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Thursday, June 16, 2011

Money for Nothing....is Priceless!

At an Estate sale this past weekend I came across a 50 cent table. The table itself, wasn't for sale, the items on it were. There in the corner of the table was a very lonely bank note, not of this country.  It dawned on me that a foreign bank note no matter from what country of origin, has to have a definite value, right? Well, at least in its own country. Here, it has 2 values: 1) what ever the going exchange rate is 2) What ever someone will pay for it. Funny how money can be worth more as a collectible than its face value. The note I found wasn't priced by either value. There is a 3rd factor for pricing money at a sale.  The Inconvenience factor. It goes something like this:  Seller says to other seller, "Do you know what this note is worth?" "Ugh! I don't have a clue. Put 50 cents on it. I don't know."  Sometimes sellers just want to get rid of stuff and even if it's money. Who says, "Money is no object?" At this sale money was clearly just an object. When I saw this note on the 50 cent table, I thought it was a mistake.
Money is collectible because of all the thought behind it. Designed to instill trust in the bearer and receiver, represent national pride in financial stability, even when instability reigns supreme. The great pains taken to prevent counterfeiters from having an easy go of it, make money, well, money.
There I was chasing down the "price" lady. Sometimes difficult to find, and to tell apart from the assistants at a sale, she has the final say and treating her with the right attitude can mean the difference between "sale" and "no sale." By the time we had arrived at this sale all the workers were tired and she just laughed and said "Take it."

25 Egyptian Piastres!....for nothing!? This was going to be a good sale, and it was. There were many ancient treasures I pulled away with....but this wasn't one of them. Egyptian currency comes in denominations based on Pounds. The 25 Piastre note is one quarter of an Egyptian pound note. Want to guess how the the Egyptian pound note is holding up against the dollar? Not good. As bad as our economy is the one pound note is currently valued at 16 cents on the US dollar. So, my note is valued at a whooping 4 cents! 

That's still a 4 cent profit, and I am the proud owner of Egyptian currency, and a little knowledge of foreign currency. The question I will close with is....How come their money doesn't have a pyramid on it?  Or, do I need to look for more?

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