Gradually, Then Suddenly
ZIM105a, 2021, 50 ZWD

Slot Comment:

ZWD Banknote AA Prefix

View Image Gallery >

Obverse
Enlarge   
 
Reverse
Enlarge   

Note Details

  

Set Details
Note Description: Zimbabwe, Reserve Bank
50 Dollars - Wmk: Zimbabwe Bird & RBZ
Grade: 66 EPQ
Country: Zimbabwe
Note Number: ZIM105a
Signatures/
Vignettes: 		- Sign. J.P. Mangudya
Comment: Exceptional Paper Quality
Certification #: 2079260-013
Owner: Revenant
Set Category: World
Set Name: Gradually, Then Suddenly
Slot Name: ZIM105a, 2021, 50 ZWD
Research: Currently not available

Owner's Description

Well, they proved me wrong.

In Mid-May 2021 I wrote in my description for the $20 note in this series, that I did not think there would be a $50 note for this series. I really thought at the time that the series was dead. It had been a while since the $20 note had been released and, even though they’d talked about releasing a $50 note “soon” in early 2021, there had been no formal announcement or release of the note after more than a year. It seemed like all signs pointed to this series being dead. Then, only about 2 months later, in July 2021, the RBZ announced that this note was coming out.

You get different values for this note at time of introduction depending on what you reference. Some articles put the value at US$0.59-0.60 based on prevailing official bank rates and some put it at US$0.35 based on black market rates. Other black-market rates I see would put it at about US$0.13-0.14. In either case, it was not worth much even at release.

I think if they had had any sense the RBZ would have skipped these completely and done $100, $500, $1000 and $5000, but they were afraid that releasing new notes too fast would spook people with memories of 2006-2009. But inflation was still running at 106% annually in 2021 (down from ~800%). They were again allowing the US dollar to trade in parallel with the ZWD domestically, so you are back to dollarization of the economy. The new note still could not buy a loaf of bread - it took two of them. You still needed a huge wad of bills to make any reasonably sized purchase. People were already worried about the fact that they are seeing 1 or 2 new, higher, denominations every year. People simply aren't this dumb. People were already talking about the fact that more, higher, denominations will probably be coming in articles announcing this one. The RBZ might be thinking that releasing new denominations slower is going to make people less alarmed and have them not remembering 2006-2009, but they remember. The kids know about it. The fear and the awareness are there.

It is worth noting that the $50 notes (and the $100 notes released in 2022) are dated "2020," suggesting that they were printed and ready in 2020 and that their release was just delayed for a while for some reason(s) I don't know. So, the release of these notes most likely is the result of the fact that they were already printed so the options were to just release them or quietly destroy them, so the RBZ chose to release them.

Maybe if they had released the notes in 2020, when they were presumably printed, the note would have at least been able to buy that loaf of bread. Make all the jokes you want to about the $100 Trillion note (P-91), but at least when it was released it was worth about $2 and could buy bread.

The back of this note features the Monument to the Unknown Soldier of the War for Independence and a portrait of Mbuya Nehandra. The monument is in the National Heroes Acre (which is actually about 57 acres). This is also where the "Eternal Flame of Freedom" / "Eternal Flame of Independence" is - you see that show up in a few different places, including on the old P-3 notes, the P-99 (&P-101) and the P-97. I think this monument was featured on Zimbabwean currency only once before this, on the back of the P-81 note (200 Million ZWR).

Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana, aka Mbuya Nehandra was a female hero of the “Chimurenga,” or what is now called the “First Chimurenga,” which was the war of the native Africans to fight the British South Africa Company in an attempt to stop the colonialization of Rhodesia / Zimbabwe. She was a spirit medium and spirit leader of the Shona. She was captured and executed in 1898. It is believed she was born around 1840 and she would have been 45-50 at the time of her death. In the lead up to and after independence (the war for independence became the “2nd Chimurenga“) she was honored by Zimbabweans with statues, street names, naming hospitals, songs, novels and poems.

My wife got me this P-105 note as part of my Father’s Day present in 2022.

To follow or send a message to this user,
please log in