I've got some friends who've just come back from Transnistria, a tiny strip of land that's the last outpost of the Hammer and Sickle. They weren't staying there long and were always travelling in the company of locals, so they never had the opportunity to acquire any Transnistrian money, but one of them found a couple of Transnistrian coins in the street, and gave me one.
I already have a set of first-issue coins from this "country" I bought some years ago (KM# 1 to 5). This one I've just been given looks identical at first glance to the 5 kopek I already have, except for the date, but it's actually a new type.
It's not listed in my 2006 edition Krause, but it is listed on the NumisMaster website as KM# 16. NumisMaster doesn't show any pictures of the new types yet, only giving the somewhat unhelpful description that the national arms have been "modified".
I thought it might be helpful to anyone else who might own or encounter these coins to actually see what these "modifications" are, so here they are, side by side. As you can see, the 2005 (my recent acquisition) has a bit of "roadkill damage", but I don't mind - it's the impression from an authentic Transnistrian sidewalk!
From what I can see, the differences are subtle, but detectable when placed side by side: the fruits and wheat grains are larger and more prominent, the letters PMH on the central ribbon are bolder, and the pattern of sunrays changed from "all even length" to "alternating tall and short". The net effect is to make the design bolder - something these tiny coins really needed.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
Posted 11/10/2008 08:03 am
