Wednesday, July 6, 2011

129. Sarawak half cent 1933H


image 1: obverse and reverse of the coin



    I am always fascinated by coins of non-integer denomination. In my years as a kid, I had had the perception that the lowest denomination was one cent. And when I discovered my first coin, which is a 1920 1 cent coin, I was so proud of it. I showed it to almost every uncles I have. One of my uncle in Kelantan, I called him Ayah Long, claimed to me that he has a more special coin. Then he showed me a 1/2 cent of Straits Settlements, dated 1932, glued at the back side of his watch. I was so fascinated by that coin that even I had no gut in asking him to own that coin. It must be very special and very rare, then I thought. I even thought that I will never own that coin when I grow up.

   And now 12 years have passed. Recently I met him, and I had show him my collection. This time it is his turn to be fascinated by my collection. So I guess, possessing half coins is always be one of my dreams, in my collecting journey.

  And only recently when I started to collecting more systematically, 1 year ago, I realised that there are a lot more of half coins that need to be collected. And does not include the quarter cent series, which is even scarcer than half cent series.

  That is for the story side, and for the technical side, does anyone know what had caused the black shadows to form on the coin's surface? A haunted coin?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Hi mnfaj,
Ops sorry, we have deleted our comments because we got your coin wrong.
Haha, we mistaken it as a one cent instead of your half cent.
We have seen a number of these coins with the dark shadows in high grades.
Really don't know what's the cause of the dark shadows.
But even with these dark shades, they are still very nice coins.
In fact, we collected some of them too, ie. 1/2 and one cent.
By the way, very interesting coin story you have here.
Honestly, we feel great to see young people like you being so interested in the hobby.
Keep it up, mnfaj :)

mnfaj said...

Hi whycollect,
Thank you for your comment.
Perhaps these coins were kept in some container and were being contaminated in some chemical substance, thus keeping it in still high details. Just my speculation, hehe.
By the way, I too find myself very hard to find my peers who are interested in this hobby. Then I ended up mingled with those of people who are way older than me, and I believe it is good exposure for me.
Thank you for dropping by, whycollect.

Unknown said...

Dear mnfaj,
Exposure to humidity,acid,chemical,low quality PVC holder,etc.will contribute and caused the black shadows to form on the coin's surface.
Copper coins are the most difficult material to handle!Do not try to do anything to it,it only will make thing worst!
Happy collecting!Cheers!

mnfaj said...

Hi Mr Dickson,
Thank you for your guidance.
Perhaps I should take extra cares for this coin.
Thank you so much.

Hunter said...

hello mnfaj, do u want to sell this coin? if u want to sell it, let me know... thanks.. wong... gunner88@hotmail.my

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