Venezuela was part of the Spanish empire until 1821, after which it joined Gran Colombia together with Panama, Ecuador and New Grenada (present-day Colombia). In 1830, Venezuela seceded from the union and became an independent republic. It has unsettled border disputes with Guyana over the territory west of the Essequibo river, and has claimed the 3 islands of Aruba, Curaçao & Bonaire from the Netherlands a couple of times in history.
Venezuela used the Spanish Real until 1821, after which the Colombian Real was introduced. In 1843, Venezuela introduced its own Peso at par with the Colombian Peso which had replaced the Real at the common 8:1 rate. Venezuela decimalised the Peso into 10 Reales and 100 Centavos.
In 1872, Venezuela renamed the Peso into Venezolano, but by 1879 this currency was replaced by the Bolivar at a rate of 5 Bs = 1 Venezolano. The Bolivar was equal to the LMU currencies (French Franc, etc.).
In 1937, the Bolivar was pegged to USD at a rate of 4 Bs to $, which was even higher than the 5 to 1 it was before 1920. The Bolivar was by far the most stable currency of Latin America until Black Friday in 1983 when the peg collapsed. It sent the currency to as low as 1600 Bs/$ in 2003, after which it was revalued 1000:1 with the introduction of Bolivar Fuerte. This new Bolivar was controlled heavily by the government, but as we speak is collapsing on the black market right now. The official rate is 6.3 VEF/$, but black market rate around 400.
Anyway this "Chavez currency" looks in a lower quality than former coinage, when we compare new coins with older ones (60's, 80's...)
Administrateur du catalogue, référent de nombreuses nations antiques et de la Lorraine.
Catalogue administrator, numerous Antique nations and Lorraine referee.
Anyway this "Chavez currency" looks in a lower quality than former coinage, when we compare new coins with older ones (60's, 80's...)
They are in the need to print bigger denomination notes, so the coins are being discontinued as their value is too low now, so no need for them to use good materials, as they need buckets of money to buy basic things.
Numista referee for the "Viceroyalty of the New Spain" (most of it).
History through coins.
Eli V
This is the most excessive circulating coin issued by Venezuela so far.
The strong bolivar replaced the old bolivar at a ratio of 1000:1, so this coin is almost identical to the last one.
I have always remembered Venezuela because they have this 12.5 cent coin. Under the Spanish colonial system, 1 dollar was 8 reales, so 1 real is 12.5 cents... but most countries avoided this once they changed to the decimal system because "12.5" looks silly and seems to require a 0.5 cent coin to work properly. Even the modern (not very) "strong bolivar" had a 12.5-cent coin issued for it.
Another fact about Venezuela's coins: this portrait of Simon Bolivar was first used in 1879, and has remained exactly the same since then! This puts Venezuela in second place for "country with the longest continually-used coin design" (first place is Switzerland).
Is it planed to use the informations from this world coin chat series to create country numisdocs? This series is quite interessting and informative ... not that all your effort goes to waste.
Also a member in an other threat wished for country information like location an other inforamtions on the coinpage ... this could be realized with an implemented link to the corresponding country numisdoc.
Цитата: nalaberongAnother fact about Venezuela's coins: this portrait of Simon Bolivar was first used in 1879, and has remained exactly the same since then! This puts Venezuela in second place for "country with the longest continually-used coin design" (first place is Switzerland).
This make Venezuela the most boring coins in history.
Not coin related, but when my Grandfather was stationed in Venezuela before the outset of WWII he told me a story about when he was dating the daughter of a diamond miner mogul, and the guy hunted leopards for sport, only he used a spear and my grandfather saw first hand scars on this mans back from the claws of a leopard. He also showed my grandfather a tray of uncut raw diamonds and let him pick out four, sadly m grandfather was afraid of getting in trouble with his commanding officer and gave them all away. So I didn't get any
Taking a break from swapping for a while, but still interested in pre 1799 Spanish coins, I will make time for that!
A real tragedy is unfolding in Venezuela with the Bolivar (Fuerte? Mu ha ha ha) nosediving to 1,127 B/$ on the black market.
