Suriname: same coins, new currency

[Harald]

When Suriname did the currency reform in 2004 it was announced that the coins of the previous currency were going to be re-issued.
They must have been disappeared from circulation long time ago due to the heavy inflation in the 1990s.

Probably the central bank had enough old coins in stock such that this measure could be executed without minting new coins. Or
there were no coins used up to now. Only mint sets were produced in 2004 (very difficult to find). Now it seems that the first
business strikes have been produced with date 2009.

AFAIK, this is the first time a country "recycles" its coinage in this way. There are cases that old coins were tolerated and treated as
re-valued for an interim period until the new coins were fully distributed. But they were not re-issued with new dates. Zimbabwe had
announced the same measure for the revaluation of August 2008, but this actually never happened as these coins immediately became
worthless again because of the continued inflation.

All the Suriname issues from 2004 onward should get new numbers in the coin catalogues (SCWC, Schön,...). It does not make sense
to treat 0.10 dollar the same as 0.10 guilder (with a factor of 1000 in between), although the coins are identical.

cheers
--
Harald

[Figleaf]

The story I heard (from an expat Dutchman working in Surinam) was that there was an oversight in the law, not withdrawing the coins, since they had long disappeared from circulation. When the oversight was discovered, the authorities decided not to bother, so the coins remained valid as a sub-unit of the new currency. AFAIK, no old coins were issued, but those who'd held on to the old coins got a windfall profit. In most cases, it must have been small.

Peter

[Gerhard Schön]

Central Bank of Suriname announced in 2004 that the old coins would become legal tender in terms of the newly created Suriname Dollar. This was certainy not an oversight but done on purpose in order to save minting cost. Luckily, the previous 1 and 2½ Guilder coins were inscribed 100 and 250 Cent, so they could perfectly be used again. The SCWC has assigned new catalogue numbers KM#58-63 for the coins with year marks from 2004 but the Schön World Coin Catalogue lists them as varieties of S#1-6 (1b.2, 2b.2, 3.5-3.6, 4.5-4.6, 5.2, 6.2) since they are the same coin types. Note that the 2009 dated business strikes were produced at the British Royal Mint without mintmark while the collector versions of the same year bear the privy marks of the Utrecht Mint.