World coins chat: Algeria & Numidia

Algeria, officially known as the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria is a country in the Mahgreb in Northern Africa. It is the largest country in Africa and home to close to 40 million people.

Location in Africa:


Present-day Algeria was also the location of the Berber Kingdom of Numidia around 200 BC:


The Numidian coins in the Numista catalogue date from the period of King Micipsa and the Roman era, when King Juba was allowed by the Romans to rule this part of northern Africa. Around this time Numidia was highly Romanised.

Later rulers included the Vandals, Byzantines, Umayyads, Abbasids, Ottomans and French until independence was achieved in 1962 after a long and bloody struggle known as the Algerian War.

During Ottoman rule Algeria was semi-independent under a Beylerbey or 'commander-of-commanders'. It was the era of Barbary pirates, who targeted non-Islamic ships and Mediterranean coastal towns to plunder and abduct Europeans for slave trade. This led to reprisals by western navies, but it was not until the early 19th centuries that these practices ended after an Anglo-Dutch fleet bombarded Algiers in 1825.

The French first landed in Algeria in 1830, and after a couple of decades they had established a new colony. Unlike most other French colonial possessions, Algeria was actively colonised and treated as a province of Metropolitan France. Many French, Spanish and Italians settled in Algeria, reaching a 10% share in Algeria's population. In cities such as Algiers and Oran, Europeans were almost the majority.

The French developed Algeria to modern standards but it disrupted Algerian society. Growing discontent from the Muslim population led to the Algerian War starting in the 1950's, with many civilian casualties as a result of terrorist attacks and subsequent reprisals by the French. By 1960 France had granted independence to almost all its African colonies but still wished to hold on to Algeria. Only in 1962 the French gave up and Algeria became independent, causing a massive exodus of European and other non-Muslim Algerians.

Discoveries of natural gas and oil helped fuel the economy of this young state. However, the large exodus of Europeans and high-ranked Algerians caused a serious brain drain. Algeria remained an autocratic presidential republic. In the early 1990's the Algerian Civil War was fought after Algerian leaders cancelled elections that were about to be won by Islamists. Another dirty struggle made Algeria a very dangerous place and foreigners stayed away. After this war the situation stabilised. During the Arab Spring there were some protests but president Bouteflika managed to stay in power after making some promises of reform. Despite that nothing much changed and Algeria is still a relatively isolated country, which is a pity because it has many beautiful natural sceneries and interesting historic sites.

Currency

The brief Spanish presence in the city of Oran produced a few Real coins from the early 17th century. The coins depict king Ferdinand VII and have 'Oran' on the legend.

During Ottoman times Algeria used the Budju. It was subdivided in 24 Mazunas, each of 2 Kharubs or 29 Asper. In 1848 the French replaced the Budju with their own Franc and no Algerian coins were minted. In the 1920's some emergency currency was minted for Oran and other cities. After WW2 the French minted coins specifically for Algeria of 20, 50 and 100 Francs, with lower denominations carrying mintmarks to tell them from Metropolitan issues.

In 1960 the New Franc replaced the old for 100 to 1. Two years after independence the Algerian Dinar was introduced at par with the New Franc, and as such at par with Moroccan Dirham. After the initial 1964 series a number of circulating commemorative coins were issued, and higher denominations of 5 and 10 Dinars. High inflation during the civil war saw the introduction of a completely new coinage in 1992, which is still used today. Prices are now rounded to 5 Dinars. There are around 120 Dinars in a Euro, roughly 18 Dinars per French Francs it was once equal to. The Algerian Dinar was significantly weaker than Moroccan or Tunisian currency.

Older Algerian coins do occasionally show up in bargain bins, but the newer ones are rarer. Perhaps because only very few foreigners ever visit the country. Recognising Algerian coins can be hard. The 1964 series show the emblem:



Other coins show mainly Arabic legends which are impossible to decipher for the non-Arab. It is best just to check the Numista catalog if you think you have one.

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/numidie-1.html

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/algerie-1.html

I have some problems too ...

When I want to write long texts for a numista post I rather do it on a text editor on my computer.
I had to many lost texts when my browser crashed or I accidently clicked on the "return to previous page" button on my mouse .
So I can modify my text in peace and for picture links I upload them get the link and copy it in my editor and when everything is ready I copy and past.
Saves you much hair on your head
for the new editor I have all my text with BB code and paste it in source mode click on source again and can see if everything works or you got a mangled word salad

Απόσπασμα: "Idolenz"Saves you much hair on your head

​
Too late. My hair is white on the temples and I'm bald on the top.

Seriously, it's the best way to save what we write, above all on the long posts.

bummer, I was looking forward to Algeria.

I am now too busy looking after 3 kids.

And now it's done!

Thanks for doing it as I lacked time to do so. I would just precise Numidia contains also some Micipsa coins, made before the Roman conquest. Notice also the Spanish coinage from Oran after the Spanish conquest which finally failed. Spain ruled Oman to the 18th century: after an earthquake, they decided to evacuate the city and giving it back to the Ottoman local rulers.

Now, what do I have...

My older coins are French Algeria coinage with 20F & 100F 1st respective minting years.

After this, I've 2 coins from the 1st series (10 santimat and a severely worn 1 dinar coin). After this, most of Algerian coins are commemoratives, like the 5 santimat FAO series (both quadrennial plan & 1st quinquennial plan coins), the 20 santimat FAO series with the cornucopia & the ram, the Hijra 50 santimat coin, 1 dinar commemoratives for the Land Reform and the 20 years & 25 years of independance, or the 5 dinars commemoratives for the 20 years & 30 years of the Algerian Revolution. The only non-commemorative coins I have from this intermediate period are the scientific 50 santimat coin and the decagonal 10 dinar coins (1979 & 1981). My last Algerian coins are modern coins: 2 dinars 2005 & 10 dinars 1992, both given during my studies by an Algerian girl studying in France. Unfortunately for me she preferred keeping her 100 dinar coin for her come-back in Algeria.

Thanks for the informative article. I have two Algerian coins.

The 1973 santima

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces2925.html


and the 1972 FAO dinar

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces1753.html

Both have high mintage, and they are nicely designed coins. I like them. I particularly like the dinar with the handshake above the man on a tractor.

Added a few more things to the article. I actually own 29 Algerian types. There's not much left on my wishlist for Algeria. I am not even actively looking for them. The 1992-onward series I just bought as a complete set for around 15 EUR, the others I found for bargain prices as they occasionally show up. The 3 French Algerian coins are slightly harder to find.

You can say now that the best way to find Algerian coins from now is through the Algerian community (students or workers, going to and backing from the "bled" as they say) in foreign countries as France have a large part of them.

In Finland there are hardly any North Africans. Somalians, Russians, Iraqis, Kosovars and Lebanese are the most common foreigners in Finland. Actually outside the Helsinki region the number of immigrants is pretty low compared to other regions in Europe. For most of Finnish history no sane person would decide to move to Finland, unless it was for love.

I live in the Netherlands now with a large Moroccan community but I never met someone from Algeria there as well. My last business trip to Paris was during the 2014 World Cup when Germany played Algeria. Never saw so many Algerian flags in my life. The Germans played their worst match of the tournament but I was told most French were relieved Algeria did not win as it would have played France in the next round.

Actually during that business trip most people I met for business were Lebanese and Syrian. Pretty smart guys they definitely were.

Algerian community, as mainly living in poor districts, are more working on low qualified jobs or in local business. Most inhabitants of such districts are known to be discriminated in job meetings for higher qualified jobs. This situation started with 1st Algerian immigration from the "metropolitan colony" since a long time ago, and there is very little evolution since then, making them stuck in a common poverty Even most people leaving the newly-independant Algeria were labelled in the same way. Lebanese and Syrian immigrants were more reknown, as treated in a better way, particularly knowing skilled and rich people from these countries preferred more leaving the country than staying, with less needs to move to a poor district. But we're not here to speak about the human stupidity. Let's turn back to coins