Buck the trend

It's not just old currency notes that could be your lottery ticket. If you come across a bundle of out-of-circulation notes in some forgotten corner of your house, you’d either hold on to it for emotional reasons or simply toss it aside as junk. Or, if you are hard up for cash, you would exchange it for new notes. With somewhat similar thoughts, an old lady, a year-and-a-half ago, walked into the Reserve Bank of India in Mumbai to exchange some bundles of old one-rupee notes. After being pushed around for over an hour, she was approached by a bystander who exchanged the three bundles of 100 notes each for three crisp 100-rupee notes. The lady went away, thanking the helpful young man. Unknown to her, the man was a shrewd money changer — he sells old and rare notes to collectors. His trained eye quickly realised that the notes held by the lady were issued in 1951 and signed by finance secretary K G Ambegaonkar. He does these rounds of RBI regularly, hoping to find some treasures unknown to their naive holders. On this particular transaction, he made a killing – the three bundles were sold for Rs 1.5 lakh! Numismatists Kishore Jhunjhunwala and Jayesh Gala know several such transactions, the tinge of lament unmistakable on the lack of appreciation among the commoners of the treasures they unknowingly hold. And as their bit towards their beloved hobby, the two in conjunction with fellow paper money enthusiasts, Dilip Rajgor and N D Agarwal, recently published Standard Guide to Indian Paper Money, focusing on the bank notes issued post-Independence. The book dispels the myth that numismatists are interested only in notes and coins that are a few centuries old. There exist collectors who collect new notes with equal fervour. But why collect notes that are freely available? Here’s why. Unlike stamps, notes are collected not just for their designs but also for the prefix and serial numbers at the top right and bottom left corners. For a number like 23A 645671, 23A is the prefix and the rest the serial number. Experts can look at the number and tell how many of those notes were printed, and hence what is their availability in the market place. Of course, notes with unique numbers like 11A 111111 or 00A 000001 command a special value. Collectors can develop their own set of benchmarks using the book and anticipate the demand for some notes in the future. Jhunjhunwala gives an example: “Twenty-rupee notes were issued in 1972, signed by RBI governor S Jagannathan, up to the prefix 49A. Today this note can easily fetch you Rs 1,500. Similarly, 20 twenty-rupee notes were issued during D Subbarao’s time in 2009 up to the prefix 49A. This note is currently exchanging hands for less than Rs 100. A smart collector can spot an opportunity here — holding on to the 2009 note could thus give you handsome returns at some point in the future.” The authors have included a price guide in their book. The answer, like everything else, perhaps lies in the supply and demand. The key of course is the number of notes printed in a series and the then population of India — which gives the per-capita population of those notes. The other factors that go into determining the price are estimates of how many of the notes may have been destroyed, how many may have survived, what is the demand depending on how many collectors are seeking it and what was the last transaction amount. It is almost as complicated as it sounds. The new collectors need to interpret the numbers carefully. Should you use it appropriately, what the book says at the beginning may well come true — “Yah kitab paanch sau rupay main de rahe hain, lekin yeh aapko pachas hazaar say bhi jyada kaam aayegi” (This book is being given to you for Rs 500 but it will be worth more than Rs 50,000).

BS