Thursday, January 1, 2009

Malaysia Brunei & Singapore Banknotes & Coins (4th Edition) by K.N Boon


Malaysia, Brunei & Singapore Banknotes & Coins (4th Edition) by K.N Boon is one of the good reference Book for Malaysia banknote & coin. It is Published by Trigometric Sdn bhd which you can find at Amcorp Mall, Petaling Jaya. Their shop is just like you're walk in to a museum. All the banknotes is displayed in a glass wall. Amcorp Mall also held a weekly flea market on Saturday and Sunday as early as 8.00 am until up to 2.00 pm. At the Flea market, you can find banknote and coin dealar on the ground floor of Amcorp Mall.

This book come in 437 pages. Its cover almost all banknote & coin that been used from 1786 until 2008. I check some of old coin in that years hasn't been put in this book. For example kelantan and terengganu pitis or keping coinage, Duit ayam (singapore merchant token/coin) and any information regarding Brunei and Singapore coin (they only cover about their banknote not coin). It will be a great book if they have included all the coin and banknote from 1786 until 2008 in this book.

What I love about this book is the background information about each banknote and coin section. The information is written in Bahasa Melayu, English and Chinese. It isn't a complete information but at least they try to give their best informing their reader the history of that banknote or coin. For example, the story of Penang-coat of Arm series. I cannot find any good information about this coinage but this book give me a bit of information to enlighten me what to look for. Will put their story and what I found out about this coin next time.

Another thing is that the banknote grading table given in this book, for me is a good tool for newbie's to understand banknote grading. I type them again and put them on JPEG, You need to click them to view at its original size. It is an easy way to teach newbie's with this banknote table grading around. You just need to look at your banknote and look at some aspect of banknote like handling, paper, Holes, Tears, Integrity and folds.

Its coin in here is also in original size picture. The banknote and coin valuation is stated in Ringgit Malaysia and is a bit high then Malaysia banknote Standard Catalogue by Steven Tan. Beside the normal banknote value, they also have included a price for Malaysia solid number (same prefix and different prefix). I am not a fan of this kind of banknote but It will help to give a standard for this kind of banknote.