PENANG BANKNOTES & COIN FAIR 25TH & 26TH APRIL 2015

The Penang coin fair at Komtar was organized by SP Xinxiaolang by the organizer Mr. Bert Chang and Khoon Huat Lim. This was the first and the largest coin fair ever held in Penang over the weekend. It was deemed successful with over 6000 people young and old from all walks of life attended the fair with over forty one dealers. Penang is just a small economy and having 6000 people attended the fair considered very commendable. Normally large banknotes and coin fairs are held in big economy place like in Singapore and the capital Kuala Lumpur where the power of "disposable income" of the financial standing per capital basis are strong.

On the first day of the fair many have complained the air-conditioning was not cold enough and was too hot and humid as it was too crowded throng with people and it was immediately rectify by adding a powerful air cooler on the back end. Another suggestion by most of the dealers are to have a larger bourse table hence they could display more items.

The key to the success attributed to the well-known dealers from as far as West Malaysia to the south of Malaysia - Singapore. It also attracted the attention of print media where it provide wide publicity coverage to the general public.

List of well known dealers

Master Saran Singh was among the crowd (image courtesy by Boson Goh)

The love birds 

Who's that guy ?

Some activities are going on literally behind the fair. The price here are cheaper than "the other side".

Hopefully the fair will be bigger next year. 

Congratulations and well done to the organizers - Mr.Bert Chang and Khoon Huat Lim.

Happy Reading,

Andrew

SINGAPORE COIN FAIR 28TH TO 30TH MARCH 2014

I just got back from attending the Singapore coin fair and met up with the usual faces from Malaysia. For collectors who wants to fill up the "gap" that you have been hunting and searching be it coins or banknotes you could find it there. It was held in Marina Bay Sands Hotel and I was quite fascinated by the high grade of some very rare Straits Settlement, British Malaya, Malaysia coins and banknotes that were on sale at the fair that i would have never thought i could see and hold it physically. It gave you the wow factor once it was in your hand.

Generally speaking the prices for high grades are very expensive that went way above market price doubled and even tripled (depending on grades) the price stated in KN BOON catalogue and yet it was still snapped up by collectors. These collectors does not mind paying higher price for high grades banknotes/coins as they are so desperate for the items.

Through out the years till today, Malaysian dealers brought high quality numismatics products (coins and bank notes) to sell to the Singaporean dealers because they are willing to pay premium price compare with Malaysian buyers, so all the good and rare items ended up with Singaporean collectors and fell into dealers inventories. Then they send the good ones to PMG / NGC for grading and once achieved high grade do you think Malaysian collectors could afford buy them back from Singaporean dealers ? Your answer is as good as mine !

The prices are exorbitant and I could not buy anything at the fair, as a consolation therefore I only bought a book at the fair and it was the Frank Goon collection for SGD200.00 (2.605 exchange rate to MYR). Some stalls are selling for SGD350.00. The book show case his entire collection that worth more than USD20 million, his collection are more complete than Bank Negara museum (Sasana Kijang). It is a MUST have for every collectors.

1967 RM10 1ST SERIES ISMAIL ALI PMG 66 EPQ

I was quite disappointed that i did not achieved grade 67EPQ for this one. It is now extremely difficult to find one "perfect" ungraded note for this issue, most of them are foxed.

1976 RM10 & RM5 3RD SERIES ISMAIL ALI PMG 67 EPQ

Finally i managed to achieved my target of PMG 67 EPQ for these two pieces of banknotes of the 3rd series.

Happy Viewing.