I think many die hard collector has been realizing this for many years now, we has not seen a printer name printed on the back of Malaysia Banknote for quite some time. David from malayastraitsbanknotes.blogspot.com raise the issue when we had a chat last month. If you don't know David, he is one of Malaysia Numismatic Celebrity that I had been talking about in this blog before. He is using an ID "Profxxx" in eBay Malaysia. He have a very vast knowledge of Malaysia banknote, what you can see in his blog are just a small amount of knowledge that he keep in his mind. Hopefully one day he will be willing to share his knowledge with everyone.
Back to the issue, Printer name on Malaysia Banknote that has not been printed. Everyone has already knew the name of the printer for new Malaysia Banknote, Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Donald Lim Siang Chai told the Dewan Rakyat in November 2011, Malaysia new banknote printer will be Crane AB, Sweden; Giesecke and Devrient GmbH, Germany; Oberthur Technologies, France, and Orell Fussli, Switzerland.
But do we see the printer name on the back of the new banknotes? Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) don't print the information on the notes for a reason that only BNM know. Some friends said that is because of politic, BNM afraid the info will be used to investigate their employers relating to the supply of the banknote.
Whatever the reasons, the missing information on the banknote has make us lose opportunity to collect Malaysia banknotes according to printers variety. According to David who have some info from BNM staff, Malaysia banknote printed by many printers. Thats why we can see some varieties on the banknotes. I had seen some collectors discussing about the banknote variety without even knowing that Malaysia notes printed by many printers. Some collectors even don't know that Malaysia do print some of its banknote in Malaysia. With the banknote printer printed on the banknote, we can also see a price increase for some of the banknote. That will also help motivate new collector to start join the hobby of king in Malaysia.
Back in the old days, we can see Thomas De La Rue, Bradbury Wilkinson or Giesecke Devrient on the back of Malaysia banknote. For some BNM governor, we have over 10 varieties per one denomination. Tan Sri Dato Seri Zeti Abdul Aziz has been BNM governor since May 2000, imagine how many varieties of banknotes that we can collect with the printer information on the back.
What do you think about this issue. Will the name of the printer on the back of Malaysia banknote will give benefits to Malaysia banknote collectors?
