Scarce Colombia Silver 50 Centavos Fine

Mauritania is in the North of Africa between Morocco and Mali. It only became Independent from France in 1960 and was the last country in the world to abolish slavery (1981). Even today, the Home Office suggest that unless you have to, it is better not to visit Mauritania. We have just had in a set of coins and boy are they difficult to get! There are six different coins, five of them Brilliant Uncirculated and one Extremely Fine. You get the 1/5th, 1, 5, 10, 20 and 50 Ouguiya. They are dated 1973-2014 and are a very difficult set to put together and perhaps smuggle out of their country. It is a fantastic set especially if you are collecting a set from each country. Considering the dangerous involved in acquiring these coins, hence we were only allowed to buy 100 sets.

Recently we offered buyers the chance to buy the crown-sized 2½ guilder coin issued during the reign of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, but now we can also offer the same coin from the 1929 until 1940. This was from the reign of Queen Wilhelmina, the country’s longest serving monarch who was on the throne for 58 years. Production stopped in 1940 due to the German invasion and no more of this denomination were minted until after Wilhelmina’s abdication in 1948. These 2½ guilder coins are slightly larger than later issues.

These two gambling chips were issued by Metropolitan Casinos Ltd, which as far as we know, no longer exists. We know they are pre-decimal, i.e. before 1971, because one of the denominations is 10/- or Ten Shillings. After Decimalization it would have been called 50 Pence. There are two chips the 10/- (Ten Shillings) in gold lettering on a blue background. The other chip was a £1 with green lettering on a red background. At the time £1 was a lot of money. You get both chips which we think are very interesting, especially at this price. Remember that they are at least 38 years old. An interesting bit of history, which the internet wishes to replace completely.