Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : 2025 NCAA College Basketball March Madness -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (24)	3/17/2025 10:16:19 PM
From: nicewatch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 563

The big boy note is shown below, although unclear it ever officially circulated it did unofficially but by that point the situation was so chaotic they'd moved to de facto US dollarization and am sure they also happily traded in Euros, British Pounds, South African Rand, or any relatively hard currency at that stage! -yikes- Wasn't savvy enough to buy those notes at the unofficial low of $2-3usd but by $10 was buying as many as I could that didn't seem obvious fakes. Upwards of 100 total and handed out dozens as gifts, they make for great conversation pieces. Then a year later started buying a few highly graded notes. Maybe I should offer an ungraded note from my stash as a prize? :-) They are lower serial numbers. The story goes they were printing so fast the ink wells would run dry and no longer were always including the ribbon stamp, not to mention they may have kept printing them and kept in a warehouse somewhere, possibly to this day. That's where the grading adds value. Still a fun ROI even factoring in the dozens given away as gifts.

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (24)	3/17/2025 10:52:13 PM
From: nicewatch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 563

Zambia sounds like an adventurous trip! Have fun and be safe if you go. Forget if early 2008 or 2009 when I mostly lived in Thailand, met two old college friends that had been teaching in Ethiopia, then moved to teach in Malawi mostly made famous because Madonna decided to adopt a kid from there, and they also have a large lake. They'd gotten wind I was spending a lot of time in Asia and contacted me out of the blue looking to travel to Thailand for their 10 day downtime. So we met and hung out a few times which was good fun. Their stories about life and teaching in Addis Ababa and Malawi were interesting but what fascinated me most, he was also the middle school basketball coach. They had an away game in Zimbabwe and he was also the driver. He said they were hassled a bit at the Zimbabwe border but once the paperwork was sorted out had no issues. He knew to bring hard currency but at the time sent me a picture, hopefully I can find it, where he converted $10-20usd just for fun and got a trunk full of worthless paper. Mentioned a few wacky stories but the one best remembered was he took the team to eat at the equivalent of a pizza hut. He said the pizza was fine and inexpensive but to buy a single 12oz bottle of coca-cola was like $12, and other dichotomies like that. Even in the midst of that chaos, he said it wasn't chaotic in the way that I'd presumed. haha. forgot to add pic before...