"I reflected that there is nothing less material than money, since any coin whatsoever (let us say a coin worth twenty centavos) is, strictly speaking, a repertory of possible futures. Money is abstract, I repeated, money is the future tense. It can be an evening in the suburbs, or music by Brahms; it can be maps, or chess, or coffee; it can be the words of Epictetus teaching us to despise gold; it is a Proteus more versatile than the one on the isle of Pharos." -Jorge Luis Borges, "The Zahir"
As a collection it is paltry - eight not especially rare coins in two small clear plastic bags. It probably could be assembled with about three pounds in the stall on the top floor of the Stephen's Green Centre on Saturdays. Yet it has an evocative quality well beyond its monetary value or quantity.
It's my collection of coins from vanished states and regimes. One bag contains currency from the USSR, East Germany, Communist Hungary and (in contravention of the rules) still-extant Red China. In the other bag (for this ideological divide is rigorously stark) is Franco's Spain and Vichy France.
The coinage of the Soviet Imperium is replete with stars and hammers and sickles, as you might expect. Another prominent feature is sheaves of wheat and corn, symbolising the alleged plenty Marxism would bring in its wake. The 1991 coin from the CCCP (USSR) is in actual fact identical to one from the Russian Federation a year later, as the Soviet system timidly ceded to a new order. A 20 Kopeck piece from 1967 is more typically upbeat about Soviet technology, as a beam of light illuminates the way forward for a large boat. 1967 was of course the fiftieth anniversary of the Revolution and comes complete with a hammer and sickle atop a globe surrounded by the ubiquitous garland of wheat.
The contrast between the breezy coins of post-war France with half-naked women scattering around flowers, and the severe coins of Vichy France is striking. Instead of "Republique Francaise" we have "ETAT FRANCAIS", below the image of an axe. Instead of "libertie, egalitie, fraternitie" we have "Travail Famille Patrie" - work, family and fatherland, suitable virtues in Petain's new regime. Once again much foliage is in evidence, this time oak leaves. Obviously totalitarian regimes liked to convey an image of fertility.
The shocking thing about Franco's coinage is how recent it is - as recently as the mid-seventies, well within living memory, a fascist regime reigned in Western Europe. "FRANCISCO FRANCO CAUDILLO DE ESPANA POR LA G. DE DIOS" adorns one side with the face of the eponymous caudillo. On the five peseta coin an eagle flies purposefully through the air, clutching the inapt words "Una Grande Libre" in its beak and bearing a matrix of somewhat Medieval symbols on its back.
Of course coins have since time immemorial been used by the state to assert its power and cement its iconography in the mind of the people. Coins are vital sources of information about the leaders of the past - the Romans in particular included quite detailed portraits of their leaders which have bequeathed us much valuable information about their appearance.
The coins of the USA are of course rich in the symbolism of government - the presence of Presidents adds to the imperial mystique of the role. Suffragette Susan B Anthony is the sole woman represented on US currency, a prim and rather proper presence on the resurgent dollar coin. The rest of the coins feature a cavalcade of dead white males, accompanied with the words "Liberty" and "In God we Trust", while "E pluribus unum" (from many, one) features on the otherside with one of an array of the many icons of the American State.
Our coins carry the official symbol of the Irish Government, the harp, and an array of animals. These were chosen in the early years of the state by a commission that included WB Yeats. In a way these innocent fauna are a sign of Irelands' placid political nature; by contrast with the axe of Vichy France, the official fertility of the Soviet Imperium and the Caudillo's stern eagle, Irish coins are really quite charming.
