Hello everyone...
Welcome back to Express Yourself!
In this blog-post, I am going to write about a fascinating (but expensive) hobby called Numismatic (aka coin collecting). It is the hobby of collecting legally minted currency, old/rare coins or notes, currencies having special numeric sequences or in general currencies having some X-factor (Wonder what's that?? Keep reading!). I know most of you must be wondering how come (after almost 4 months long break from blogosphere) I'm back with the post on this hobby (instead of my usual comeback posts!), well all the credit goes to Mr. Muralidhar Pai, a Numismatist. Last week I met Pai and saw some of the notes, coins (having X-factor!) from his amazing collection.
Muralidhar Pai with a bunch of young enthusiasts.
"People collect coins for various reasons which could vary from certain themes, country, year when the coin came out, subject, metal composition, period collections and even for the number series that they contain!" says Pai. "I started this hobby 15 years back and the inspiration came from my dad, who also used to collect coins. In those days it was very expensive to collect currencies of different denominations but now-a-days it's not that expensive. In those days, I used to beg my relatives to give me all the notes/coins with X-factor! This is how I started the collection." shared candid Pai. "I mainly focus on collecting Indian currencies, which itself is very vast and for collecting international currency, you need lots of money and I am not that rich!" says modest Pai. When someone from the audience asked him "What is this X-factor?", he had this in his stores to explain:
(More pics @ http://twitpic.com/photos/jainnimit)
Amazing! Rite?? Yeah this was the exact reaction of all those who saw it. "You could also collect notes based on criterion like signatures by different Governors, different series started by same Governor etc etc" added Pai. After this, he showed some of the old notes of old times when Nizams used to rule Hyderabad.
100 Rs. Note
10 Rs. Note
Now, it was time for the Numismatist to switch the gears to coins and he started showing some of them from his vast collection with varying themes from the subject (Maharana Pratap, Chhatrapati Shivaji) to the period (Quit India Movement Golden Jubilee, 150 years of First War of Independence).
Maharana Pratap
Chhatrapati Shivaji
Quit India Movement Golden Jubilee
150 years of First War of Independence
In between, he kept giving tips to the budding Numismatists about how to go ahead with this hobby, resources from where they can get more information about new/old/rare coins, various communities/people/govt. organizations involved with it etc etc.
"So next time when you withdraw some money from the ATM, search for the X-factor!", Pai signed off giving this advice and promising us to show his stamp collection next time.
Welcome back to Express Yourself!
In this blog-post, I am going to write about a fascinating (but expensive) hobby called Numismatic (aka coin collecting). It is the hobby of collecting legally minted currency, old/rare coins or notes, currencies having special numeric sequences or in general currencies having some X-factor (Wonder what's that?? Keep reading!). I know most of you must be wondering how come (after almost 4 months long break from blogosphere) I'm back with the post on this hobby (instead of my usual comeback posts!), well all the credit goes to Mr. Muralidhar Pai, a Numismatist. Last week I met Pai and saw some of the notes, coins (having X-factor!) from his amazing collection.
"People collect coins for various reasons which could vary from certain themes, country, year when the coin came out, subject, metal composition, period collections and even for the number series that they contain!" says Pai. "I started this hobby 15 years back and the inspiration came from my dad, who also used to collect coins. In those days it was very expensive to collect currencies of different denominations but now-a-days it's not that expensive. In those days, I used to beg my relatives to give me all the notes/coins with X-factor! This is how I started the collection." shared candid Pai. "I mainly focus on collecting Indian currencies, which itself is very vast and for collecting international currency, you need lots of money and I am not that rich!" says modest Pai. When someone from the audience asked him "What is this X-factor?", he had this in his stores to explain:
(More pics @ http://twitpic.com/photos/jainnimit)Amazing! Rite?? Yeah this was the exact reaction of all those who saw it. "You could also collect notes based on criterion like signatures by different Governors, different series started by same Governor etc etc" added Pai. After this, he showed some of the old notes of old times when Nizams used to rule Hyderabad.
100 Rs. Note
10 Rs. NoteNow, it was time for the Numismatist to switch the gears to coins and he started showing some of them from his vast collection with varying themes from the subject (Maharana Pratap, Chhatrapati Shivaji) to the period (Quit India Movement Golden Jubilee, 150 years of First War of Independence).
Maharana Pratap
Chhatrapati Shivaji
Quit India Movement Golden Jubilee
150 years of First War of IndependenceIn between, he kept giving tips to the budding Numismatists about how to go ahead with this hobby, resources from where they can get more information about new/old/rare coins, various communities/people/govt. organizations involved with it etc etc.
"So next time when you withdraw some money from the ATM, search for the X-factor!", Pai signed off giving this advice and promising us to show his stamp collection next time.
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