After a short break, during which I have been accused of everything from abandoning my blog to being sucked through the time-space continuum, I am back.

​Next up on the bat coin blog topic is a 2010 Poland 20 Zlotych coin.  This coin is part of Poland's Animals of the World series and really, they have a lot of animals in this series.  But this coin is similar in some ways to the first bat coin I put up, a 2010 2 Zlotych coin that much less needs said here.

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Truly a beautiful coin.  It is made of 0.925 fine silver (sterling) and comes in at a hefty 28.28g (let's call it an ounce).  It is a proof strike so the detail is amazing, and here shown with the mirror finish reflecting black to simulate night.  As with the 2 Zlotych coin from 2010, the subject is the Lesser Horseshoe Bat, although this time they are leaving a day roost in a wooden structure (or possibly returning).  The rendering of the bats, both those flying and those roosting is very good, and the designer really got the bat correct to species and detail.  I love it when that happens. 

​The design includes six roosting bats, four fully shrouded in sleep posture and two with heads exposed in the awake pose.  The main flying bat is one of the best on any bat coin with accurate detail right down to a visible tragus in the bat's ear.  The other two bats are flying away (so probably leaving at evening) and while small and less detailed they are nonetheless very nicely done.  I do find it odd that the little cabin in the distance has no door or windows, but there is always the side you can't see.

​And Podkowiec maly means small horseshoe, as in "lesser horseshe".  Didn't seem to be quite enough room for the Polish word for bat, which is nietoperz

The obverse of this coin is essentially the same as the 2 Zlotych from the early post, but this time in splendid silver proof. 

​Overall one of the best of the bat coins in a lot of ways.

Here is a very nice bat coin, and one of the earlier years for such.  Most bat coins have come out very recently and anything before the year 2000 is unusual.  This is the 1994 $10 (10 tala) Western Samoa Endangered Wildlife coin.  Some might call it a token, as it is a Fantasy Issue and part of a long campaign by the World Wildlife Fund to produce coins from countries around the world focusing on wildlife.

​It is a really nice coin, about the size of the old large US silver dollars (38mm in diameter) and made with 31g of 0.925 pure silver (so about an ounce of pure silver).  It is a proof coin and really shines.  There is precious little information about this issue anywhere, but it would seem that the initial mintage was about 20,000, although that seems high given how few of these there seem to be around.  Even numista.com, which seems to have about every coin ever made on it, does not have this one.

One is left to assume that the bat on the coin is the Samoan Flying Fox (Pteropus samoensis) which was discussed in detail in an earlier post about Samoan bat coins.  However, this design has a bit of trouble.  While the bat is clearly a flying fox, I am not super thrilled with the bold whiskers on the rostrum, as it looks odd.  And then there is the bit with the bat seeming to have an opposable "thumb" on the foot, which it does not have.  But those two things are merely iffy, the main issue is just wrong.

​Looking at the bat's left wing you will see the correct anatomy of a bat's wing (more or less).  Bats have five fingers, but the second finger runs pretty close to the first finger (skipping the thumb which is the little hook coming off the wrist) and there is only one point at the tip of the wing for both fingers.  Now look at the bat's right wing.  Oops, it has FOUR fingers all reaching the edge of the wing separately.  So a pretty major goof for a coin produced specifically to focus attention on the bat.

​The other elements of the obverse are pretty straightforward.  The date at the top and the "Endangered Wildlife" slogan that is on all these WWF coins on the bottom.  Mixed in is a banana plant, which is a source of food for these bats, and some islands with palm trees and a volcano.  Very nice.  Makes you want to visit.

The reverse of the coin is very simple, but quite a nice design.  The country at the top, the denomination at the bottom, and the national arms in the middle. 

​So a super-collectible coin getting harder to find all the time, proof, and made from an ounce of silver.  And in theory the initial purchase went to  help fund wildlife conservation.  A winner of a bat coin, even if they don't really quite know what a bat's wing looks like.

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.

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.

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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)

Part two of the three posts on the Stop Ebola! coins.  Again, these are Fantasy Issue coins and not legal tender, but they are very worthy of having a look at.  And for a total cop-out on my lack of detailed information on Ebola or the African Monetary Union see my last blog post.  Also, before you ask, both my spelling and the spelling on the coin of "Guinea" are correct.  I am using the standard English spelling, while the coin uses the native French spelling (although missing the accent on the first e) of Guinée.

​Here we have a much larger coin than the Liberia 1 Afro (250 dollars) coin.  This hefty coin is from Guinea, and slightly larger than the old US silver dollars back when they were the biggest things out there.  It has a diameter of 40mm or just over an inch and a half, or about as big as any coin had ought to be.  The denomination is 10 Afros, or 200,000 Francs (about US $22 as of now).  And with a mintage listed at a whopping 101, it is one of the most rare bat coins out there.  However, as with all of these Afro coins, I really can't figure out who minted them so there is just the seller's word as to how many were made.  There is also the question of what it is made of, which can't be answered without something from a mint.

