DescriptionHafner, in her book The History of Modern Israel’s Money, gives the proof mintage as 25,000. I think I remember reading that the proofs were put into circulation along with the regular coins, and that few were saved.Is it possible to describe Israel without taking sides? I’ll try. Modern Israel happened as a result of a side deal of the arrangement between Britain and France about how to divide up the Ottoman Empire after World War I. The British promised a “Jewish homeland,” and delivered, over objections from neighboring newly independent Arab countries, in 1947, when they divided their Palestine Mandate into Israel and Jordan.Middle East is a funny kind of phrase. It “should” mean the “middle,” say, Egypt to Iran. But in common usuage it means everything from Morocco in far northwest Africa all the way to Afghanistan. Right? I mean, if I talk about “the Levant,” or Jazira, you have to know something about geography. But if I say “Middle East” you’re going to have a picture in your head. Maybe Cairo, maybe Kabul, but you’ll have the reference.By “Modern World Coins” we mean here, generally, the round, flat, shiny metal objects that people have used for money and still do. “Modern,” though, varies by location. There was some other way they were doing their economies, and then they switched over to “modern coins,” then they went toward paper money, now we’re all going toward digital, a future in which kids look at a coin and say “What’s that?” We’ll say: “We used to use those to buy things.” Kids will ask “How?” The main catalog reference is the Standard Catalog of World Coins, to which the KM numbers refer.
