By Nilaish
Life Member of IBNS-IBCC
"It is dear to those who loves currency notes and its history, but is there any future for stock pickers?"
Collecting paper money hobby is a very educative hobby, but I suspect that very few collectors understand it?! I started collecting Indian paper money since 1998 and yet not grown out of my boyhood passion. I saw many trends in the market culture of traders of Indian paper money. Sometime back it was very high ... and now it is low! There are few things, which I noted during my journey of 18 years of collecting. This article focuses on the collector-side and as well as the investor-side of this hobby!
Earlier, I had observed: October 18, 2000 edition of the magazine: "Intelligent Investor" which published an article about investing in and collecting Indian paper money. The article was titled, "GET NOTE WORTHY!" authored by Chumki Bharadawaj. She defined the hobby of collecting paper money of India in an investment magazine for the first time? The subtitle of the article read as, "All of us love those bank notes, but it takes a special passion to crave the ones that can't buy you anything - even if they are worth a lot."
In the last two decades, I know few collectors and scholars who have enriched the knowledge of collectors about rare notes through their research on the subject. They are namely; Amiya Bagachi (Author), P.L. Gupta (Author), Rezwan Razack (Author & Collector), Late Aftab Joya (Author & Collector), Bazil Shaikh and Sandhya Srinivasan (Authors & RBI Directors). There are also some good collectors, whose names are not listed here.
It was mentioned in the magazine that, there are many collectors who collect these bank notes for fun rather as an investment. Despite of this, since then a big crowd of investors started hoarding rare bank notes of India. They paid a price based on the past demand of collectors, but never considered that if they are collected already in a collection; it will not have comparable future value, as liquidity of the asset is dependent on the same old demand which matches his investment passion. This market based sub-culture of stock pickers hiked the price of bank notes. At present, some suggestions are mentioned to stop downside.
STOP FALLS... SUGGESTIONS
(i) The price of KGVI 100 Rupees signed by JB Taylor was sold earlier in the range of Rs. 30,000-60,000. Now the price of the notes has gone down and it is sold in the range of Rs. 15,000-30,000. It has happened because of stock pickers of today, who are not collecting for the sake of collecting but for other reasons. I am sorry to inform that in future... collectors will buy only from veteran collectors not from these stock pickers. The reason is very obvious, many fakes are sold to these layman hoarders as they don't know how to confirm authenticity of these notes. This is the main reason, price of these notes are have gone down. Advanced collectors still tend to buy from foreign auctions and do not mingle with these howler dealers.
(ii) History of currency notes are also not known to the new collectors, hence they fear buying for correct price...as they don't know the correct price! Provenance is a major issue for new collectors who wants to buy rare notes. Again in this case, new collectors will buy from veteran collectors as it much safer!
(iii) Stop following the trend of collecting portrait notes of KGV and KGVI, they are plenty available, the price will never be up in future! There is one section in Indian paper money which is neglected so far....Bank notes of Private and Presidency Banks (Bank notes used before 1860, during Company Raj). I know that there are less than 200 notes remaining dating before 1860. These notes are extremely rare whence, these portrait notes are not! It is also remarkable to know that, first bank notes were issued by Bank of Hindostan (1770-1832), Bank of Bengal (1809-1858) [An example shown below], Bank of Bombay (1840-1860) and Bank of Madras (1843-1860). To have any one example of these bank's note is a big accomplishment for a collector! Now they are sold at much cheaper price ranging from Rs. 70,000-5,00,000. As in future if collectors are aware of the history more, their demand will shoot up more! However, happy collecting!
Life Member of IBNS-IBCC
"It is dear to those who loves currency notes and its history, but is there any future for stock pickers?"
Collecting paper money hobby is a very educative hobby, but I suspect that very few collectors understand it?! I started collecting Indian paper money since 1998 and yet not grown out of my boyhood passion. I saw many trends in the market culture of traders of Indian paper money. Sometime back it was very high ... and now it is low! There are few things, which I noted during my journey of 18 years of collecting. This article focuses on the collector-side and as well as the investor-side of this hobby!
Earlier, I had observed: October 18, 2000 edition of the magazine: "Intelligent Investor" which published an article about investing in and collecting Indian paper money. The article was titled, "GET NOTE WORTHY!" authored by Chumki Bharadawaj. She defined the hobby of collecting paper money of India in an investment magazine for the first time? The subtitle of the article read as, "All of us love those bank notes, but it takes a special passion to crave the ones that can't buy you anything - even if they are worth a lot."
In the last two decades, I know few collectors and scholars who have enriched the knowledge of collectors about rare notes through their research on the subject. They are namely; Amiya Bagachi (Author), P.L. Gupta (Author), Rezwan Razack (Author & Collector), Late Aftab Joya (Author & Collector), Bazil Shaikh and Sandhya Srinivasan (Authors & RBI Directors). There are also some good collectors, whose names are not listed here.
It was mentioned in the magazine that, there are many collectors who collect these bank notes for fun rather as an investment. Despite of this, since then a big crowd of investors started hoarding rare bank notes of India. They paid a price based on the past demand of collectors, but never considered that if they are collected already in a collection; it will not have comparable future value, as liquidity of the asset is dependent on the same old demand which matches his investment passion. This market based sub-culture of stock pickers hiked the price of bank notes. At present, some suggestions are mentioned to stop downside.
STOP FALLS... SUGGESTIONS
(i) The price of KGVI 100 Rupees signed by JB Taylor was sold earlier in the range of Rs. 30,000-60,000. Now the price of the notes has gone down and it is sold in the range of Rs. 15,000-30,000. It has happened because of stock pickers of today, who are not collecting for the sake of collecting but for other reasons. I am sorry to inform that in future... collectors will buy only from veteran collectors not from these stock pickers. The reason is very obvious, many fakes are sold to these layman hoarders as they don't know how to confirm authenticity of these notes. This is the main reason, price of these notes are have gone down. Advanced collectors still tend to buy from foreign auctions and do not mingle with these howler dealers.
(ii) History of currency notes are also not known to the new collectors, hence they fear buying for correct price...as they don't know the correct price! Provenance is a major issue for new collectors who wants to buy rare notes. Again in this case, new collectors will buy from veteran collectors as it much safer!
(iii) Stop following the trend of collecting portrait notes of KGV and KGVI, they are plenty available, the price will never be up in future! There is one section in Indian paper money which is neglected so far....Bank notes of Private and Presidency Banks (Bank notes used before 1860, during Company Raj). I know that there are less than 200 notes remaining dating before 1860. These notes are extremely rare whence, these portrait notes are not! It is also remarkable to know that, first bank notes were issued by Bank of Hindostan (1770-1832), Bank of Bengal (1809-1858) [An example shown below], Bank of Bombay (1840-1860) and Bank of Madras (1843-1860). To have any one example of these bank's note is a big accomplishment for a collector! Now they are sold at much cheaper price ranging from Rs. 70,000-5,00,000. As in future if collectors are aware of the history more, their demand will shoot up more! However, happy collecting!
1813, Bank of Bengal, 250 Sicca Rupees, PMG 20 (very fine), Sign cut and cancelled (norm and not to be considered a damaged note), Less than 10 examples remain, only PMG graded example of this type.
