Post by evm111 on Sept 17, 2006 17:02:36 GMT -5
Next on my list of recent listings that I neglected to include here at USNS is Crescent Island. We are going to see some fascinating coins from Bill!! I plan to list his pieces directly underneath the Ile Crescent listing, just like I've done with Mr. Zinkann's pieces. This way, they are all in one easy-to-find spot:
ILE CRESCENT: I obtained this very cool-looking set directly from their designer, Mr. William Turner (based in Cypress, TX). All 3 denominations (500, 1000, and 5000 Poa), dated 2006, are made of fluorescent, see-through, laser-engraved, colored acrylic (blue, green, and yellow, respectively) and were produced by a company called Texas Laser Products. These distinctive, uniface pieces seem to really glow in the dark! I was also given a yellow 500 Poa, which was one of the 5 initial samples (2 blue, 2 yellow, 1 pink) the manufacturer sent Mr. Turner “to show me what he could do with his equipment”. Mr. Turner, whose eBay ID is b-turner, also happens to be one of the first collectors to have purchased, on eBay, one of my initial Nichtsburg & Zilchstadt pieces. Poa, I was told, means “pearl”.
Mr. Turner’s fascination with Crescent Island began at an early age, when “I read the book Pitcairn Island by David Silverstone in 6th grade”. Years of ongoing research (combined with a deep interest in numismatics) led him to produce his own series of rubber-stamped banknotes for the island (made mostly of marbled, hand-made paper) “sometime during the summer of 2004.” Fortunately, this Crescentese currency has now been expanded to include coins. Their design “is from my newsletter logo for Tropical Frontiers, a travel newsletter I published from 1984 to 1988.” Geographically, Crescent Island “is about 9 kilometers outside the western boundary of the French Polynesia 200 mile economic zone, located in international waters between the Kiribati and Pitcairn Island Economic Zones.” It “is made up of 2 small islets connected by a small strip of sand at low tide. The total land area is about 200 acres” and population consists of roughly 40 Islanders. According to Mr. Turner, who has written a lengthy history of the island comprised of fact mixed with fantasy, the original inhabitants of Crescent Island, prior to the 1760s, resided “on Mangareva, in the Gambier Islands, now part of French Polynesia.” Some of its men and women “fell away” from the rulers’ rigid social structure and “were rounded up. These few were to be purged from Mangareva. Forced on a raft, they were sent to sea.” After several days afloat, “the group, near death for sure, found their raft being torn by a reef with a small sand bank in the distance. Making an attempt at land, the group managed to swim to shore and set up housekeeping on what is now known as an islet of Temoe Atoll.” This site, 50 miles from Mangareva and containing nothing but breadfruit trees, became Crescent Island.
ILE CRESCENT: I obtained this very cool-looking set directly from their designer, Mr. William Turner (based in Cypress, TX). All 3 denominations (500, 1000, and 5000 Poa), dated 2006, are made of fluorescent, see-through, laser-engraved, colored acrylic (blue, green, and yellow, respectively) and were produced by a company called Texas Laser Products. These distinctive, uniface pieces seem to really glow in the dark! I was also given a yellow 500 Poa, which was one of the 5 initial samples (2 blue, 2 yellow, 1 pink) the manufacturer sent Mr. Turner “to show me what he could do with his equipment”. Mr. Turner, whose eBay ID is b-turner, also happens to be one of the first collectors to have purchased, on eBay, one of my initial Nichtsburg & Zilchstadt pieces. Poa, I was told, means “pearl”.
Mr. Turner’s fascination with Crescent Island began at an early age, when “I read the book Pitcairn Island by David Silverstone in 6th grade”. Years of ongoing research (combined with a deep interest in numismatics) led him to produce his own series of rubber-stamped banknotes for the island (made mostly of marbled, hand-made paper) “sometime during the summer of 2004.” Fortunately, this Crescentese currency has now been expanded to include coins. Their design “is from my newsletter logo for Tropical Frontiers, a travel newsletter I published from 1984 to 1988.” Geographically, Crescent Island “is about 9 kilometers outside the western boundary of the French Polynesia 200 mile economic zone, located in international waters between the Kiribati and Pitcairn Island Economic Zones.” It “is made up of 2 small islets connected by a small strip of sand at low tide. The total land area is about 200 acres” and population consists of roughly 40 Islanders. According to Mr. Turner, who has written a lengthy history of the island comprised of fact mixed with fantasy, the original inhabitants of Crescent Island, prior to the 1760s, resided “on Mangareva, in the Gambier Islands, now part of French Polynesia.” Some of its men and women “fell away” from the rulers’ rigid social structure and “were rounded up. These few were to be purged from Mangareva. Forced on a raft, they were sent to sea.” After several days afloat, “the group, near death for sure, found their raft being torn by a reef with a small sand bank in the distance. Making an attempt at land, the group managed to swim to shore and set up housekeeping on what is now known as an islet of Temoe Atoll.” This site, 50 miles from Mangareva and containing nothing but breadfruit trees, became Crescent Island.