Micronations...?

Stan
I think the reason you see lots of disparity is because there is no single right answer to your question. It really boils down to what you want to collect. I'm a OFEC (one from every country) collector. I use as my 'boundaries' the Krause 1901-2000 World Catalog. If they have it as a distinct coin issuing entity, I am attempting to collect something from it. You won't find these 'micronations' in that catalog. However, if you use the NGC web site or Krause's Unusual Coin Catalog you find many of them. I've set my collecting interests (thus far) but many collect these unofficial coins and love them. It really is up to the individual collector and what they want to spend their time and money on!

A "micronation" is a country that lacks diplomatic recognition from other countries; most importantly, it lacks diplomatic recognition from the country whose territory it claims (for example, Australia in the case of Hutt River Province).

"Unofficial coinage" is coinage issued without the authority of the country or territory named on the coinage; either a mint somewhere has struck coinage when such country or territory has never been granted or granted itself the right to issue such coinage (as in the case of Galapagos Islands, Easter Island and Nauru coinage), or when a rebel group, government-in-exile, alternative government or other unrecognised faction has granted such authority (as is the case of a great deal of Somalia and Liberia coinage).

Curiously, a micronation can have both "official" and "unofficial" coinages. I own two Hutt River Province coins; one was "official", issued by Prince Leonard and the "legitimate" HRP government in Western Australia; the other was "unofficial", issued by Prince Kevin, a conman who had gained the trust of Prince Leonard and went to America, where he mass-produced HRP merchandise and pocketed the money himself.


I'd class it as "unofficial". There are Cabindan secessionist groups, but none are particularly active right now, and they all hate each other as much as they hate the central government. The rebel faction in Cabinda in whose name the coins were made has issued statements denouncing the coinage of Cabinda as Chinese-made fakery. I'm assuming they were made by a less-than-scrupulous mint aiming their products at OFEC collectors.

The coins of "Kurdistan" are in the similarly vague "unofficial" category; in this case, while there are Kurdish separatist movements in both Iraq and Turkey, the coins were made in America and commissioned by an American citizen of Kurdish descent, with no connections to any rebel movements back home.

I would class Katanga differently, as a "breakaway state" - in the same category as Biafra, Transnistria, Western Sahara and Abkhazia. While it never received formal diplomatic recognition from anywhere, it was backed by Belgian military and business interests. Breakaway states are distinct from micronations primarily by their scale - breakaway states have large territories, large populations that recognize the breakaway state as "their" government (either happily or unhappily) and the resources to procure a standing army powerful enough to enforce a de facto recognition of separateness, even if such recognition is never formally made. As implied by the "micro" in their name, micronations usually have none of these things. Any "rebellion" of the micronation could be crushed Waco-style by the host country at any time with minimal effort, and the micronation knows this - so they don't make waves, instead attempting to formally gain recognition from the host country through peaceful diplomacy and/or legal wrangling.


None of the Hutt River coins were intended to circulate. The population's simply too small (a couple dozen people, most of whom are related to each other) to support a supply of circulating coinage. "Circulating currency" in Hutt River has always been banknotes only, and even those aren't really intended to be spent by the tourists that buy them. I have a set of notes, bought for me by friends of the family who actually visited there (and were singularly unimpressed by the place).

the only one from here I know about

http://www.mycoins.us/Gough%20Islan..._islands.htm

Hutt River Province is about 30 people and a messa sheep in Australia. They're a country in name only, tolerated by oz only because they bring curious tourists who have to stay at oz hotels, since HRP has none. Oz makes more than they lose in taxes from HRP citizens.

Thanks for the input guys, especially your detailed answer Sap.

So, Sap, what would you say is a list of breakaway regions that have issued coins/have had coins issued in their name over the years:
Biafra
Katanga
Tranistria
Abkhazdia
Saharawi

What else? Palestine? Darfur?

I'm trying to establish some kind of system that will be consistent, but in between micronations, unofficial coins, breakaways, etc, I can't find anything.

Maybe it would just be simpler to have everything that's not independent stored with the country whom they claim some connection to? Then again, this creates the whole problem with micronations, as I wish to exclude them from collecting but can't do so if I can't consistently classify them...

I assume your list is aimed primarily at rebel areas that were ultimately re-assimilated, not rebel areas (like Bangladesh, the Baltic states and former Yugoslav states) that ultimately went on to become recognised independent nations.

Abkhazia has issued NCLT coinage but no circulation coinage yet. The Palestine and Darfur coinages are both unofficial, like the Kurdistan coinage, struck overseas for fundraiser/awareness purposes. The Western Sahara coinage I'm still uncertain of; from what I've read of them, they're with Abkhazia, somewhere in between. They were never issued for circulation in Polisario-controlled territory, but they were issued by the Polisario regime.


If you want to distinguish them and your finding the "Is it in Krause?" question unhelpful, consider a system like jgfindring's: if they circulated, or they didn't circulate but the same government that issued them also issued circulating coinage, then they were "real coins". If none of them ever actually appeared on the streets or in the banks within the territory named on them, they don't count.

On that basis, the following coinages of unrecognised breakaway states would "count":
Abkhazia - no
Anguilla - no
Biafra - yes
Cabinda - no
Darfur - no
Katanga - yes
Kurdistan - no
Lundy - yes
Palestine - no
Somaliland - yes
Transnistria - yes
Western Sahara - no
ZAR (Boer Republic of South Africa) - yes

Very true. However, those "non-real" coins in Krause catalogs are usually issued by "regular", recognized countries. As for Palestine, the pieces issued (by the British currency board) until 1947 are normal coins of course, but anything that appeared with later dates is bogus.

(Side note: The Palestine Monetary Authority, which may later become a central bank, even has one of the pre-1947 coins on the home page http://www.pma.ps of its website ...)

Christian