tropicalbats.com
  • Home
  • Bats
  • Places of note
    • Suriname
    • Costa Rica
    • Norway
    • The UK >
      • London
    • The United States
  • critter essays
  • Birds
    • Suriname birds
  • tropicalbats blog
  • Coins: Errors, Varieties and Photography

2015 Sierra Leone 1,250,000 Leones Stop Ebola!       bat coin

4/5/2017

0 Comments

 
This is the third coin in the Stop Ebola! series, and so far I only know of these three.  The coin is from Sierra Leone and is a whopping 1,250,000 Leones, so now I can say I am a millionaire!  And that is a significant sum of money, approximately US $166 at today's exchange rate.  So one of the more expensive face value coins out there.  And, at a mintage of just 100, one of the most rare of bat coins.  But like the others, it is a Fantasy Issue and not legal tender.

​And what is not apparent in a photo of just the coin is the sheer size of this thing.  It comes in at a stunning 70mm (2.75 inches) diameter and is a brick at 105.3 grams (3.71 ounces).  I can not find any information on what metal it is made of, but it is a proof-like mintage (or possibly a true proof) with a mirror surface on the flat parts and frosted on the raised parts.  A real beauty.
Picture
2015 Sierra Leone 1,250,000 Leones Stop Ebola coin with a flying fox bat on the obverse
Please refer to the previous two posts about this series for details about the designs and details, but this coin is in particular need of some discussion of the bat itself.  At first glance, it almost does not even look like a bat, what with being right-side up and the wings being hard to differentiate from the branches.  The face is very blunt for an African flying fox and that foot right by the chest is just odd.  Okay, so who came up with this design?

​Answer:  I don't know, but I do know where the design came from.  This design is done from a photograph by Anton Croos of a bat moving through the branches (instead of just hanging).  I don't have permission to reproduce it here, but here is a link to a blog page about bats that uses the photo with attribution.  You will notice it is the exact bat and pose used here.

​http://whyfiles.org/2014/bats-on-the-wing/

And did you go there?  Nice page with lots of very good bat info.  And in the caption for the photo by Mr. Croos one should notice that the picture is of a bat taken in Sri Lanka.  Last time I looked at a map Sri Lanka was off the southern coast of India and no where near Africa.  So...  Did they use this bat photo with permission for the coin image?  I don't know, but if I were the photographer I think I would not give permission to use an Asian bat on a coin representing Africa.  And surely given the high quality of this photo he had a better bat picture around than this one for a coin image.  And so there you have it, the origin of the image, but no answer as to how that image ended up on this coin.

​​
Picture
Other than being huge and now up to 100 Afros, the reverse of this coin is very similar to the reverse of the 200,000 Francs coin from Guinea.  And being so big the coin offered quite the challenge to photograph, as it is the size of a hand mirror and just as reflective.  Getting a shot of the coin without a reflection of the camera was not easy.  And the trade off was that the photos of the coin are not nearly as pretty as the coin itself is in-hand.  It really is a beautiful, giant, coin.

​So that is it for the Stop Ebola! series.  From what I know I can say that these are rare coins (good from a collector's standpoint) and that they seem to have a bit of a mysterious origin and minting (bad from a collector's standpoint as origin and authenticity are key in collecting).  Really cool additions to a bat coin collection, but not really sure how they fit in anywhere else.

​And, since I have made it clear that this final coin is large, I will end with a photo of it next to a US one cent coin for comparison.  Which would you rather have in your pocket? (trick question, as the big coin is worth a whole lot more than a cent)
Picture
Sierra Leone 1,250,000 Leone coin next to a US one cent coin.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.


    Author

    Keith Christenson - Wildlife Biologist

    Categories

    All
    Akershus Fortress
    Angry Baby
    Aurlandsfjord
    Bat Coins
    Bats
    Bird
    Birds
    Blast From The Past
    Borneo
    Butterfly
    Camouflage
    Caterpillar
    Caving
    Comets
    Costa Rica
    Crazy Video Links
    Crazy Video Links
    Cricket
    Cuba
    Denmark
    Dominican Republic
    Festivals
    Finse
    Fish
    Flower
    Flowers
    Folk Museum
    Freia Chocolates
    Frog
    Frogner Park
    Geese
    Goose
    Grønland
    Harvestman
    Hawaii
    Hedgehog
    Holiday Cards
    Huk
    Ice
    Insect
    Ireland
    Isopods
    Jamaica
    Kolsastoppen
    London
    Mammals
    Mexico
    Mourning Cloak
    Mushrooms
    Naeroyfjorden
    National Day
    Norway
    Ohio
    Oslo
    Oslo Opera House
    Oslo Summer Park
    Panama
    Patterns
    Pennsylvania
    People
    Pond
    Puerto Rico
    Roof Animals
    Scotland
    Sognsvann
    Spiders
    Spring
    Suriname
    United States
    United States
    Venezuela
    Virginia
    Washington Dc Area
    Washington Dc Area
    West Virginia
    Woodpecker
    World's End
    Zambia

    Author

    Keith Christenson
    Wildlife Biologist


    RSS Feed

    Archives

    September 2021
    May 2021
    February 2021
    November 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    November 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    December 2011
    January 2011
    November 2010
    October 2010
    June 2010

Proudly powered by Weebly
Photo from Evil_Prince