We are in countdown phase here, 24 hours from when we fly to Seattle to catch the Holland-America Eurodam to cruise to Alaska. If you keep your eyes on this blog, I am sure you will be able to see what we are doing as we travel. It will be first time in Alaska, and first  time on a cruise, not only for the blog, but for us.

Tonight has been quiet. We watched a few hours of MS NOW, mainly focused on Trump’s corruption, and Milot Kiros, the Democratic Socialist winner of a Congressional primary race in Denver. I then turned on the World Cup match between the U.S. and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and saw the score was tied 0-0 45 minutes into the game. As I have said before, soccer does not excite me, and when the U.S. scored its first goal, I said to myself, ” Who cares?” I realized that I didn’t care if we won or we lost. That’s patriotism for you.

So I turned back to going through my things, as I have been doing much of this week. Tonight was “paper money” night. I have a shoe box containing old paper money from 33 countries, each country’s money being in a separate envelope. This is separate from a sizeable wad I found elsewhere that is comprised of money which I have found left in pockets after international travel.

I can’t tell you where I got most of this currency or when, and the value of most (not all) of it is modest. But it is interesting just to look at it.

For example, we worry when inflation exceeds 2%. In post-World War 1 Germany’s Weimar Republic, inflation hit numbers unimaginable. In 1918, notes like this 2 Mark bill were circulating.

By 1923, bills like this were being printed.

You know how many Marks are in a Milliarde? 1,000,000,000. One billion. You read that right.

Closer to home, here is an 1898 U.S. dollar bill, redeemable in silver. It is about 50% larger than American paper money today.

We Americans don’t have billion dollar bills yet, right? But wait. . maybe we can actually beat those Germans. Yes, there we have it. One TRILLION dollars. Honest Abe, can I spend it in one place?

The oldest paper money I have is French, dating from the years of the French Revolution, the late 18th century. And yes, these are authentic.

My favorites include currency from czarist Russia (I have 10 examples) and the early days of the Soviet Union.

I do have some from further flung places like Japan

And Cambodia

But I can tell you are getting bored.

So I will end as I began, but not quite. Here is a piece of paper money printed by the Germans, but not for the Germans.

When the Germans set up their model prison camp for the benefit of the cameras accompanying the Red Cross, for one day paper money circulated at Theriesenstadt (Terezin). I will show you an example of this fake money, which I bought at an antique store in Prague.

Of course, things don’t turn out exactly as planned. Of all the money that I have in this shoe box, it is the fake money which today has the most value.