World transitional coinage

[gxseries]

I personally find transitional coinage to be quite interesting. Why?

Before I start, I think I might need to define what transitional coinage is as some people might have different ideas of what it is.

I would define a transitional coinage as two different types of coins issued in the same year. Why this is interesting is because rather than waiting for the next design to be issued the next year, some urgent event may have prompted the need for the new coinage to appear faster than required. Some reasons are high metal prices, change of monarchy, inflation and so on. A good example is the 1982 penny where the composition was changed from copper to plated zinc in the same year rather than waiting it out to the next year.

Here are some examples that I have:

South Korea:

1970 5 and 10 won:

Red copper



Yellow copper



During the late 1960s, copper prices have shot drastically that the Korean mint was forced to reconsider the amount of copper that was used in their coinage. 1 won was soon switched from 60% Cu, 40% Zn to 100% in 1968. As if this wasn't enough, an urgent change was done in 1970 where copper content was dropped from 88% to 65%. You can tell that the color of coins are different.

This problem has reoccured later in 2006 where copper zinc coin still proved to be too expensive and it was replaced with copper plated aluminum coin.





Malaysia

In 1993, Malaysia decided to remove the dollar sign from the ringgit coin and replace it with the word "ringgit".





This caused a lot of confusion with the public as they believed the latter version is a counterfeited. Confusion coupled with circulating counterfeited ringgit coins would eventually make this coin demonitized in 2005.

China - Manchukuo

There's more examples of this but I decided to show just a couple.

In 1934, the reign has changed from Da Tong to Kang De





Critical shortage of war metals have caused copper, nickel and even aluminum to be systemically removed from circulation.

1944 Aluminum 5 fen



1944 Red fiber 5 fen



Would like to see what else you know or have.

[<k>]

Excellent idea for a thread. The Malaysian case had been staring me in the face, but it had never registered with me.

Try this one:

Greece 1973: the fascinating story behind Series A and B



5 drachmai, Series A.



5 drachmai, Series B.

This superb Pegasus design was used only in 1973.

[<k>]

I have another example from 1973, regarding the Bahamas, which became independent on 10th July 1973.

Let me put this in context. This is how the coins appear over the years:

Year	Obverse	Legend
1966-1970	Elizabeth II	BAHAMA ISLANDS
1971-1973	Elizabeth II	COMMONWEALTH OF THE BAHAMA ISLANDS
1974 to date	Coat of arms	COMMONWEALTH OF THE BAHAMAS

Some of the 5 cents and 10 cents coins of 1973 carry the legend: "THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE BAHAMA ISLANDS", as opposed to just "COMMONWEALTH OF THE BAHAMA ISLANDS". So far as I can tell, these are Royal Mint products, whilst the others are Franklin Mint.

So this example perhaps does not really fit into your topic, but it's an intriguing one nevertheless.

[gxseries]

Wouldn't you classify that as variety instead of transitional?

[<k>]

The Bahamas issue? Yes, you're right. Shall I move it to a more suitable topic, or leave it as an example of what you DON'T mean?

The Greek series are surely transitional, though.

[FosseWay]

In 2008 the UK changed its reverse designs from those used since decimalisation (or since the introduction of the coin for the 20p and £1) to Matthew Dent's 'jigsaw arms' design. The new coins were issued in the spring, and before then the old series was struck with the date 2008.

I'm still at a loss to understand why this was the case. None of the good reasons gxseries gives in the first post apply here: there was no sudden political change, metal price variation or discovery of a BBASIL or CHIIE blooper. The designs were changed simply because someone at the Mint felt that it was about time they were changed. That being the case, why did they go to the trouble of preparing dies for the old series in 2008?

Not that I'm complaining - these kinds of situation are as you say fascinating!

[chrisild]

5 drachmai, Series B.  This superb Pegasus design was used only in 1973.

Maybe the Italians complained. The Italian Republic used Pegasus on its early 10 lire coins (1946-1950).

Another series that could be considered to be transitional, although not from the same year, is the four West German "Bank deutscher Länder" pfennig coins. They are from 1949 (one is dated 1948 too) but two of them were first issued after the Federal Republic had been founded. The pieces from 1950 and later (same design) then had the country name.

Christian

[FosseWay]

Staying with the UK, in 1887 there were not two but three distinct kinds of sixpence issued.

The first version was the one that had been in use for some years before, with the crowned value in wreath on the reverse and the young Queen Victoria on the obverse (picture 926 below).

In 1887 the decision was taken to use an older portrait of Victoria for the silver and gold. Victoria celebrated her Golden Jubilee that year and was by then not far off 70 years old. Many of the reverse designs were also changed, and the sixpence (along with the shilling) acquired the Arms and Garter instead (picture 927).

The only problem was that a very similar design was in use on the half-sovereign, which was also a very similar size to the sixpence. Naughty people took to gilding sixpences and passing them off as half-sovs (probably the same naughty people who tried to diddle barmaids out of a shilling by tendering a double-florin, introduced in 1887, and then swearing blind they'd handed over a crown). The same problem didn't affect the shilling, as the sovereign still carried the St George reverse.

So later in the year the sixpence design was basically switched back to how it had been before (the crown is a bit different), but still with the new Jubilee head of Victoria (picture 928).

[Bimat]

I think Pakistan can also be a good candidate for your topic..

Story of Pakistani Rupee

Aditya

[paisepagal]

2011 marked the year when the rupee symbol was introduced and the Information Technology set was abandoned, capping an end to a fairly good deal of confusion between 2004-2011.

IT SET
http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,9865.msg70238.html#msg70238

RUPEE SYMBOL SET
http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,9865.msg72456.html#msg72456

[<k>]

In 2008 the UK changed its reverse designs to Matthew Dent's 'jigsaw arms' design. The new coins were issued in the spring, and before then the old series was struck with the date 2008.

I'm still at a loss to understand why this was the case...The designs were changed simply because someone at the Mint felt that it was about time they were changed. That being the case, why did they go to the trouble of preparing dies for the old series in 2008?

The Mint stated that it has a policy of changing the reverse designs every 40 years, in order to keep them reasonably up-to-date. Probably the time span would have been shorter, had the current Queen's reign not been such a long one. As for the two sets of 2008, where's your cynicism today? Don't you smell a 'sales opportunity' ?

[<k>]

5 drachmai, Series B.  This superb Pegasus design was used only in 1973.

Maybe the Italians complained. The Italian Republic used Pegasus on its early 10 lire coins (1946-1950).

It was precisely to stop these petty nationalistic squabbles that these countries were forced to join the euro. Perhaps Brazil and Australia should go to war over their common use of the Southern Cross on their coins?

[FosseWay]

The Mint stated that it has a policy of changing the reverse designs every 40 years, in order to keep them reasonably up-to-date. Probably the time span would have been shorter, had the current Queen's reign not been such a long one. As for the two sets of 2008, where's your cynicism today? Don't you smell a 'sales opportunity' ?

I can quite understand why they might issue sets of both issues in the changeover year, just as they issued large 5p, 10p and 50p coins in sets only in 1990, 1992 and 1997. That doesn't explain the issue of circulation coins in large numbers with the old design.

[<k>]

I can quite understand why they might issue sets of both issues in the changeover year, just as they issued large 5p, 10p and 50p coins in sets only in 1990, 1992 and 1997. That doesn't explain the issue of circulation coins in large numbers with the old design.

Who knows, maybe enough new Dent coins just weren't ready early enough for circulation? The engraving had to undergo a lot of tweaking in the trial stages, in order to overcome minor problems, so I did read in the Royal Mint's "Changing the change" book (or similar title).

[dheer]

Quite a few Indian coins:

10 Paise Nickel-Brass changed to Aluminium in 1971
10 Paise in both metals Aluminium and Steel from 1988 to 1993 [Not sure if this fits your category]
25 Paise in both metals Cupro-Nickel and Steel from 1988 to 1990 [Not sure if this fits your category]
Rs 1 in 1982 from Old design that were big in size to small in size.
Rs 1 in 2004 with old Wheat Corn design and new Unity in Diversity Design
Rs 2 in 2001 with old Mudra Design and new Floral Design
Rs 5 in 2007 with old Unity in Diversity design and new IT & Connectivity design

There are few others like one paise and 5 paise but its not yet conclusively settled that about the issues and hence not listed.