Banknotes from CJ_Sidewall's Trip to Asia, May '06

I spent the past month backpacking through several Asian countries, specifically: Thailand, Korea, Japan and Hong Kong. This post contains some information and random personal thoughts about their respective currencies, along with some interesting banknotes I came across while travelling.

In Thailand, the official currency is the Thai Baht (THB), read up about it on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_baht. One Canadian Dollar (CAD) is worth approximately 33 baht (THB), or 100 baht is worth roughly $3 CAD. Exact conversion rates can be found at here: http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?amt=1&from=CAD&to=THB&submit=Convert.

Everything in Thailand is ridicously cheap compared to Canada. You can buy a 700 mL bottle of domestic Chang beer from 7-Eleven for 37 baht (or just over $1 CAD). You can take a Tuk Tuk (a motorized rickshaw) (see http://www.into-asia.com/bangkok/tuktuk/ for more info) to get anywhere around the vicinity for 100 baht ($3 CAD). However, 100 baht is the driver's tourist-gouging asking price, because we met some locals who negotiated with a driver to take us around to different tourist attractions for a good 2-3 hours for only 30 baht.

Anyways, to the main point. While wandering the famous Chatuchak Weekend Market (see http://www.into-asia.com/bangkok/markets/chatuchak.php for more info) in Bangkok (one of the world's largest weekend markets), I came across a Thai Banknote and Coin dealer. Lots of older banknotes, but I didn't know (and still don't know) much about vintage Thai banknotes. Didn't see any radars notes or much in the way of fancy numbers, but I what I did see was the following:

{http://www.geocities.com/cj_sidewall/banknotes/Thailand_MillionSerialNumbers.JPG}
Million Serial Number Set, each banknote is 1000 baht (~$30 CAD). Asking price 27,000 baht (~$820 CAD).

{http://www.geocities.com/cj_sidewall/banknotes/Thailand_BarcodeError.JPG}
Barcode Miscut Error, 1000 baht (~$30 CAD) denomination. Asking price 12,000 baht (~$360 CAD).

{http://www.geocities.com/cj_sidewall/banknotes/Thailand_MismatchedSerialNumbers.JPG}
Mismatched Serial Number Error, 100 baht (~$3 CAD) demonination. Asking price 30,000 baht (~$910 CAD).

The Thai-to-English/English-to-Thai communication wasn't great, but those were the prices I interpreted from him. The dealer was very nice, after pointing to myself, the banknotes and the making clicking motions on an imaginary camera, he politely nodded and removed banknotes from the display case in order for me to snap the pictures below.

{http://www.geocities.com/cj_sidewall/banknotes/Thailand_StoreFront.JPG}
Here is a picture of the dealer's store front in Chatuchak Market. The hanging blue sign reads: "Buying & Selling Thai Coins, Commemorative Medals, Banknotes and Royal Decorations."

In (South) Korea, the official currency is the (South) Korean Won (KRW), read up about in on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_won. One Canadian Dollar (CAD) is worth about 850 won (KRW) or a rough ballpark of 1,000 won when estimating in your head. Exact conversion rates can be found at: http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?amt=1&from=CAD&to=KRW&submit=Convert. An interesting observation is that 10,000 won (worth roughly $11.50 CAD) is the largest denomination banknote printed, so everyone carries around big wads of cash.

Imagine if Canada only had $1, $5 and $10 bills!

I was only in Korea for a few days, and didn't run into any banknote dealers.

In Japan, the official currency is the Japanese Yen (JPY). One Canadian Dollar is worth approximately 100 yen, so it's pretty easy to convert, just think of 1 yen being worth 1 cent and expressing everything in terms of cents. In Japan, they currently have only 3 circulating banknotes: the 1000 yen (~$10 CAD), 5000 yen (~$50 CAD) and 10000 yen (~$100 CAD) banknotes. All denominations below 1000 yen are coins, mainly the 500 yen (~$5 CAD) and 100 yen (~$1 CAD) coins. The 500 yen coin is the same diameter as a loonie, and the 100 yen coin resembles a quarter. To quote Wikipedia "500 yen coins are probably the highest valued coins to be used regularly in the world." Needless to say you carry around a lot of change while in Japan. Basic fare on the Tokyo Metro Subway starts at 160 yen. Thinking I'd get a 500 yen coin in change, I placed my 1000 yen bill into the subway fare machine only to get eight 100 yen coins and four 10 yen coins.

As an aside, take a look at the Tokyo Subway Map (http://www.tokyometro.jp/kabegami/img1024/rosen02.jpg), quite overwhemling compared to Toronto's TTC (http://www.toronto.ca/ttc/images/subway_rt.gif) or Montreal's STM (http://www.stcum.qc.ca/English/metro/images/planmet2004.gif).

Alternative views of the Tokyo Subway Map can be found here:
http://bosai.org/images/chikatetsu.gif
http://www.kotsu.metro.tokyo.jp/foreign_map/imgs/english_map.gif

I didn't run into any banknote dealers while in Japan, but I did come across the following at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (see http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/top_e.html for more info) in Hiroshima:

{http://www.geocities.com/cj_sidewall/banknotes/Hiroshima.JPG}
Both are ten-yen bills, the description on the left reads: "Collected from where it fell at Jigozen Village, Saeki County (now Hatsukaichi City), 14 km from the hypocenter." The description on the right reads: "Collected from where it fell at Tomo Village, Asa County (now Hiroshima City Asaminami Ward), 8.5 km from the hypocenter."

Hong Kong is quite an interesting place for banknote collectors. To quote Wikipedia, "The Government, through the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), has given authorization to three commercial banks-- The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), Standard Chartered, and the Bank of China." In addition, the Government prints the currently circulating $10 HKD bill. Read more about Hong Kong currency here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_banknotes. So collecting an UNC example of each banknote just got a lot more expensive in Hong Kong. Nice specimen images of each variation of the $100 HKD and $500 HKD notes are available at http://www.sinobanknote.net. Click on the "HKD".

For reference:
HSBC = Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation
SCB = Standard Chartered Bank
BOC = Bank of China (Hong Kong)