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The things people keep
PRINCE FREDERICK
Name: Om Prakash
Collection: Currency with fancy numbers
Textile merchant Om Prakash is used to counting currency notes but is not quick at it. He is slowed down by an obsession. “While flipping through a wad of notes, I look for those with fancy numbers,” he explains. He developed an interest
in them after reading an article in Nav Bharath about a Nagpur-based collector of such notes. In fifteen years, Om Prakash has collected over a hundred currency notes with various number patterns.
Here are some that caught my fancy. I notice two notes with ‘uniform numbers’ – ‘888888’ (Rs. 500) and ‘777777’ (Rs. 50). A set has notes whose last five digits are zeros - ‘100000’ (Rs. 100), ‘200000’ (Rs. 50) and ‘600000’ (Rs. 10). In another grouping, the first two digits are repeated twice – ‘323232’ (Rs. 100), ‘373737’ (Rs. 10), ‘393939’ (Rs. 5), ‘070707’ (Rs. 20), ‘939393’ (Rs. 10) and ‘727272’ (Rs. 5). Then, there is a class of notes with the first three digits repeated – ‘701701’ (Rs. 100), ‘752752’ (Rs. 50) and ‘741741’ (Rs.10). In this group, two 100 rupee notes form a pair with numbers ‘556556’ and ‘566566’. Two ten rupee notes are together because their numbers suggest increments of ten (‘102030’ and ‘111213’). A Rs. 50 follows a decreasing order (‘141312’). A standalone ten rupee note is numbered ‘761762’. Another pairless one is a Rs.10 with ‘000002’.
There are notes with special numbers embedded in the six-digits. There is a series on ‘786’, a number widely studied by mathematicians and valued by many Muslims.
The value of all these currency notes could total up to over Rs. 10,000. But in Om Prakash’s eyes, they must be more valuable.
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