Krakatau! - CC 010

CC 010

Volcanic Bill

Origin: Indonesia

Unit: 100 Rupiah

So just a quick post for the end of February, there hasn't been a bill posted from the Coin Collection posted in awhile so here is a pretty cool one from Indonesia (Which if you didn't know is comprised of 17,508 islands!). The obverse (shown below) has a picture of a traditional which Indonesian sailing cargo ship while the reverse (shown above) shows the erupting volcano Krakatoa (also spelled Krakatau). This particular bill is worth 100 Rupiah and was minted in 1992; the serial number is DBC077504. Briefly skimming through a few articles online it seems that in 1992 the rupiah was worth 1/5th of what it had been back in the '70's. The rupiah is subdivided into 100 sen.

Just a brief overview of the volcanic island of Krakatoa. This large volcano is most famous, or infamous in this case, for a large eruption back in 1883 that killed about 40,000 people. It is known for being the loudest sound ever heard in recorded history with people hearing the explosion for over 3,000 miles. Over 5 cubic miles of ash and debris was ejected, to help you picture this think of a large square that is a mile wide, mile long, and a mile high and you have 5 of these put together; it was a lot of ejecta material. The island (and surrounding islands) are still volcanically active but nothing as spectacular as the 1883 eruption. What is also interesting is that a year after the explosion scientists were studying the effects that the eruption had on the biology of the island. What they found was the only living thing was a small spider living under a rock, yet after years the island began to come back to life with grasses and eventually the ecology was restored. You can find out more interesting information on Krakatoa here.