Now we can only guess how many zeros they will drop off for a new currency and what would be the name of it. It wouldn't actually surprise me if Russia would be interested to give some support, especially now that Cuba seems to be moving closer to the US.
How does a country with such vast natural resources become such an economic train wreck?
I would normally feel sorry for the ordinary folks who have to suffer because of the decisions of others but this seems to be the path they have chosen for themselves. Strange.
The coins used to be quite pleasant and well struck like so many South American issues from the 20th century but the newest issues look like play money for children. I have long held a theory that a nations well being can be measured by it's currency. Venezuela seems to be proving the theory right.
Non illegitimis carborundum est. Excellent advice for all coins.
Make Numismatics Great Again!
From a country that has also suffered due to the crass incompetence of their governing classes I can but feel for the people over there; with so many oil resources having to cut down on Power supply is illogical, bad planning is what is causing that.
Socialist governments are good but for a limited time, they create and provide health and security services because that is their priority; but then there is a point in where the scheme rots down; they reach the point in where keeping the absolute power is more important than the necessities of the people, they dedicate almost entirely to silence and remove from public scene any spark of rebellion, creating and hiring violent groups as their hound dogs to kill any serious criticism and blame it on insecurity or the person meddling with dangerous individuals.
Having daily conferences that must be broadcast nationwide to keep the people "informed with the current occurrences and the absolute truth". Having Chavez' and Maduro's portraits on every public office and building is more in the line with North Korea in where they want the leader to be treated as a semi god. At least here in Mexico we can criticize and mock or president; but they still get their "White houses" as goodwill gifts from contractors that had won millionaire building project from their government ¬¬
I can only hope that Venezuela makes it out soon of that bottomless pit they are falling on, and the people realize that a week's-worth food supply from the government is not worth the life-long suffering.
Numista referee for the "Viceroyalty of the New Spain" (most of it).
History through coins.
Eli V
According to the website "dolartoday.com", the black market rate of the bolivar is falling rapidly.
October 23: 1210 bolivares for dollar
October 25: 1262 bolivares
October 26: 1327 bolivares
October 28: 1417 bolivares
If the rate goes down with the same speed, the 1000 bolivares coin will depreciate before its introduction.
We will have from the 15th of December 2016, (Just few days from today), new coins and notes.
Coins will be 10, 50, and 100 Bolivares and the notes 500, 1000, 2000, 5000, 10000, and 20000. A lot of rumors on the design as they were not released yet, but chances are high that could have any political image related to Chavez or any of its allies... We will have to wait a bit for that! http://www.bcv.org.ve/Upload/Comunicados/aviso041216.pdf
As of friday 1st of December $1 USD is 4402.55 in the unofficial market, which easily tell us they new notes are far from being the last ones to come... If things keep going the save way they will not last too much!
Wow! Already 4400 Bs for $. The inflation is going even faster than I expected. Even now 10 - 100 bolivares are too small denominations for coins; and in January or February, I suppose, the smallest reasonable denomination for a coin will be 5000 bolivares, and the banknotes will be nominated in millions.
This image has been shared in many news channels, but has not been uploaded in the BVC website yet.
Basically is a transfer of the current notes into a new value, This seems very awkward, but with the short time notice they gave I believe they will not have the time or resources to pull something better than this.
Last night I saw in the news that the 100 note is now officially out of circulation (pretty normal right?) well, the bad part is that people have a pretty limited time and options to turn them in.
As of Wednesday they will no longer have monetary value in any exchange done, so they need to be turned in at banks to an account (they will NOT change your 100Bs notes for new ones if you turn in lets say 200 of them they won't give you a 20,000Bs note, you can only deposit them to an account and then you might withdraw them again as new notes).
But there is an even worse -almost illogical step- that the Government also announced; after a very short time the banks will also stop receiving them, and the only way to exchange them will be at the Maracaibo or Caracas central banks, so this leaves way more than half the population with useless notes that they would need to sell them to a scammer for half their value (or whatever they feel like asking for as there would be no other ways) and then he would travel to the capital or Maracaibo to exchange them at the BCV.
