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This coin collector is no penny pincher:From 'pig mouths' money to 'tiger tongues,' numismatist Ronald Cristal sheds new light on history.



 
 
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Old September 4th 07, 10:53 AM posted to rec.collecting.coins
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Default This coin collector is no penny pincher:From 'pig mouths' money to 'tiger tongues,' numismatist Ronald Cristal sheds new light on history.

Some of you many find the following article interesting.
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This coin collector is no penny pincher
From 'pig mouths' money to 'tiger tongues,' numismatist Ronald Cristal

sheds new light on history.
By Tibor Krausz | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
from the August 29, 2007 edition


Page 1 of 3

Bangkok , Thailand - Cupped in Ronald Cristal's palm is a tangerine-
size orb of the kind that artillerymen of the American Civil War might
have used for their breech-loading cannons. It dates from that era,
too, so you might think it a nice antique paperweight.

Tell that to Mr. Cristal, and he'll gasp at your ignorance.

What the American-born Thai numismatist is holding isn't artillery
ammunition at all. It's a "bullet coin" issued by the Siamese king
Rama IV (known abroad as the volatile monarch played by Yul Brynner in
"The King and I").

Engraved with the king's own seal of a tapering Siamese crown, the
bullet coin (the largest item of indigenous weight-based currency) was
denominated as 80 baht. That may not sound like much these days (just
over $2), but back in the mid-19th century, it was worth a fortune.

It still is.

Cristal bought the coin at a Bangkok auction for more than 30,000
times its denominational mark - 2.5 million baht ($80,000), to be
precise. He could sell it for several times that amount to well-off
foreign collectors, he says, but he won't. Carefully wiping fingertip
smudges from his cherished acquisition's surface, he replaces it in
its thick velvet pouch and tucks it inside the safe.

Obsessive? Certainly.

Yet Cristal, one of Southeast Asia's preeminent numismatists, belies
the stereotype of coin collectors as reclusive oddballs hunched over
their treasures with monocles or a watchmaker's eyepiece, brows
furrowed in scrutiny.

Despite spearheading a well-established law firm in Bangkok, Cristal
seems to spend most of his time on the Internet comparing notes with
fellow collectors worldwide - retired postal workers, computer
programmers, high-flying executives, and everyone in between.

Whatever one may have thought of that elusive, nickel-crazed
schoolmate, it turns out that serious coin collecting isn't just a
namby-pamby pastime; it's a spirited undertaking fueled by competitive
zeal. Or, as Cristal puts it: "It's about owning something no one else
in the world has."

And he does. Lots of it.

-----------------------
For the rest of the article:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0829/p...oap.html?s=hns

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