Dear friends!
It all started in 1989. My first bill were 50 Polish Zloty 1988 issue – as the result of exchange with a Polish student, from Olsztyn (I was living in the Kaliningrad, Russia (on Baltic Sea), and they often visited our city, because visits of Friendship between USSR and Polish scholars). I gave him the Soviet Jubilee ruble with symbol of the Olympic Games 1980 in Moscow and got from him this paper money bill and 1 coin 20 Zlotych. I was very proud of, despite; in fact, the exchange result was clearly not in my favor.
Three years later, after that, I was once asked: „What is that castle on the bill, where is it located?“ (That was about 50 Korun 1987 Czechoslovakia). To my shame I was not able to answer on this question right away. Probably, this fact has given impetus to the creation of the catalogue in which, first of all for myself (just for any case), to point- what is shown on each bill from my collection.
First, the catalog looked out as thick notebook, lined in cage, in which I wrote the banknote and its main image, without any details.
In addition, in the same book, I wrote the data of admission of "long distant" TV - my main, at that time, hobby - I constructed television antennas, installed them of roof of building, where I lived and received TV channels of Lithuania from Klaipeda, Latvia from Liepaja, Sweden from Karlskrona and from island Gotland and Denmark from island Bornholm. Receiving of these channels also depend on weather conditions (in particular, atmospheric pressure). Polish TV always received in Kaliningrad - zone of confident reception. Excitement was really crazy, but I digress ...
Since then, it's been quite a few years. The availability of the Internet, of course, greatly complemented and ennobled my catalogue.
And then, some time ago, my wife offered me help in the creation of my own web page. I am very glad, that this idea was quite quickly put into practice. From the moment of my site is available online, it was installed in 2014, I got known some interesting people, on banknotes topic, who are living in different parts of the planet. I am a sociable person, so always been happy to meet interesting interlocutors.
At the end of my prologue I want to say, that I prefer the old banknotes, but although have in my collection the modern ones. For me, the banknote itself is a piece of history, a piece of someone's life or an event. I do not care about condition UNC - I have my own graduation value.
Nor, for example, I was always irritated by a question, like: "How much is worth in dollars?"
On my site are only those banknotes that are in fact, in my collection. I am not using any images from Internet.
I will not make you bore greater, always glad to your visit!
Part 2: A little about myself.
Today is December 31, 2020. It has been a full 6 years and 5 months (to be precise) since the website was launched online.
My site was recognized in Russia, India, Japan, Great Britain, Poland, Indonesia, Mexico, Spain, Holland, Ukraine .. I have listed the countries that are in the top ten in terms of attendance, if you refer to Google statistics. In fact, there are, of course, many more countries. Sometimes it is not clear whether people come to the site because of their interest in banknotes as such, or come to it by accident, through third-party links.
For example, Ukraine. Statistics show, that 90% of visits from Ukraine are limited to viewing modern ... US dollars. For me this is somewhat strange. Probably, these people come to my site, looking for the exchange rate of dollars or something similar..
I want to answer to "viewers":
- Where I come from?: I have especially extreme tender feelings for two cities: Odessa - I was born in this city. Despite the fact that I knew Odessa mainly in the summer, since I was visiting my relatives on holidays, I knew the city very well (as of the street names in 1988). It is very difficult to explain what Odessa is to a person who has never been there. You need to feel it. Many well-known Odessa citizens have already said a lot about Odessa, I do not want to repeat myself. I can only say that, all my life, as soon as I open my mouth somewhere, many people immediately heard "this dialect". They say, it was passed on from my mother 😉 Ventspils is a small port city on the Baltic Sea, in Latvia. My childhood, in fact, was spent there. I love Ventspils as much as I love Odessa. A very dear place for me.. Perhaps, this is all memory..nostalgia from childhood.. They say that Odessa is no longer AS IT USED TO BE, everywhere, I think, IS NOT AS IT USED TO BE, and, though what? No matter, how many times I come to Ventspils (I visit there much more often than in Odessa), I always go to my native places, barely coping with the storm of emotions.
With best wishes,
O.L.
Part 3: Update.
Today is 23 January 2022. It's time to update the second part of my story, especially when there is something:)
At the end of 2021, it happened, in fact, quite unexpectedly, that my wife and I changed our place of residence, finally... After 13 years of life, we left Germany (now, in the past tense, I can open this card). Now we live in another country of the European Union, which I, personally, am very, very pleased with:) This year, for the first time in the past decade, we saw a real winter:) From some point of view, it's cool, from some - not very:). I want to say that this will not affect the site in any way - I, as before, will maintain it. The only difference is that, now, I will be more selective about the banknotes, that I buy. The topic of my interests has become a little narrower and I think that this is correct.
With best wishes in 2022!