Over time we can all build up our own world bank of foreign exchange.
My Dear Old Dad, in his dwindling years, would count out his own chest of pesetas, escudos, drachmas, francs, lira and deutschmarks.
There are, of course, glass cases in airports where we can now donate our left-over foreign money for charity.
But if you’re resourceful, and have a winning smile (Daddy’s Little Girl), you can walk off your plane with foreign money.
And in these straitened times we need all, and every kind of legit money, from wherever it comes.
The Queen’s coin
The most trusted coins in the UK are, of course, those with the Queen’s head on it.
And a roaring trade is done too on commemorative coins of the monarch.
With this Platinum Year of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign marked by the release of a limited number of coins to mark her 75 years.
They range on the Royal Mint from the UK 50p Brilliant Uncirculated Coin at £7 for the most pressed subject.
To the gold bullion Queen’s Jubilee Sovereign Set at £1,800, but be patient they’re awaiting stock.
Pawn Stars
Now if you think that that’s extravagant in these cash-strapped times then remember that gold appreciates in value.
Not that I’m advising you to scour your jewellery box and head for the pawn shop.
Although having seen the prices of old artefacts in the most famous pawn store in the world, the Pawn Stars shop in Vegas.
My fellow Britons famously and sneeringly accuse the Americans of having no history.
But here in the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop and across any number of fairs across the States specialising in music, war or whatever disproves that.
Coining it in
And if you can’t afford a Confederate coin then you can always buy one of those say Buffalo Bill coins from the souvenir shop in Lookout Mountain in Colorado.
Coins have been with us since Roman days and before, the Lydians in modern-day Turkey credited with the first in 600BC.
And we always live in hope that all that digging that The Green-Fingered One does in our back garden will yield some treasure.
For now I’ll just hope that my commemorative C$2 Calgary Winter Olympics coin has appreciated in value.
Because I’m not holding out much hope for my Jordanian dinar note in our own world bank of foreign exchange.
Saddam hucksters
I did dodge a bullet (maybe even literally) when I body swerved the hucksters trying to sell Saddam Hussein Iraqi notes outside Petra.
Best stick to the coin-pressing machines and the money-making exercise that is The Royal Mint Collection.
It’s about time, is it not, that that wealth dripped down to us.?