HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN COINS, PART 2

Get taken on a ride to where?

You won’t find Purple Shaftieuland on a map – but they have “coins”!

If you’ve always wanted to issue your own coins, but don’t want to go the traditional route, then you could always proclaim your own nation.

Such a nation doesn’t require land upon which to dwell, and may only occupy space in your imagination.

In so doing, you would be following a tradition of the last half-century,when “coins” for places like Bermania, Buck Island, the Grandy Duchy of Westarctica, the Ultimate State of TÆDIVM, and many others, have been issued.

Perhaps the most biting of these issues are the “coins” for the nation of “Purple Shaftieuland.”

In 1970, coin dealer Bob Kolasa created the coin series as a revolt against the flourishing of noncirculating legal tender coins from barely identifiable places, aimed specifically at collectors (a lament that might ring true even today).

The “coins” also poked fun at the practice of U.S. government foreign aid, and used stereotypical humor to make the point. The politically incorrect brochure accompanying the pieces also features very thinly veiled comments about some of the companies creating the market for international Proof sets in the late 1960s.

According to coin dealer Joel Anderson (who provided the brochure to Coin World), Purple Shaftieuland had five denominations: 1 nudge, 1 twist, and quarter-, half- and full-shaft pieces. The coins were issued in two versions, “brilliant brass” and “unanodized aluminum.”

According to the brochure, the exchange value is fixed: 100 nudges equal 10 twists, which equals one full shaft, which of course equals “nothing U.S.”

As the brochure also noted, the “coins” had staying power as an investment.

“The beauty of these, as with many foreign proof sets is that they never go down in true value. They can’t go down because they’re worthless to begin with.”

To read the complete article, see:
PROCLAIM YOUR OWN NATION AND ISSUE YOUR OWN COINAGE (www.coinworld.com/voices/jeff-starck/2014/11/proclaim_your_ownna.html)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN COINS (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v17n45a37.html)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web