Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

> Zimbabwean ... banknotes and this was one my my best investments ever

Great example of scarcity and price rising via collector demand. They are not making any more of those notes, and collectors are interested similar to collecting scarce baseball cards. Neither have intrinsic use nor utility, but they are scarce and people like to collect them.




I bought few of those "100 trillion dollar" banknotes since I find them cool and perhaps a bit to show off (I made an "in case of emergency break glass" type of thing to be hung on the wall). Those banknotes are unique - unless some other country gets even higher inflation, those will always be shown in every "economy 101" book, so they arent just a thing only for banknote collectors (whom I am not), but also a novelty item for general public (or at least economy students). It seems only the highest denominated bills skyrocketed in price, other bills are relatively cheap.

Supposedly there is a guy who bought a whole briefcase of those 100 trillion banknotes and makes a living by selling them on ebay.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: