Analysing a coin series to predict currency redenomination

[<k>]

Thank you for an excellent survey, Pabitra.

1990 - Cruzeiro = Novo Cruzado. So that was a redenomination only as regards the name and not the value. Unusual.

[<k>]

I wonder also how many countries have changed the name of their subunit after a redenomination. As I mentioned, in Angola the kwanza was originally equal to 100 lwei, then after redenomination the kwanza was equal to 100 centimos.

[Figleaf]

Argentina changed from centavo to peso (1970) to new peso (1983) to peso Argentino (1985) back to centavos (1992) for the sub-unit. BTW, some countries have more than one sub-unit.

Peter

[<k>]

Yes, Malta had its mils, cents and liras. The UK had its pounds, shillings and pence.

The next item is to provide a list of those places that currently have more than one subunit, and/or those that did in the twentieth century.

Sometimes it's easier to use several subunits. Byte, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes.

[<k>]

Looking back at history, Argentina issued a 1000 australes coin before redenominating the currency.

From Wikipedia:

The austral was the currency of Argentina between June 15, 1985 and December 31, 1991. It was subdivided into 100 centavos.

The austral replaced the peso argentino at a rate of 1 austral = 1000 pesos argentinos. In 1992, the austral was itself replaced by the peso convertible at a rate of 1 peso convertible = 10,000 australes.

[chrisild]

When it comes to re-denominations, I find Mauritania interesting. Their currency is the ouguiya, and in January 2018 a new "version" replaced the old one: Oddly enough, 10 old ouguiyas - not 100 or 1,000 or so - became 1 new ouguiya ...

Ah well, Mauritania and Madagascar are the only countries in the world where "1 (main unit) is 5 (sub-units)" instead of 100. Not sure whether the sub-unit is still used in Madagascar. From what I know, in Mauritania it is not.

Christian

[<k>]

When it comes to re-denominations, I find Mauritania interesting. Their currency is the ouguiya, and in January 2018 a new "version" replaced the old one: Oddly enough, 10 old ouguiyas - not 100 or 1,000 or so - became 1 new ouguiya

And I see that now the lowest denomination of coin is ⅕ ouguiya - followed by 1 ouguiya. So perhaps they need to reintroduce the 'khoum' (⅕ ouguiya).

[<k>]

Not sure whether the sub-unit is still used in Madagascar. From what I know, in Mauritania it is not.

Apparently the lowest denomination of coin in Madagascar is 1 franc. A 50 ariary coin also circulates. 1 ariary = 5 francs. So there is only one subunit these days.

[stef]

Currently the unit of Madagascar is the ariary (1 ariary = 5 iraimbilanja). Before 2003 the unit was the franc, without subunits (ariary was used as a name for 5 francs, iraimbilanja for 1 franc). AFAIK the coins in francs are still legal tender.

[Pabitra]

1990 - Cruzeiro = Novo Cruzado. So that was a redenomination only as regards the name and not the value. Unusual.

Yes, even I found it rather odd.
They planned to remove " new" within less than two years but ended up renaming it from BRN to BRE on 16th March 1990, after having changed to Novo Cruzado only on 16th January 1989.
There must be some reason other than economic or numismatic but I have not been able to fathom that.

[andyg]

In countries, which have their own mint, high inflation results in either shifting of coin note boundary repeatedly upwards or rapid remonetisation.
In case of Turkey, it was shift of boundary.
250 bin Lira was succeeded by date wise minting of million lira bae metal coins, before remonetisation

As far as I know the million lire coins were tourist pieces available from the mint only - that is why the coin pictured has the date 22nd March, this is the day that person visited the mint.  250 Bin Lire was biggest coin in circulation.

[Pabitra]

I am not sure about that but SCWC does list base metal coins of 500,000.    750,000 and 1,000,000 Lira coins.

KM#1161, 1162 and 1163 ( images too large to be compressed and uploaded)

Whether they got issued in to circulation, were sold at mint only or were souvenir coins - your guess may be better than mine.

[Figleaf]

I'd argue that it is important information for collectors to know which coins actually circulated.

Peter

[chrisild]

But that will fairly often be difficult to determine. As for those Turkish high denomination coins, this Numista page for example lists pieces labeled as "Non-circulating coin" while others seem to be in the "Circulating commemorative coin" category. The Istanbul mint visit piece is also in the latter group; now did it circulate? In the sense that it was available at face, yes. Other than that, hmm.

Christian

[quaziright]

But that will fairly often be difficult to determine. As for those Turkish high denomination coins, this Numista page for example lists pieces labeled as "Non-circulating coin" while others seem to be in the "Circulating commemorative coin" category. The Istanbul mint visit piece is also in the latter group; now did it circulate? In the sense that it was available at face, yes. Other than that, hmm.

Christian

It’s left up the country moderators discretion in Numista. For instance, French silver euro commems that can be had at face value will be included in the circulating commemorative section. I know this because the moderator himself told me so. Similarly Portugal follows the same logic, however Germany does not