Does anyone know much about currency

As in money, and changing it between countries, that sort of thing?

The situation is this: I have inherited some Antiguan bills. Of the collectible gold foiled sort. As far as I can tell they don't have any collectible value any more than any other painted or decorated "collector" currency, which is to say not all that much. On the bills, and on assorted websites connected to it, it is claimed to be "official tender". At the face value, given exchange rates, they would seem to be worth about $400. Given their lack of collectors worth, i would love to recoup their value. But since they are not the standard issue tender, they are not in the Fourex trading guide, and the little booth at the airport cannot help me.

Any ideas? Are they just worthless?

Is that a coincidence?

I should specify, it says it is issued by antigua/barbados.

window somewhere. You might be able to just deposit the cash, but whatever you do the fees will be high.

Worst case-- they are worthless outside of Antigua.

Even worse case-- they are old bills that have been replaced by new currency and aren't worth anything even in Antigua, thereby spoiling any vacation plans you might make.

I have a friend that is a stamp dealer specializing in Carribean stamps. He was trading in some old Trini currency at one time too. I could ask him about it. Do you have any scans?

They are gold and silver foil embossed "collectable" notes that I'm pretty sure were obtained from late night shopping channel runs.


They are of this general type:
http://cgi.ebay.com/antigua-barbuda-100-gold-silver-banknote_W0QQitemZ370231632565QQcmdZViewItemQQssPageNameZRSS:B:SRCH:US:101

on edit: thats the first one ive seen with a bid in a while, though Its been a couple months since i even looked. But it goes against the grain to sell something that by currency trading numbers should be worth about $50 for $10. Theres gotta be a way, if they are indeed legal tender, right?

foil bank notes issued in the 90s. They were sold to collectors, and are legal currency there.

Value is hard to determine. There are some on ebay, but the prices are all over the place.

Do a Google search for Antigua foil note to see a few pages discussing them.

You might do best at a coin and currency shop, or you might find that they are hard to get rid of. Are these on the commemorative sheets they were issued with?

I have noticed the variance on ebay and similar sites. These happen to be in the pirate ship run.

If they are legal currency, how come I cannot take them to my banks exchange desk, as I can with canadian cash? I have gotten the strong impression that that is where i could get my best value, if only they would take them.

They are on the commemorative sheets, in little sleeves, in a "collectors book". My FIL was saving them for my wife, as he is the late night infomercial believer type.

I hadnt tried a coin shop. My experience in the past is that the coustomer gets reamed in those place. But I may just try it to see. Honestly, I am getting to the point where I would be happy to take the fee and the % loss to just turn them in as currency at the going rate, just to be done with these things, but so far I havnt even had any luck at that.

to Barbados and tried to get regular money for them. While the government may have declared them to be currency, the reality is that nobody there has ever seen them. All were sold here to people hearing the word "gold" and "currency."

I'm pretty sure your best bet is going to be the coin and stamp dealers, who may be able to find other "collectors" to peddle them to. Failing that, a trip to Barbados and to whatever the national bank there is might get you the current exchange rate for the face value.

Right now, the cool ad is for the Australian 24k Koala coins. They're $90 each, and weigh 1/10 oz. But they're real gold and have that intrisic value. I'm betting your notes weigh under 10 grams. The value of the gold isn't equal to the face value, so you're sorta dependent of some other measure of value.

I don't think there's an active market among currency collectors for these notes, though, based on my Googling.

though its somewhat frustrating. I haven't even looked them up in the better part of a year, but it appears someone has flooded e-bay with a bunch.

I wondered about the koalas. I figured they had to be pretty small for them to sell at that price. These notes arent even gold notes. Its paper, with some gold foil. I am sure there is nowhere near 10 grams in the whole stack of notes.

It seems retarded that you cannot just take a supposedly legal tender to a bank, and let them take it to its source.

given gold at 953.40/oz, isn't 90 for 1/10th actually a decent deal at this particular moment?

purchased when gold was lower and they're pushing them at a bargain price to move them out.

I'm betting that when you add the "processing and shipping" charge, it'll bring them right up to the spot price.