Just checking to see what doubled die and/or error coins might be for sale on ebay today.  Gonna have to wait a very long time for this one to come up...
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So I had to do the math.  Yes, that is one year and 1 hour 39 minutes and 03 seconds from when I looked at it.  Maybe there wasn't a big Y2K thing ever happen but it would seem eBay is having a bit of confusion here on the last day of 2017.

​And yes, the "ends" time and date is correct down below in the listing.

Transnistria is a non-UN recognized country that is too complicated to fully explain here.  It calls itself Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, but even as it has it's own government and all, it is considered part of Moldova which calls it the Transnistria Autonomous Territorial Unit with special legal status.  

​Most of their coins, yes they issue their own money, are in kopeks and roubles (or rubles) but in 2005 they joined a long parade of countries that have done such and issued a "trial" Euro coin.  This is not a legal tender coin and is considered a Fantasy Issue.

​The coin is bi-metal and just larger than a US quarter, coming in at a 21.8mm diameter and 7.2g weight.  The outer ring is made of nickel-brass and the inner part is copper-nickel.  With a mintage of just 1,000 coins it is not particularly common.

​The obverse is somewhat sparse, showing the date at the top and the word TRANSNISTRIA at the bottom, with a stylized bat in the middle.  The bat would appear to be a characterized flying fox of some kind, but not a particularly good looking one.  While I like the basic simplicity of the design, the tail looks much to much like a plane rudder and not bat-like at all.  But the killer for this design is that the bat's left wing (the one on the right on the coin) has one too many fingers!  Look at the difference between the wings and it is quite obvious.

The reverse of the coin is quite nice, showing a blind Lady Liberty holding her scale and a sword (in case the scale doesn't balance I suppose).  It also has the 2 Euro denomination in the center.
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Every winter a few snowy owls come down out of the north and find places to settle in for the winter in the eastern US.  One of the most famous sites to see this magnificent bird is Dulles Airport near Washington, DC, but it is not the only place.

​This year a snowy owl has taken up residence near the towns of Bridgewater and Mt. Crawford in Virginia.  And unlike at Dulles where the owl can be extremely far away, the Mt. Crawford owl can be seen relatively close without disturbing it.

​It is known to roost in several places, mostly centered on the 7-11 and McDonald's at exit 240 off interstate I-81.  We found it sitting on a giant light post in the Walmart terminal complex on December 22, 2017.  Pretty good viewing but note that public access stops at the Walmart property so please do not trespass if you try and go to see the owl (and no parking on the public access road so you may have to walk a bit.  I estimate we were no more than 200 yards from the bird and it gave us a very nice look as it was awake and just looking around while we were there (late afternoon).

Yes, I will get back to the bat coins, but I took this photo today over at Greenfield, a little park and lake just north of Roanoke, VA and kinda liked it.  Hope you do to.

I will get back to bat coins again, but just wanted to post this beautiful red fox we saw today.  Headed over to Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware to see if the big snowstorm that was coming up the east coast would produce some bird "fallout" and see some spectacular flocks of geese. 

Well, no massive flocks of geese but had a nice day and got a great look at this red fox.  The snow was just starting at this point, and before we left there were two inches on the ground and it was a long drive home in the weather.

Australia loves its big bats, so a coin with a flying fox on it is to be expected.  This interesting coin is part of The Air Series, which of course followed The Land and The Ocean series.  I wonder if they ever did The Fire series to cover them all?

​The coin is made of an Aluminum/Bronze combination and is about the size of a US quarter coming in at 9g with a diameter of 25mm.  On the card that comes with the coin is the mintage "unlimited" but the posted mintage figure for the coin is 17,002.  Pretty high number for a specialty bat coin.  

​Depicted on the reverse is the grey-headed flying fox (Pteropus poliocephalus), which is a large Australian bat with a wing span of up to a meter or so.  A favorite food of these bats is the fruit of the Lilly Pilly tree, and that is what is depicted on the reverse as leafy branches with flower/fruit clusters.  The bat itself is "pad printed" onto the coin, which is a method of printing in 2D on a 3D object.  The bat looks good at a distance, and is accurate and all, but up close it is very noisy and not a very crisp image.  Additionally there is the denomination of 1 DOLLAR.

The obverse of the coin is the usual design for coins of the British Realm, a picture of Queen Elizabeth II along with text noting that and the country and date.  

And that would be the end of the story, but there are two more things to note here.  First, this is not a proof coin, but a matte uncirculated coin.  So the finish on the flat fields is a satiny matte, while the raised portions are shiny smooth.  Kinda the opposite effect of a cameo proof.  This isn't so easy to see in the above images, so here is a different angle.

Which brings me to the final thing.  Note the bits of dust and stuff (even a sliver of plastic wrapping) in the photo.  These coins are issued in a blister pack on a cardboard card, and so the photos were taken through plastic and crud and really hard to make a very well-made coin look good.

​The card it is mounted on contains a number of factoids, many of which are noted here.  The side with the bat on it however is quite nice, with a highlighted bat on a field of tree/bats in silhouette.  The moon is hiding behind the bat making for the silhouette effect to be very realistic, which begs the question where did the light come from that is shining in the bat's eyes and lighting it up?  Trivia, as this is a very nice image.

​The rest is readable in the photos below, but the circular hologram just did not like my photographic light.  It is a little circle with a kangaroo and emu in the middle on the sides of an Australian emblem and the number "50" which I do not know the meaning of.  Surrounding this are the words:  official numismatic program Royal Australian Mint