ABYSSINIA'S COINS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 112, 7 November 1935, Page 7

ABYSSINIA'S COINS

CARTRIDGE CURRENCY

..The■■■coinage of Abyssinia naturally much' interested Mr. -Allan Sutherland during his recent trip abroad, and the other night he told members of the New Zealand : Numismatic Society something, about-it.

• YOur liner,"- he said, "was taken close to the shores of Italian Somaliland, and the captain broadcast throughout the ship a description of the few settlements along the barren shore. We were informed that there was much fertile land inland, that the Abyssinian-with his antiquated plough and oxen,, could obtain three good crops each year, that for • the most part • Abyssinia was a white man's ■country although situated within 15 degrees of the Equator by reason of the altitude of the plateau, where temperatures ranged from 60 degrees at night to 80 at noon.

"The newest coins of Abyssinia are a silver piece, the'size of a dollar, and smaller pieces in nickel, known locally as the alati and the roub, and bearing the crowned bust of Emperor Haile Selassie I and a lion on the reverse. The Menelek dollar, coined in 1899, bore the inscription 'Menelek 11, King of Kings/ It was he who brought; into common use coins bearing the effigy of the King, and the silver used represented the war indemnity paid by the Italians. At one time the only coin accepted there was the Maria Theresa thaler, always bearing the date 1780; minted in Vienna. The dating on Abyssinian coins, is seven years behind the Christian era —1923 equal to our 1930.

"In 1885 a traveller reported that 'he had made everlasting friendship with the village chief by making him' a present of an empty Worcestershire bottle, the glass stopper appearing to be a source of delight and comfort to him.'

"In ?SO3 an American mission to Abyssinia reported that in Addis Ababa, bars of salt and cartridges represented divisions of the thaler, and that the thaler itself fluctuated in value according to the distance from the sea, and crop movements. Native servants actually carried well-filled cartridge belts, whether they possessed revolvers or not This was the recognised way of carrying a currency that was always sure to circulate."