Anyone in Zimbabwe seen the new ZiG banknotes & coins in circulation?

Has anyone in Zimbabwe seen the new ZiG banknotes & coins in circulation?

They are supposed to be released today - 30 April.

I have not seen pictures of the coins, but pictures of the banknotes though.

Aidan.

Here are the banknotes. I couldn’t find good pictures of the coins 

link: https://www.pindula.co.zw/2024/04/06/zig-notes-and-coins-to-start-circulating-on-30-april-rbz/

ah here are the coins! Can’t  find anything for the other side though

link : https://twitter.com/T_a_t_e_n_d_a/status/1785278956226088961

ashlobo

ah here are the coins! Can’t  find anything for the other side though

link : https://twitter.com/T_a_t_e_n_d_a/status/1785278956226088961

Check this out;

Aidan.

@ashlobo , here's another picture;

Aidan.

Cool, they still look cheep and basic. Those notes have the same design sans numbers and colour of paper. Looks like monopoly money but cheaper and more ghetto.

I give it 18 months before ZIG 200 is worth 0.0001 of an Indonesian Sen or 0.002 Vietnamese Xu.

Looks like the ZiG currency is already doomed to fail.

https://new.coinsweekly.com/news-en/zimbabwes-new-currency-is-the-zig-doomed-to-fail-from-the-start/ .

Aidan.

They said “Partially backed by gold reserves” This could mean from tonnes of the stuff, to a half sovereign owned by whoever is running the bank (Mahavishnu orchestra named sounding guy). I mean my 435 grams of gold could be more than the gold backing this monopoly money. Seriously, its like downloading a sheet of funny money you can personalise and then printing that sh#t on a inkjet and cutting it out.

No way a country like Zimbabwe could have a stable currency. Its been destroyed by 40+ years of mismanagement. Hard as it is for a wokester like me to say, it was doing much better as the White run Rhodesia. 

Sorry getting off topic, but it has to be said - the whole 2008/09 farrago is fresh in our memories. Even more bizarre is $100 trillion banknotes are being sold by dealers for around $100 a piece. Maybe Zimbabwe could reach into the vaults, grab some old notes and also cash in on the craze.

Even the name sounds funny - ZimGold, almost sounds like KFC's Rotisserie Gold chicken from the mid 1990s.

@Pcoetzee5 , here is what the reverse of the 5 ZiG coin looks like;

Of course, I do want one for my collection, along with one of each of the other ZiG coins - plus examples of the ZiG banknotes.

Aidan.

BCNumismatics

@Pcoetzee5 , here is what the reverse of the 5 ZiG coin looks like;

 

 

Of course, I do want one for my collection, along with one of each of the other ZiG coins - plus examples of the ZiG banknotes.

 

Aidan.

I do agree regardless of the quality of the coins/ banknotes, they would be amazing conversation pieces and a cautionary tale of what economic mismanagement looks like

ashlobo

BCNumismatics

@Pcoetzee5 , here is what the reverse of the 5 ZiG coin looks like;

 

 

Of course, I do want one for my collection, along with one of each of the other ZiG coins - plus examples of the ZiG banknotes.

 

Aidan.

I do agree regardless of the quality of the coins/ banknotes, they would be amazing conversation pieces and a cautionary tale of what economic mismanagement looks like

Rhodesia was the breadbasket of southern Africa - now Zimbabwe is the basketcase of southern Africa.

Z.A.N.U.-P.F. has proven themselves to be utter kleptocrats who have looted the country to look after their own selfish interests - leaving the people themselves to carry the burden of the country's indebtedness.

Aidan.

I actually agree. I nearly wrote a big piece about that, but cut it off as I knew the mods would blast me for talking politics again.

Don't forget the tribalism. Mugabe and ZANU PF are all Mashona people, the other main tribe the Ndebele have been treated like dirt. Morgan Tsangarai was Ndebele, Joshua Nkomo was Ndebele.

ZANU - PF don't just despise white people, they despise other Africans who are not Mashona (Shona).

Sadly most African countries are basket cases, look at South Africa, once very rich and well run - now its a basket case too.

ashlobo

ah here are the coins! Can’t  find anything for the other side though

link : https://twitter.com/T_a_t_e_n_d_a/status/1785278956226088961

The notes may be cheep a@s, but those coins are decent, quite nice and hopefully will add them to my coin holdings at some stage. Have most of the bond coins and earlier stuff.

The dollars are all the same size and same design, only colours and numbers are different. Top note is worth $14 USD. I can not see if its lost value yet.

Type in Zimbabwe Gold, you get some hilarious results besides the Victoria Falls gold coins. Ali which is a Chinese junk making site which floods the markets with fake coins and the like, has sheaves of fake gold bars and coins of Zimbabwe with values like 5 Octillion dollars and 10 decillion dollars along with a note which is 0 to the power of 30.

This just cracked me up - those Chinese are so crafty.

This article says that its has already fallen from 13 to a USD to 23 and 100 street cash changers in Harare have been arrested - but its a drop in the bucket. Also trading on Stockmarket has been broken and Mahavishnu Orchestra is blaming world bank.

https://www.moneyweb.co.za/moneyweb-opinion/columnists/whats-in-a-name-zimbabwe/

So this strong currency has lost half its value in 6 days! (Ooops read it wrong, it lost that value before it was released on to the market!)

Another article said the previous dollar went from $24,000 to $33,905 per USD on one day in April alone.

The choice of denominations is similar to other countries. South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho all have similar currencies with notes topping out at 200 units and coins at 5. Most are worth the same (Around 8 NZ cents a rand, maloti, lilangeni, pula or dollar) and the ZIG was to match these, but already its 2 or ZIGs to each of the other units.

Speaking of articles, I've read one from BBC at the weekend:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clm3108jxxno

The title is “Is Zimbabwe zigzagging into further currency chaos?”

With such a currency name it's impossible not to think of tons of jokes and puns, but the last paragraph of the article really got me surprised by the dark tone of the joke:

Others in Harare have taken to the vernacular and say Zig stands for “Zimbabwe i gehena”, meaning in Shona, “Zimbabwe is hell”. 

Giobruno

Speaking of articles, I've read one from BBC at the weekend:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clm3108jxxno

The title is “Is Zimbabwe zigzagging into further currency chaos?”

 

With such a currency name it's impossible not to think of tons of jokes and puns, but the last paragraph of the article really got me surprised by the dark tone of the joke:

Others in Harare have taken to the vernacular and say Zig stands for “Zimbabwe i gehena”, meaning in Shona, “Zimbabwe is hell”. 

 

My guess is this currency will be 1 million to a dollar by Christmas or replaced with New Zimbabwe Gold, or Zimbabwe super dollars, Zimbankwe or Zimba cashmonae.

In 1995 a Politician called Canaan Banana actually had people imprisoned for making fun of his last name - yes the Zimbabweans do not take well to jokes at all.

I don't think anyone in this thread has mentioned the site Bank Note News. All the new notes are listed, though only in low def.:

ZiG1 / ZiG2 / ZiG5 / ZiG20 / ZiG50 / ZiG100 / ZiG200 

EDIT – Also this one: ZiG10 

Note also the last issue in the previous series ($100).

An update.

In September the currency was devalued 40% to 26 ZiG to one US$

However despite gold price increases, the ZiG kept dropping, reaching some 5% of its original value in Feb 2025.

A check of exhange rates is now 322 ZiG to one US$

So basically another colossal flop.