Saturday, April 23, 2011

Reference catalogue : World War II Remembered


  • Title : World War II Remembered, history in your hands - a numismatic study
  • Authors : C. Frederick Schwan, Joseph E. Boling
  • ID : ISBN 0-931960-40-1, published by BNR Press 1995
  • Languages : English
  • Number of pages : 864
  • Images : black and white, almost on every page and often more than 1 page
  • Indexes : 1. by Country/Territory, 2. by keyword

This catalogue, a heavy large format book, is astonishing, phenomenal, enlightening. It describes the numismatic objects in the broad sense issued during World War II by governmental and nongovernmental organizations : allied nations, axis nations, occupied nations, occupation governments, armies, governments-in-exile, local authorities, army camps, local companies and merchants, and even psychiatric institutions. 

Numismatic objects discussed : notes, coins, gold coinage, camp money, checks, orders, decorations and medals, loans and bonds, counterfeits, numismatic ephemera, postage stamps, lottery tickets, ...
The Country quick list contains about 150 countries or political territories.

Bonds and loans are included for the following territories : Australia, Bulgaria, Burma, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Japan, Korea, Malaya, Mongolia, Newfoundland, New Zealand, Palestine, Poland, Straits Settlements, Taiwan, USA, USSR, Yugoslavia

Friday, April 15, 2011

Fold shadows and backlight

Haste and laziness do not reward
Yesterday, I fooled myself by trying to gain some time by making a "quick" scan of an American stock certificate. I put its front side on the scanning surface. The cover of my scanner device has been removed, which allows me to scan parts of large certificates more easily. I pressed the "scan" button on the device and thirty seconds later, the image was generated. This was the result. Poor !


Hm, not good at all. This was not the result that I expected as several shortcomings in the image can be identified (click the image to enlarge) :
  1. Shadows along the folds
  2. Hazy details and letters along the fold areas
  3. Print patterns from the backside visible through the image
  4. Faint colors


Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Euratom specimen or proof ?

Collecting bonds of intergovernmental organizations is definitely a challenge
Rather few certificates of such organizatons are seen on the collector's market. These organizations are composed of states and are less numerous than commercial organizations. They do not pursuit market shares and they are not bothered by competition. 
Wikipedia tells us there are more than 250 of them and the number is still growing. As many of  these organizations have a global influence on politics and economics, the bonds they issued, are a nice addition to any collection representing our modern history.

Intergovernmental organizations form actually one category of the so-called supranational organizations :
  • cat. 1 : international nongovernmental non-profit, e.g. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
  • cat. 2 : international corporations, e.g. Toyota, Coca-Cola
  • cat. 3 : intergovernmental, e.g. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN)
The European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom) fits in the latter category.


detail of Euratom logo on bond certificate
logo or emblem of Euratom