Money is a serious business most of the time. Thankfully, some geniuses have taken the time to come up with the wackiest and silliest coins and other types of currency you could ever imagine, and some you probably couldn’t imagine.
The Talking Mongolian JFK Coin
If you were in charge of the production of Mongolian currency it would be quite a good job, I imagine. The pay must be good and the hours are probably reasonable. So why would you go and ruin your entire career by printing the silliest coin in the world ever? For some reason, this Asian country decided to print a coin with an image of JFK and a button which plays part of the “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech. No, really.
The Dinosaur Coin
I have no idea if the guy who came up with the Mongolian talking JFK coin also worked in Canada but surely there can’t be too different people this loopy in charge of currency around the world. The Canadians came up with this glow in the dark, collectible dinosaur quarter. Sadly, it doesn’t make any noises but it is still a pretty weird coin.
The 100 Million Billon Pengo Note
Wasn’t there once a comedy film about a million dollar or trillion dollar bill being printed? Well, if there was the good old Hungarians beat them to it. When the country was in the grip of fierce inflation after WWII they printed the highest denomination note ever. How much was it worth? A mere 100 million billion Pengo. In other words, very little.
Tide Detergent
It isn’t a coin or even a note but I simply couldn’t leave this funny money off the list. Apparently, and I don’t quite fully believe this, Tide detergent is a viable currency in the New York underworld. It seems that stealing some of this stuff and then exchanging it for drugs is a common practice among criminals in the Big Apple.
The Owl Coin
Good news. The guy in Mongolia kept his job after all. Well, how else can we explain this creepy owl coin from the same country? Supposedly it is worth 500 Togrog but I have no idea how much that is outside of Ulan Bator or how much Tide detergent you would get for it off a New York drug dealer. Look at those little crystals on his eyes. That is one weird and silly coin and it scares me a bit as well.
The Missing Face Bank Note
Just overthrown a ruthless dictator and worried about the cost of printing all your money again? Hey, I’ve got a seamless, low cost solution for you. Just do what they did in Zaire. When the dictator Joseph Sese Seko Mobutu got kicked out of the Presidential office in 1997 they cut his face out of the existing bank notes and kept on using them. Can you imagine if he had got back into power again and they had to stick his face back on them all?
The Holy Water Coins
On the face of it the tiny island of Palau has very little in common with the appearances of the Virgin Mary in the French town of Lourdes. However, that didn’t stop the Pacific Ocean nation from issuing a silver coin with a weird little bottle holding some holy water which had been transported from Lourdes. Could you still buy stuff with it if you broke it and spilled the water, I wonder?
Leave a Reply