World coins chat: Ethiopia

5 posts
Ethiopia is a landlocked country in eastern Africa east of Sudan and west of Somalia. For very many centuries, it was known as Abyssinia and was ruled by the Solomonic Dynasty who claim to have descended from King Solomon and Sheba.

After the Scramble for Africa, only Liberia and Abyssinia were left as independent countries in Africa, with all other territories under rule of a European power. Italy was a latecomer during the scramble and had only secured Italian Somaliland and Eritrea, places of little interest to other powers as they had little resources. Therefore, the Italians laid their eyes on Abyssinia and waged the First Abyssinian War in 1895 which it lost in a humiliating defeat. King Menelik II of Abyssinia was victorious and secured the territory for decades to come.

In 1931 Abyssinia was renamed to Ethiopia, after the old Greek name of the region. In 1935 Italy, now under Fascist rule, waged the Second Abyssinian War which it won and included the country  into Italian East Africa. In 1941, a British force drove the Italians out and Ethiopia became an independent country again, now merged with Eritrea.

King Haile Selassie ruled until he was disposed and went into exile in 1974. The communist-inspired Derf movement took over. Due to internal struggles (including the 1978 Ogaden War with Somalia) and severe drought in the 80's there was a huge famine which inspired Bob Geldoff to start the charity organisation Live Aid. Despite these events the population of Ethiopia double during the past 3 decades.

In 1993 Eritrea seceded and became an independent country, leaving remaining Ethiopia a landlocked country.

Ethiopia used Maria Theresa Thalers (MTT's) extensively in the 19th century that it became the basis of its own currency named Birr (meaning 'silver' in Amharic) or Talari or Dollar. It was a 28 grams .833 silver coin worth 4s5d, $1.06 or 5.60 French Francs of the LMU standard. It was subdivided in 20 Guersh or 40 Bessa. In 1903 a new coinage of Birr was subdivided in 16 Ghersh or 32 Bessa. Gold coinage was introduced denominated in Werk which was worth 16 Birr. From 1931 the Birr was decimalised into 100 Matonnyas.

The Italian Occupiers forced the Italian Lira on the Ethiopians, for a ridiculous rate of 3 Lire per Birr. The paper Birr had devalued to around 2 Shillings but this was still worth around 6 Lire in those days, and silver Birrs were worth at least 20. Ethiopians refused to comply and hoarded silver and gold, even though the Italians gradually moved the rate to less greedy levels but with no success.

The British drove the Italians out in 1941 and introduced the East African Shilling at 24 Lire per Shilling or 1 Shilling 10.5 Pence per Birr. In 1944 a new Birr was introduced for 2 East African Shillings.

The Birr remained relatively stable for African monetary standards. Where in 1944 the exchange rate was 10/£ and 2.16/$ in 2015 this is around 30/£ and 20/$.

Ethiopian coins of 1944 and later are quite easy to find and have nice designs. Also the Matonnya coins of the 1930's are not too hard to get and have a special design showing King Menelik II. Older silver coins are quite rare though.

Ethiopian dates are marked with EE and they are 8 years behind the Gregorian calendar, so 1936EE is equal to 1944AD.

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/ethiopie-1.html
Ethiopia has a cent that is dated 1936 KM# 32, but it was actually minted from 1944-1975. This is the quotation from NGC "1936 (1943-44) Struck at Philadelphia, Birmingham and the Royal Mint, London between 1944 and 1975 with the date EE1936 frozen"  I have a couple of them, and they are easy to get and cost about .15 cents because about 20 million of them were minted.  
My favoured coin store happens to be on the street where all the Ethiopian convenience stores are, so I have a few modern coins from the country.

Anyway, traditionally, Ethiopia has been poor but prestigious - after the Kingdom defeated the Italians, it won the respect of the world. After the Kingdom was defeated by the Italians a few decades later, the King gave a famous speech before the League of Nations, saying how the refusal of the League of Nations to repel the Italians and enforce peace showed that the League was useless and another big war was inevitable. Well, it might not have taken that much to guess that another war was coming and that the League of Nations was useless in the year 1935 - but his predictions came true anyway. Once again, Ethiopia gained prestige, because after WWII the country was viewed as one of the first casualties of the Axis. The country's thousands of years of independence has served as an inspiration to Africans across the whole world - the flag of Ghana, the next African nation to permanently gain its freedom from a colonial power in Africa (from Britain, in 1958), is clearly inspired by the flag of Ethiopia.


The flags of (the Kingdom of) Ethiopia and Ghana

Today, many African nations use the three "pan-African colours" - yellow, green, and red - in their flags. Symbolism from Ethiopia has also been used (with varying authenticity) by black pride movements in North America.


These copper types with Haile Selassie on them come in three denominations, of which I have every one - but they all look the same except for a minor change in lettering. They are pretty cool coins though. In this world there are about a million people who believe that Haile Selassie was the Second Coming.



When the Derg took power, they put together a new series of coins, each with a roaring lion in the place of the King. These designs are pretty nice, but they are also pretty revolutionary - the 5-santeem has an armed soldier on patrol and the 50-santeem has a bunch of jubilant people carrying guns, books, hammers, and sickles. Incredibly, the 50-santeem coin is still being struck with the same (really communist) design today.

As it turned out, trying out communism in one of the world's poorest countries turned out to be a huge mistake. Wasn't there something about how the revolution can only happen in industrialized countries?


In recent years, production of Ethiopian coins has moved to the Royal Canadian Mint and the coinage is now made of a magnetic composition.


Here is one of my favourite bimetallic coins - a recent issue of 1 birr.

Ethiopia is at the center of Africa to this day - its capital Addis Ababa houses the headquarters of the African Union and many other pan-African organizations. Once again, it seems like this country is poor, but prestigious.
Just bought this week coins from Ethiopia: only modern coins after Selassie disposition. Including this funny bimetallic coin, which seems quite light for a bimetallic coin.

I don't undershand what the fuck happened to these coins with their varieties.
Administrateur du catalogue, référent de nombreuses nations antiques et de la Lorraine.
Catalogue administrator, numerous Antique nations and Lorraine referee.

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