. Recent notes of Malaya and British Borneo, issued examples through staggeringly high values: $100, $1000 and $10,000! Wartime Japanese occupation issues, Straits Settlements decimal coins, currency of commercial banks, and centuries of highly diverse coinage record Malayan involvement in Far Eastern commerce and trade. A life’s study and more, you rightly suspect. With local enthusiasm and scholarship more than sufficing to codify this uniquely rich numismatic heritage and to pass it on to future generations.

There is “odd and curious” (our term, not theirs) beyond belief. “Tin hats” (display cases of them and tin ingots in diverse animal shapes. Flanking one Museum doorway, waist-high urns, which I naively thought Oriental décor. Such, however, had served as dowry, to pay fines and a range of other traditional monetary purposes.

Malaysian Numismatist, Tony Lye, an ANA Member, showing the type of traditional Monetary ingot on which he has been doing Research.

What I brought home (from the bargain basement) was a delightful miniature cannonball bearing a centuries old Borneo monetary imprint plus the complete set of Bank Negara Malaysia notes, from the hand of the amiable Head Cashier---which is as uncirculated notes can come.

So take your hobby with you when you travel and carry a list of ANA affiliated dealers. You’d be astounded the extent to which mutual interests and shared affiliations, can and will open doors.

I’m disciplining myself to be brief in this modest effort to renew California State acquaintanceships. Should there be something here that you’d care to explore more fully, however, the references listed below permitted me top develop these ideas in greater depth:

“Affiliations Open Doors”, Canadian Numismatic Journal, 45:6 (July-August 2000), pp 287-88

“Central Bank Visits Extend Horizons at Times of Monetary Change”, International Bank Note Society Journal, 39:3 (2000) pp 16-25

“Fifty Year Reflection: A ‘Good Time’ is Now”, International Bank Note Society Journal, 38:1 (1999), pp 28-33

“The Greatest Countdown in the History of Money”, Collector’s Guide 2000, Trajan Publishing Corporation, pp 25-32

“Who’s Who in CAL-State Numismatics: Don Allen”, Calcoin News, 47:2 (Spring 1993), pp 42-43