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| Cristal inspects a silver 'flower money' coin of the type once used in northern Thailand and Burma. The monies are just two
of 2,000-plus pecuniary treasures he keeps catalogued and arranged. Tibor Krausz |
This coin collector is no penny pincher
From 'pig mouths' money to 'tiger tongues,' numismatist Ronald Cristal sheds new light on history.
By Tibor Krausz | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitorfrom the August 29, 2007 edition
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Bangkok , Thailand - Cupped in Ronald Cristal's palm is a tangerine-size orb of the kind that artillerymen of the American Civil War might have used for their breech-loading cannons. It dates from that era, too, so you might think it a nice antique paperweight.
Tell that to Mr. Cristal, and he'll gasp at your ignorance.
What the American-born Thai numismatist is holding isn't artillery ammunition at all. It's a "bullet coin" issued by the Siamese king Rama IV (known abroad as the volatile monarch played by Yul Brynner in "The King and I").
Engraved with the king's own seal of a tapering Siamese crown, the bullet coin (the largest item of indigenous weight-based currency) was denominated as 80 baht. That may not sound like much these days (just over $2), but back in the mid-19th century, it was worth a fortune.
It still is.
Cristal bought the coin at a Bangkok auction for more than 30,000 times its denominational mark – 2.5 million baht ($80,000), to be precise. He could sell it for several times that amount to well-off foreign collectors, he says, but he won't. Carefully wiping fingertip smudges from his cherished acquisition's surface, he replaces it in its thick velvet pouch and tucks it inside the safe.
Obsessive? Certainly.
Yet Cristal, one of Southeast Asia's preeminent numismatists, belies the stereotype of coin collectors as reclusive oddballs hunched over their treasures with monocles or a watchmaker's eyepiece, brows furrowed in scrutiny.
Despite spearheading a well-established law firm in Bangkok, Cristal seems to spend most of his time on the Internet comparing notes with fellow collectors worldwide – retired postal workers, computer programmers, high-flying executives, and everyone in between.
Whatever one may have thought of that elusive, nickel-crazed schoolmate, it turns out that serious coin collecting isn't just a namby-pamby pastime; it's a spirited undertaking fueled by competitive zeal. Or, as Cristal puts it: "It's about owning something no one else in the world has."
And he does. Lots of it.
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