Kolkata, Aug. 28, 2020: Tucked away in one corner of Kolkata, a senior notaphilist paid his tribute to Mother Teresa through a virtual exhibition.
Anindya Kar showed rare paper currency from hiscolle ction, related to the life of Mother Teresa.
A link was shared on the social media channels on August 26 and Kar, who has been collecting currency for the past 46 years, explained the importance of the paper on exhibit and their connections with the life of the Mother.
Take the currency note of 1877 from the Ottoman period of 10 Kurus (value). This 143-year-old note was in circulation even in 1910 in Skopje, where Mother Teresa was born.
Skopje was then a part of the Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman empire. “The world has changed a lot since then, geographical boundaries have changed because political equations have been very volatile in that part of the globe. Naturally currencies have also changed and notes like this one have gone out of circulation for long,” explained Kar.
One of the notes that he showed has the Palindrome serial 61016 from the Ottoman times, making it an especially rare note.
“One gets to know from here that Palindrome serials (where the numbers read the same serially from left to right) were in vogue as far back as those times, making it especially valuable for collectors,” added Kar.
Another note of 1 Albanian Lek that is no longer in circulation has a bearing with Mother’s parents who were Albanians. Nikola and Dranafile Bojaxhiu, were of Albanian descent; the Bojaxhius were a devout Catholic family, and Nikola was deeply involved in the local church as well as in city politics as a vocal proponent of Albanian independence.
“It gave me goose bumps when I came across this note and immediately collected it, thinking of its connection with the Mother’s descent!,” Kar said. This note was removed from circulation in 1976.
Viewers will get to see another rare note of 10 Dinara of Macedonia which was in circulation in Skopje where Mother was born and that is in present day Macedonia. Earlier it was part of Yugoslavia that got divided into seven different countries and Macedonia is one such country. This currency too is rare and out of circulation today.
Needless to say that the Rs 100 collectors’ coin that the centre brought out in 2010 on the occasion of the birth centenary of Mother will also be shown in the exhibition. “I am proud to be part of Mother’s legacy albeit in the form of a currency collector.There is no point holding this treasure to myself and so I decided to hold the virtual exhibition to celebrate Mother’s 110th birthday,” Kar said.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com