PREV ARTICLE       NEXT ARTICLE       FULL ISSUE       PREV FULL ISSUE      

V4 2001 INDEX       E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 4, Number 47, November 18, 2001, Article 11 TRADE IN AFGHANI NOTES An article in the November 14, 2001 Wall Street Journal (pC1) discusses the hot market in trading Afghanistan's currency. "The afghani, Afghanistan's long-suffering currency, has the perverse tendency to go up whenever sitting governments fall." Savvy traders who rushed to purchase the currency after September 11th have seen the currency rise 94%. The article has a photo of traders in Peshawar, Pakistan exchanging large bundles of afghani notes. "One day recently, trading continued even as tear-gas fumes wafted over from a nearby demonstration. "They were crying, but they didn't stop trading." "Even more than currencies in other developing countries, the market in afghanis is unusual. For one thing, the currency hasn't been printed by the Taliban government since it came to power in 1996. Instead, the afghani actually comes from printing presses run by the opposition Northern Alliance, and there are two varieties. Afghanis printed under the auspices of the alliance's late Tajik commander, Ahmed Shaw Masood, are more widely accepted in Taliban areas than those printed by the alliance's Uzbek commander, Abdul Rashid Dostrum, though only by the last two digits of the serial number can one tell them apart." "The afghani's value has plummeted so far over the years that the highest note, 10,000 afghanis, has to be carried in thick stacks to be of any value." Below are some web pages with more information about the afghani currency: http://www.tribuneindia.com/20010925/photos/pages/24photo14.htm http://afg.afghanteens.net/money/ http://www.rediff.com/money/2001/sep/27afghan.htm

Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization 
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor 
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum