Bizarre coin

lemon_of_old

Hi all,

I'm just wondering if any of you knows anything about coins from the Isle of Mann. My friend recently found a Manx pound coin dated 1994 that has a huge mobile phone on one side! We just found that a very strange choice for an emblem, so decided to find out why they chose a mobile phone. However I don't know anything about coin collecting and despite spending quite a long time searching the net, I still have nothing. I'm stumped. And just so so curious. If anybody knows anything about coins from the Isle of Mann or can direct me to a website or forum where I can find out I would greatly appreciate it! (Honestly, it's a very strange coin.)

Many thanks.

Hagar

Please put up a picture of the coin, I've never seen one of those. Thanks.

lemon_of_old

I don't have a picture of the coin yet but I found a picture of one on the net: http://worldcoingallery.com/countries/img13/93-213.jpg

The description given is "Telecommunicator". Commemorating building a mobile phone mast on the Isle of Mann perhaps?? Strange, no?

Hagar

That's a new one on me. The lighting in the photo makes it look like the centre of the coin is higher than the edge. Totally weird. AFAIK the IOM make a fair few bob out of special coins aimed soley ay collectors and never really intended for circulation although they would still be legal tender.

Archeron

Hi Hagar,
Do you know much about coins? I have a really old rough looking coin that features the Dublin city emblem on one side, and a very rough drawing of the saints "Peterus and Paulus" on the other. It looks to be made of gold, but I never checked it out. I could post up a pic if you might be interested in seeing it. cheers

squire1

I'm fairly sure that phone network developers like Vodafone and O2 use the Isle of Man as a testing ground for new network technologies. They were the first area to have 3G up and running but this would have been in 1999 or 2000 or so.

Maybe the coin commemorates the first digital network that was in use? There is probably a forum around here somewhere for moble phone experts, maybe they can shed some light on it for you.

Hope this helps.

Edit: I just noticed that the coin in the picture is from 1989. They hardly made a commemorative coin for 5 years did they?

I just checked out this forum because of a thread on feedback so, a result for eo980:D

I'll be back soon, don't go away.

Hagar

Archeron wrote:

Hi Hagar,
Do you know much about coins?

Not as much as I would like, please put up a picture if you can. Without seeing it I'd nearly think it was some sort of Church commemorative ( St. Peter's and Pauls) but thats just a guess at the moment.

Squire1 wrote:

I just checked out this forum because of a thread on feedback so, a result for eo980

I'll be back soon, don't go away.

A sense of humour is the prime requisite for survival on Boards.
I think you'll make it.

lemon_of_old

Jeez this is turning out to be a bigger mystery than I thought. I posted on a forum on a coin collecting site to ask the ol' experts - and nobody knows anything! They've even started posting on forums on other sites to try and get more info. Even the Pobjoy mint (who makes the coins apparently) doesn't have any record of them. Curiouser and curiouser.