The obverse of the coin has the country at the top and the denomination with year at the bottom.  Pretty basic there, but they decided to colorize the lettering in red, along with the words Stop Ebola! and part of the international biohazard symbol.  The majority of the symbol is in black but then there is a bit of white in there mostly where the word "virus" comes across the mini outline of Africa.  The word virus does not have its own color so pretty much invisible here but it is raised metal and can be seen under magnification.

​The bat is another flying fox, and seemingly pretty accurate in detail, although I can't be sure of which species they are representing.  The overall pose is only "okay" in that I find the bat's left wrist (that big thing to the right of the face) is not entirely clear as to what it is for someone who hasn't seen a lot of bats. 

Most interestingly, the bat itself is all tangled up in a mesh net, which surely must be confusing to the average viewer of the coin (as it is to me).  I am guessing here that this is a mist net, and the bat is being captured alive by scientists for Ebola studies.  But there is nothing at all to back this up, and since I have personally seen home-made hand nets in Africa designed to capture bats for food, well, that would be bad.  Scientists studying bats...good.  Locals capturing potential Ebola virus source for food...bad.  It would be helpful if that second possible interpretation were not real, but it is.  And of course I have to say that the flying foxes tend to have beautiful eyes and a dog/fox-like face, not slanty evil eyes and a mad snarl expression.  They could have done that bit better.

Not too much to say about the reverse, as it is quite similar to the Liberia coin.  The changes here are the denomination is up to 10 Afros (and that braille is really close together for a blind person to read it), it is colorized, and of interest the EASY MONEY monetary logos are missing.  Also I should have noted for the previous coin that the symbol of Africa surrounded by rays and stars is actually the flag of the African Union, and not just a random coin design.

​The final note here is that while the colorizing of the coin adds some visual appeal, it also detracts from the coin as money instead of artwork.  So if you are going to colorize a coin and make it art, well do it well, something they did not do here.  I like the colors and how the dominant portions of the coin are silver colored and the colorized parts are just highlights, but the paint job kinda stinks.  This is an uncirculated proof-like coin and it has paint spatter to the right of the date on the obverse and lots of places where the paint is chipping or wasn't applied right in the first place.  Not so apparent with just a quick glance, but give a look at the 10 in 10 Afros and you will see a lot of paint missing there.  Too nice a coin not to finish it well, so I wish they would have put just that little extra effort in there.

I am not prepared to offer a complete history of Ebola or how it relates to bats, but it is a dread disease and the occasional outbreaks may have a link to bats.  I leave this to the reader to research if interested, as it is a fascinating subject but only here related in that a coin with the words "Stop Ebola" on it has a bat as the main feature.

​So far I have located three of these Stop Ebola coins, and they will be the next three posts here.  They are all Fantasy Issues, as not legal tender, but are certainly important (and in some cases rare) bat coins.  They are issued using the name of a country, a denomination in that country's coinage, and a back that says "African Monetary Union" along with a denomination in "Afros."  And there is another thing I do not wish to discuss here in great detail, the AMU.  Like the Europeans and the Euro, the Africans have discussed various monetary unions for a single currency.  This is seemingly part of this effort, but does not seem to be well-connected to any particular effort.  I find these coins to be oddities that so far defy reason as to exactly who minted them and why.

​First up is the 2015 Liberia 250 Dollar coin.  It is a reasonably large, bi-metal coin with the inset part (likely copper/nickel alloy) just larger than a US quarter.  The outer ring is thin comparted to most bi-metal coins, leaving a lot of room in the center for design elements.

The text in the outer rim of the obverse is the country at the top and the denomination at the bottom.  The denomination has a five-petal flower/star on each side, and to balance the design they included four symbols.  These symbols are tiny versions of the large symbol above the words Stop Ebola.  This design is based on the international Biohazard design of three touching rings open to the outside and a full circle in the middle.  But to customize the design, they added a miniature outline of Africa in the middle and the word "virus."  Of interest, is the words Stop Ebola have an exclamation point after them, a rare use of punctuation on a coin.

​The bat itself is a flying fox, well rendered and quite accurate.  The coin is well-struck and has great detail, although not quite on the level of a proof coin.

The back of the coin has a lot going on.  Around the rim are the words "African Monetary Union" in a bunch of languages.  In the center is the denomination 1 Afro, a unit that has never really been accepted that I know of.  And for another point of interest, it is repeated in braille below the English lettering.

​The center focus of the reverse is a nice map of Africa showing a lot of the political boundaries, surrounded by a somewhat normal array of rays and stars, although here in great abundance.  Near the island of Madagascar there is what appears to be a mint mark, but I am unfamiliar with this design so it could be the designer's logo, a mint mark, or something else.

​And finally, a bit of humor, intended or not.  In the upper right are the four symbols for some of the world's currency units.  In order they are the Euro, the Afro (or Afriq), the US Dollar, the Japanese Yen/Chinese Yuan.  Which looks sorta like EASY, and the obvious translation as "EASY MONEY"