Friday, June 25, 2010

ZIMBABWE COIN SET


Zimbabwe's attractive coins feature its culture and wildlife. However with Zimbabwe's severe inflation, the coins quickly became far more in scrap metal than their buying power and coins quickly disappeared from circulation. The eight coin set includes the bimetallic 5 Dollars showing a Rhino, the 2 Dollars showing a Scaly Anteater, the 1 Dollar depicting the Great Zimbabwe Stone Fort, the 50 Cents with a sunrise, the 20 Cents picturing the Birchenough Bridge, the 10 Cents showing a baobab tree, the 5 Cents depicting a rabbit, and the 1 Cent featuring the denomination. The ancient stone Zimbabwe is bird on the obverse of each coin. The coins are dated between 1997 a 2002. In 2003 Zimbabwe minted two higher denomination coins, a 10 Dollar coin picturing a water buffalo and a 25 Dollar coin showing a group of soldiers. The ancient stone Zimbabwe is bird on the obverse of both coins. By the time the coins were designed and minted, inflation made them almost worthless, so they were not released to circulation at that time. In August 2008 Zimbabwe revalued their currency for the second time by removing 10 zeros from the currency. As part of the revaluation, the 2003 dated $10 coin (worth $100,000,000,000.00 of the old currency) and $25 (replaces $250,000,000,000.00 of the old currency) were finally released. In addition the old 10c, 20c, 50c, $1, $2 and $5 coins became legal tender in the new currency, thus effectively increasingly their value 10 trillion-fold! Zimbabweans were diving into fountains in an attempt to recover the previously worthless coins. Some even demanded that beggars return coins they had previously thrown at them. The coins however circulated only very briefly as inflation continued to increase and within a a few weeks the coins were again worthless


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