How many countries are there?View Cart / Checkout
What most people wind up doing is collecting at least one bill from as many countries as possible. That is often the most practical way to collect, partly because the money from certain countries or regions can be relatively expensive or rare. Some of the most costly bills have come from Abyssinia, Andorra, Belgian Congo, French Equatorial Africa, Monaco, Panama, Puerto Rico, Portuguese India, Sarawak, and Straits Settlements, just to name a few. On the other hand, some countries that no longer appear on a current World map have printed more extensive amounts of bills, and they can still be acquired at affordable prices. Examples of such countries are Biafra, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Japanese Malaya, Japanese Burma, Krajina, Serbian Republic (Republic of Srpska), Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Yugoslavian Federal Republic, and Zaire. Also, many countries that still exist no longer print their own money: Ecuador, El Salvador, and Serbian Republic (Republic of Srpska), for instance, are countries whose bills are still readily available. Moreover, countries in transition already have their native currency. Although not yet recognized internationally as nations (as of 2009), Nagorno-Karabakh, Somaliland, and Transnistria, have all printed money of their own. What's more, when a country officially changes its name, it is usually considered to be an altogether new country, in terms of collecting its bills. For example, when the Belgian Congo became Congo Brazzaville, the foreign money collecting community determined that these are two different countries. Just like in many other instances, this differentiation has been thoroughly justified. What a lot of collectors are doing is trying to obtain at least one bill from as many different countries as their budget will allow. For this reason, every collector may have a different number of countries in her/his collection. However, in 2009, there were approximately 230 countries, both existing and non-existing, offering currency bills at relatively low prices. The complete list of countries and regions that are no longer printing their own currency is quite extensive, but here is a partial one: Abyssinia
|
