Less Than Worthless

I didn't find this on the streets of New York, nor on a subway platform, nor in an elevator. I found it in my tin of coins and I thought it would be more interesting than posting, "I didn't find any money today."

These images are the two sides of a Zimbabwe penny from the 90s. The people of Zimbabwe are suffering through many unfathomable and horrendous problems at the moment including a raging cholera epidemic, famine, and inflation that is in the neighborhood of 230,000%. When I visited in 1998 some of the nation's infrastructure was still in place (like the sewage system, for example) and inflation had not yet run off with the value of the Zimbabwe dollar.

I'm guessing that this penny is now worth about .000000028 of a Zimbabwe dollar but that might be a generous estimate. This just in, Zimbabwe has released a new $500 million bill, which is worth about $50 US or 33 UK Pounds.


I love the $2 coin depicted below because it may be the only coin ever to feature a Pangolin.



Best wishes to the people of Zimbabwe. May they survive the horrors of Robert Mugabe and then see him held accountable for his crimes against them.