Double~take | monument to greed

… collision of coins

After years of stashing random foreign coins into various places for safe keeping, I find that I now have a coin collection. More an accumulation really, and it’s pretty sad that I have a tin full of coins worth probably about $25 that is doing nothing more than accumulate dust. I actually have no idea where most of these coins came from, so a week or two ago, I sat down and sorted through them. I have cash from every continent in the world. Cuba, Korea, Vanuatu, South Africa, Denmark, the USA. After a while I started noticing things.

I have $2.50 in Zimbabwean currency. In Australian money, this could get me a bus fare to the big shopping centre half an hour from my house. In Zimbabwe, if a box of matches costs a million dollars…

I have French francs. I can only imagine how arduous it must have been to travel through Europe before the introduction of the Euro. Australian 1 and 2 cent coins – from before they became worthless. A 1902 English penny. I know it’s English, because it doesn’t have its country of origin written on it. Talk about being the centre of the universe
I have money made of aluminium, copper, paper and plastic. I have coins where the metal content of the coin is worth more than its face value; money where 2 grams of plastic is worth more than 20 grams of silver.

What other single item of the world could tell you so much about people? A world history in little round bits of metal. They show images, dates, places and languages. The state of an economy, the stability of a nation, a country’s allegiance.

My brilliant idea whilst sorting coins was that my “monument to greed” accumulation (I had been debating the ethics of a Christian having a coin collection) could make a great prayer room activity. Unfortunately, my corps is about to start a 21 day fast, and not a 24/7 prayer room. So my brilliant idea will have to wait. Does anyone else have any brilliant prayer ideas?

Double~take appears every Saturday on theRubicon. Find past Double~take posts and a bio of Stephanie Hung here.

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