PNG Coinage – a Menagerie
I know beans about coins. I have hundreds and hundreds in a big jar from all over the world, but I don’t get serious about them. They are just for bragging rights.
Since I have already showed you the folding money we use here, I’ll add the coins also.
Here is the amount side (I can’t remember what it’s called – what’s heads and tails if there’s no head on the coin). In both photos, the scale on the bottom is in centimetres (for the metrically challenged it is about 2.5 cm to the inch).
The first two from the left end are both one Kina (written as K 1.00) coins. The bigger one is the old style (possibly soon to be withdrawn) and the smaller one is the newer, cheaper, lighter, cheesier replacement.
I liked the heft of the old K1 coin. It was really heavy. When we first came here, you could buy a can of Coke with it and have a handful of smaller coins left over. In case you cannot see the detail well (clicking to enlarge will help), both K1 coins have twin crocodiles on them.
By he way, the hole in the K1 coin is meant to symbolize the hole in the traditional shell money, which was also called kina. The money, in turn, was named after the shell, which was also called kina.
The next one is the half Kina or Fifty Toea coin. These are getting pretty scarce. The one I’m showing is a bit distressed – I couldn’t find a nice one. Notice the odd seven-sided shape. The K .50 coin bears one of the stylized bird of paradise images.
The K.20 or Twenty Toea coin following sports an image of a cassowary. The cassowary is a very large flightless bird. It is not to be trifled with. Its claws can rip you to pieces and it is generally bad tempered.
The K .10 or Ten Toea coin shows a furry little cuscus, a kind of cute woolly possum. Many people keep them as pets.
Next is the final coin that remains in circulation – the K. 05 or Five Toea coin. It bears an image of a sea turtle – from the shape, I’d say it’s probably a loggerhead turtle.
The Two and One Toea coins have been withdrawn from circulation as the government found production of them to be more costly than their currency value – or so goes the local legend. The Two Toea coins shows a lionfish and the One Toea coin has a butterfly – probably a Papilio ulysses.
Here are the opposite sides. As you can see, they all bear the national emblem – a bird of paradise:
Here is a better example of the national emblem:
I’ve always wondered why there is no pig on any PNG coins. It’s easily the most highly valued animal in the culture. The wild boar (a truly nasty character) does appear on the K 20 banknote.
I think the next PNG cultural lesson might be a trip to a used clothing store.
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[...] Yesterday I had my first dive with my new Canon G10 and the WP-DC28 factory underwater housing. I’ve been enormously satisfied with the results I’ve gotten over the past year with the G9 and its factory housing. Given my style, mostly available light rather than flash, the camera suited me well and always gave me good images. The G10, camera and housing are both improvements on excellent products. The G10 seems to be much less noisy in low light conditions. Here is an example of how well it can deliver even when the photographer is not paying attention:I was far too far away for the shot, but it was near the end of the dive and I just couldn’t bothered to take the time to get in close for a proper exposure. Even with the poor lighting, I still have a usable image. Lionfish shots are a dime a dozen, anyway. You can see some of my other lionfish shots here, here, here, here, and here. The lionfish also appears on a PNG coin. [...]