This announcement feels almost rushed, surely to make it go under the table, being that the Government daily airtime is huge, and they only dedicated a short time during the weekend to make it public.
There is nothing worse than a Government that only has to respond to itself and every external complains are flagged as anti-patriotic or US-Sponsored.
Here in Mexico we are also having some hard times with a MXN devaluation against USD of nearly 40% in 2 years; but that only affects US imported goods, so inflation is still bellow 5%, so I pray for our Venezuelan friends who are surely in way deeper darkness.
Oh, and they again closed the Colombia-Venezuela border to prevent people who fled from coming back to deposit their 100Bs notes, so big "Screw you" to people that for necessity had to emigrate to Colombia but that they carried their money with them for who know what reason, maybe for renting and food?
Numista referee for the "Viceroyalty of the New Spain" (most of it).
History through coins.
Eli V
Sounds similar to what India did a couple of weeks ago - invalidated all the old banknotes without sufficiently stocking the banks and ATMs with the new ones.
That's exactly what the USSR government did in 1991: circulation of 50 and 100 roubles was stopped, and there were only few days to exchange them, and also in very limited amounts. All communist/socialist governments start to grab their people when they fail.
But in the USSR 50 roubles was quite a big amount of money. And 100 bolivares is almost nothing. In fact, that's the only denomination that really circulates. For example, 1 kg of rice costs 6400 bolivares, i.e. 64 notes of 100 bolivares; and in 50 bolivares it will be already 128 notes.
At the same time, Venezuela introduces coins of 10, 50 and 100 bolivares. All 3 denominations are too small, they have no chance to circulate.
Цитата: "ciscoins" All communist/socialist governments start to grab their people when they fail.
You can see it in Czechoslovakia catalogue - In 1953, the greatest theft in our history occured - in one day, government stole all the money from its people. (By different exchange rates for new ones, by ammount of money people had before). By instant, state companies deleted all their debts.
Also, state confiscated everyone's life insurance.
Profit of the state - 4 Bilions of then Czech crowns. + We paid 27 millions to Soviets for new coins.
And we got kicked from IMF. And ruling party officials had better exchange rates.
And president lied about the reform the day before it happened.
And they have not told anyone and kept new coins on military bases.
Somebody protested. Off to the mines!
Really nice government. Now we are crazy about taxes... Anyway, everybody knows where Venezuela is heading.
It's not so clear. Maduro's government has at least one more step to make before the final crash: they can start a war with Guyana. They need a war with someone to explain their own failure, and a war with Colombia or Brazil is almost impossible, so the last chance is Guyana.
Heard about this, the top coin will only be 100 Bolivares worth like 5 cents if that. Yet why on the Numista page does it say the face value is $14 NZD or about $10USD. The fact the coin is small and made out of steel does not instil any confidence in its value.
Venezuela needs to abandon the communism already, its a failed system that never works!
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
Numista still uses the official rate of 9.97 VEF per USD (adjusted from 6.3/$ in March 2016). Not that anyone except a few government officials can convert at that price.
The black market prices of the Bolivar have actually risen substantially since the 100 Bs notes were demonetised. I think it went from 4500 to 2200 Bs/$. As volatile as a lady.
Another Devaluation has been put in place with a new bank notes and coins... once again the government has removed 3 zeros from our current currency 1000 becomes 1 again but under a new name Bolivar Soberano, similar to what they have done few years ago with the Bolivar Fuerte without any good solution.
The Central Bank as not updated their website yet as of today 23rd March 2018, http://www.bcv.org.ve/
The black market rate for the Bolivar Fuerte is already 200,000/$, so this new currency would stand at 200/$. That makes those 2 coins worth a quarter and half cent. I wonder how often those will circulate.
I have the 10, 50 and 100 Bs coins from 2016. Those probably hardly circulated at all.
And 18 months since my last post the Bolivar Soberano's value has dropped 99% to 20,000 per US Dollar. I really hope for the Venezuelans that all this misery will end soon, but sadly I'm afraid this could go on for years to come.
Also do not underestimate the power of religion.
Was it not Chavez that claimed that God talks to him....so all he does is "devine"
ans above discussion.
