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When I come back to the states after visiting Cambodia it just feels "strange" to use coins again. I prefer how it is there with NO coins.

Does anyone else get a "culture shock" switching back and forth (coin/no coin) when they travel? Do you prefer coin or prefer no coin?

Is there a history anywhere that sheds detail on how Cambodia ended up with no coins? Were there coins in use before the KR period (besides the French Indochina coins)?

Thanks in advance for any opinions and/or history you can share on the subject.


oh.... appropriate here.

I don't miss them. But from a government cost point of view, they would save money by switching 100r, 500r and 1000r to coins, because the notes wear out so fast. Or at least switch to polymer notes.

The US should switch to polymer notes as well, but that's another story.

Retire the penny!

Retire the nickel too.

Kampuchia Crumbs wrote: ↑Fri Mar 15, 2019 4:35 pm Were there coins in use before the KR period (besides the French Indochina coins)?

There were coins before and after the French in all the regimes other than Pol Pot's (the useless cunt).

1847 Tical from Ang Duong's reign. These old coins with cockeral type designs have been around a long time:


50 Sen 1959 (The original Riel when introduced was somewhere, if I remember correctly, around par with the US dollar, so had to be divided into smaller units):


1970 1 Riel coin from Lon Nol period:


1974 10,000 Riel gold coin (!) There's an interesting story behind these:


1975 5000 riel silver coin.


1979 PRK period 5 Sen. I don't think these were widely used I don't believe the Riel was widely reintroduced till 1980.


There were State of Cambodia coins but I can only find commemorative examples that don't count as normal currency. The last coins seem to be from around 1994, these bi-metallic 500 Riels coins from that year are nice. I've rarely actually seen any coins here, I guess most people were poverty stricken in those days and not too interested in collecting coins for display cases!


https://en.numista.com/catalogue/cambodge-2.html

Western countries did not explore its jungle until late in the nineteenth century, but when French colonialism took hold in Indochina, the “piaster” became the local currency, equivalent on par with more common Spanish “pieces of eight” and Mexican Pesos.

The first riel actually appeared in 1953, issued at par with the existing piaster, as the French tried to appeal to local demands for regional currencies in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.

The riel was initially subdivided into 100 centimes, abbreviated to “cent.” on the coins, but this was modified to 100 “sen” in 1959.

During the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979, new banknotes were printed, but never issued.

As government institutions broke down, no visible monetary system existed until a new riel was introduced in 1980 during the Vietnamese occupation.

In many cases the government actually gave away the currency to the populace in rural areas because there was no prior currency to replace.

https://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/ ... el-history

timmydownawell wrote: ↑Fri Mar 15, 2019 5:51 pm
The US should switch to polymer notes as well, but that's another story.

Was wondering about this while reading the "fake notes from ATM" thread. Surely polymer notes are more difficult to counterfeit?

Whenever I go overseas to countries that uses coins I come back with pockets full because I no longer know how to use them. "culture shock" it is.

Go to England if you like coins... A night in the pub will leave you with pockets full of the crap; 1p 2p 5p 10p 20p 50p £1 and finally £2 ($2.60). Try as hard as you like, you always end up with loads of them which end up at home all over the nightstand. Unless you are waving a note around in a busy pub, the staff will probably ignore you.

On my last visit I capitulated and started using my debit card each time I went to the bar and now my bank statement for those two months reveals that I am, in fact, a major league pisshead. Good luck getting a remortgage with a statement like that, but thats another conversation...

The GBP is crap full stop, or period as some would say.