When you travel the world a lot, you obviously come across numerous currency bills from many countries.
In my years traveling, I began keeping some of them just as little souvenirs.
I know I got some currency from Mexico (obviously), Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Colombia, Peru, the EU and Pakistan at the very least (never been to Pakistan but I had a roommate in college who was Pakistani).
And, to be honest, one thing that I think a few Latin American countries do better than the US is currency.
At the very least when it comes to how nice it looks.
Currency in the US looks OK. Nothing wrong with it but not overly exciting.
Though, as you can see here, apparently older currency under Teddy Roosevelt was more exciting back in the day.
Pawn Stars Currency 1896 Silver Certificates
....Nude women on the currency? Sweet!
Unfortunately, we don't have currency these days that is overly exciting to look at.
And, given how long I've been away from the US, the currency from that country does oddly seem tiny bit foreign to me these days ironically enough.
In large part because I haven't held an American bill in quite some time.
The only time I have ever held American currency in the last 5 years has been whenever I left the house to buy my mom and I food at whatever nearby fast food place.
And I haven't held an American bill or coin actually in the last 2.5 years as I haven't been back to the US in that time.
Still, I obviously know what a one dollar bill looks like, five dollars, etc.
Just haven't held any in a while now.
In the meantime, I have occasionally sat down and looked at some of the currency I've collected over the years.
Tonight, I was listening to some music and just looking at some new bills I was given in Walmart today.
These 20 peso Mexican bills that are not the blue kind but look a bit different.
I haven't seen these ever really.
Only get the blue ones.
But damn these look nice.
Given how new the ones I got are (issued just a year ago), they seem pretty clean and free of any marks or other damages.
Nothing scribbled on them.
No bent corners.
But, on top of that, the art work on them looks really nice.
Love the Mexican flag on the front and the art work done around it.
Then, on the back, you got some colorful work of nature.
All around worth just taking a look at.
And is what reminded me of the differences you notice over the years in currency.
Going through my mini currency collection, there's also another country that deserves recognition for having great looking currency: Brazil.
Without question.
Here's a video of what some of their currency looks like.
Easily the best looking currency of Latin America in my experience.
Though, to be fair, I haven't held the currency bills of every country.
I only heard that the Costa Rican bills look quite nice but I have no idea as I've never held one before nor been to Costa Rica as of this writing.
How about Cuban currency?
One thing I don't like about some Latin currencies is when they have big numbers on them like what Colombia or Paraguay has.
Where the numbers are in the thousands.
Mostly because, even though I know inflation in said countries hasn't been too bad in the last decade or so (at least from what I've heard), it just seems "un professional" to have big numbers on your currency.
Like it screams "WE HAVE MASSIVE INFLATION."
I know that's not how it actually works but you get what I mean.
Just looks cleaner for currency bills to stick to the 10s and 100s.
Which, when going back to Mexican currency, the highest it goes is the 1,000 but I've never held a 1,000 Mexican currency bill.
Here is what it looks like supposedly.
Never seen it though in all my years here.
At any rate, there is nothing else to say on the matter.
Out of all of the Latin currencies I've held, the Brazilian and Mexican are my favorite.
If you got anything to add, drop a comment below.
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Thanks for reading.
Best regards,
Matt