Gradually, Then Suddenly
ZIM36, 2006, 0.50 ZWN

Slot Comment:

2nd Dollar Emergency Bearer Check AA Prefix - $0.50 [Fractional]

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Note Details

  

Set Details
Note Description: 50 Cents 2006 - Wmk: Zimbabwe Bird
Grade: 68 EPQ
Country: Zimbabwe
Note Number: ZIM36
Signatures/
Vignettes: 		- Sign. #8
Certification #: 8046919-023
Owner: Revenant
Set Category: World
Set Name: Gradually, Then Suddenly
Slot Name: ZIM36, 2006, 0.50 ZWN
Research: See PMG's Census Report for this Note

Owner's Description

I think, when most people think of fractional banknotes, they think of Civil War era US issues. Fractional issues tend to only occur during very unusual, economically unsettled times. In the Civil War there was a lot of coin hoarding because of inflation. The Confederate States experience another of history’s great hyperinflations.

Since I learned about their existence, I’ve found these four fractional notes (the 1 cent, 5 cent, 10 cent, and 50 cent notes) especially interesting and I’ve known from the beginning that I would want these fully represented in my collection of Zimbabwe notes – even if the full 2nd dollar bearer check series never was. But then I managed to complete the fully 28-note set.

These fractional notes are rather odd to look at. They are extremely plain - even by the low standards of this series. These fractional notes even differ from the other notes in the series to acknowledge in a way that they should be coins. That, in any normal time, these denominations would be coin. Where the rest of the series features artwork on the back that is borrowed and repurposed from the 1st dollar series, the reverse of the fractional notes shows only a circle with the denomination in the middle - a design feature acknowledging that awkward truth about these notes.

Where the balancing rocks are a major design feature on the front of the banknotes, with the checks of this series they appear only as part of the seal of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

Much like the 100 Trillion note, it is one of those crazy, freakish things that only happens in a hyperinflation situation. You would never normally see a 50 cent note. This note shows that it is not always a story of big numbers on notes. There is a broader selection of oddities and aberrations that occur.

With 1 ZWN being worth 1000 ZWD, this note would have had the same value as the P-10 and P-11, $500 notes of the 1st dollar series.

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