Next club meeting Monday 1^st December 2007.

• Subject - Winter bourse & Members Evening

The activities will be as follows:

1. The main feature will be a mini coin fair. Tables will not be charged for & there will be a collective members table.

2. A coin quiz

3. Members to bring along one or two items that for some reason are considered special (e.g. recent acquisition, a long sought after piece, an unusual find, an oddity etc.). A brief written explanation as to why the piece is special to you.

4. Henry’s amazing buffet!

Notices

· The Xmas dinner is booked for 18.30 on Sat 13 December 2014 at The Cunning Man.  The cost is expected to be £20 person. We will probably be on two tables and we have to pre-order two weeks before. Note that coffee/ mince pie can be chosen in place of a dessert. Please let us know if you want to come by phone, e-mail or at the December meeting.

Address: Burghfield Rd, Burghfield Bridge, Reading RG30 3BR

Phone: 0118 959 8067

http://www.vintageinn.co.uk/thecunningmanburghfieldbridge

· Please continue thinking about Short Talks for January, and Auction lots for March!

November Meeting

The November talk was on “The Banknotes of Yugoslavia” by our very own Alastair.

Alastair started his talk by showing a map dating from 1910 showing that only Montenegro and Serbia were independent states at the time. The rest of what was to become Yugoslavia were either part of the Austro Hungarian Empire – Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina and Vojvodina (part of modern day Serbia) and Macedonia and Kosovo part of the Ottoman Empire.

There was deep unrest in region since the Congress of Berlin in 1878 when Austro-Hungary was given Bosnia Herzegovina as a protectorate – they formally annexed in 1908. This led to bad feeling between Belgrade and Vienna. There was a land grab in the first Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 where large tracks of land were ‘liberated’ from the Ottomans including Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo.

What was a regional conflict became the start of World War 1, when a young Bosnian Serb – Gavrillo Princip assassinated the heir apparent to the Hapsburg Empire – Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand on 28^th June 1914.

Austria declared war on Serbia, Russia mobilized in support of Serbia, Germany mobilized in support of Austria, France mobilized in support of Russia, and Britain was dragged in when Germany marched through neutral Belgium. After the capitulation of the ‘Central Powers’ in November 1918, ‘The Treaty of Versailles’ 1919 led to the breakup of the empires of the Austro-Hungarians, Ottomans, and large tracks of German territory in the east and west. This lead to the creation of The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (changed to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929), Czechoslovakia and Poland as independent states.

The first banknote of Yugoslavia was in fact a countermarked Austro Hungarian 10 Kronen banknote dated 1915.

World War Two

• April 1941 Yugoslavia invaded by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

– Slovenia split in two, Italy annexing the south and west, Germany the north and east

– Ustase gain power in Croatia aided by the Italians, including all of Croatia and Bosnia Hercegovina, but divided into German and Italian military zones

– Montenegro lost part of its territory to Albania and became an ‘independent’ province under Italian protection

– Italians used Albania to annex part of Kosovo and Western Macedonia

– Germans occupied Banat

– Hungarians retake Vojvodina

– Bulgarians reclaimed Macedonia and parts of southern Serbia

– Serbia came under direct German military rule

• 1942 Emergence of Tito’s Partisans as main opposition to Axis powers – fighting also occurs between the partisans and Chetniks (Serbian Monarchists)

• 1944 Overthrow of Germans, Yugoslavia falls within the communist block

German Occupied Serbia 1000 Dinara 1941 overprint from Yugoslav note

Tito’s Partisan Note – ‘Death to the Fascists’

Communist Period 1944-1990

• 1948 Tito breaks with Stalin, Yugoslavia becomes one of the leading nations of the Non-aligned pact.

• 1980 Tito dies, countries making up Yugoslavia rotate President role

Yugoslavia 1985 Issue – commemorating Josef Broz aka Tito 1892- 1980

Post Communism – the birth of extreme nationalism

• 1989 Milosevic speech- stirs up Serb Nationalism.

• 1991 – Slovenia / Croatia seek to leave Yugoslavia

• 1992 – Bosnia seeks independence

• 1992 – civil war breaks out leading to hyperinflation in Bosnia and the rump Yugoslavia

• Siege of Sarajevo 5^th Apr 1992 – 29^th Feb 1996

1992-94 Bon Issue – Issued during the Siege of Sarajevo

• July 1995 Srbenica massacre at least 8,300 Bosnian men murdered in UN ‘Safe Haven’ – Darkest day for UNPROFOR – West finally takes military action against Bosnian Serbs – aerial bombing and gains by newly re-equipped Croatian and Muslim forces bring Serbs to peace table

• 1996 Dayton peace accord – Bosnia divided into the Federation and Rpublika Srpska

Greater Serbia – Propaganda notes 1991

Portait of Draza Mikajlovic Chetnik General – killed by Tito’s Partisans

Highest Rate of Inflation League Table

Country	Currency	Month highest inflation rate	Highest monthly inflation rate	Equivalent daily inflation rate	Time required for prices to double
Hungry	Pengo	July 1946	4.19 X10 16 %	207.19%	15 hours
Zimbabwe	Zim Dollar	Nov 2008	7.96 X10 10 %	98.01%	24.7 hours
Yugoslavia	Yugoslav Dinar	Jan 1994	3.13 X10 8 %	64.63%	1.4 days
Republika Srpska	Republika Srpska Dinar	Jan 1994	3.13 X10 8 %	64.63%	1.4 days
Germany Weimar Republic	German Papiermark	Oct 1923	29,500%	20.87%	3.7 days
Greece	Greek Drachma	Oct 1944	13,800%	17.84%	4.3 days

500 Billion Dinara – highest denomination note Issued 23^rd Dec 1993, issued 1 week after 50 Billion Dinara Issued

Post Independence

• War in Kosovo 1998, Serbia bombed by NATO warplanes

• Downthrow of Slobodan Milosevic, resigned from Presidency 24^th Sept 2000, arrested by Yugoslav Federal Authorities and deported to the Hague to face war crimes March 2001, dies of a heart attack whilst on trial 11^th March 2006

• Capture of Radovan Karadzic Belgrade 21^st July 2008 and Ratko Mladic Lazarevo, Serbia 26^th May 2011 both referred to as the ‘Butchers of Bosnia’

Recommended Reading

• Misha Glenny – The Balkans 1804-1999 Nationalism, War and the Great Powers

• Tim Butcher – The Trigger - Hunting the Assassin who Brought the World to War

• Max Hastings – Catastrophe – Europe goes to war 1914

• Fitzroy Maclean – Eastern Approaches – Former Conservative MP and Diplomat’s exploits as Churchill’s special envoy to Yugoslavia in the 1940’s

• Laura Silber and Allan Little – The Death of Yugoslavia

Future Events.

• DNW Auction - 4-5^th December
• London Coin Auctions – Grange Hotel, Bracknell – 6-7^th December
• Birmingham Coin Fair - National Motorcycle museum – 14^th December
• Morton & Eden Auction – St. George St., London – 15^th December
• St. James’s Auctions – Cavendish Hotel, 81, Jermyn St., London - 16^th December

Past Events

• Ten years ago in 2004, Dr. S Bhandare spoke on “Aspects of Oriental Coins”

Club Secretary.