Some Silver from Papua New Guinea and the Bird of Paradise

As most of you know here on Hive, some days you just have a bit of writer's block. That was the case for me today. I had some posts I had started some time back and never finished because I honestly decided I just didn't like how they were coming out.

While struggling to find an interesting subject I looked back at my last posts over the last couple of weeks. I realized I hadn't done an animal related post in some time and they are my favorites. I haven't picked up any new animal coins in quite some time, so I looked back at my collection. Then I saw I coin that I had forgotten about and didn't even realize I still had. I had finally found inspiration!

Papua New Guinea is an island nation in the South Pacific that most people have never heard of or visited. It's one of those places I've always wanted to visit but somehow I just haven't had the chance. It's bordered on it's west by Indonesia and is also composed of several other smaller islands.

I picked up this coin years ago in a coin shop just because I liked the design and was inexpensive. It features their national symbol, the bird of paradise.

About the coin

From numista.com

As you can see it was produced in 1975 some 49 years ago but it looked pretty good for it's age. It's composed of sterling silver which is 92.5% percent pure silver and was produced by the Franklin Mint in Wawa, Pennsylvania. They produced sterling coins for many small nations throughout the seventies and eighties but are out of the precious metals business now I'm afraid. They always produced beautiful items!

This is a 10 Kina coin which is the currency they use and you will note in the information section that the Queen was Elizabeth II. That's because they have a parliamentary monarchy as their form of government with King Charles as the current monarch.

Bird of Paradise

This is the reason I chose this coin today, because it has a cool bird! The bird of paradise has some 45 species that inhabit Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. However the official bird in Papua New Guinea is the Ragianna bird of paradise. Just have a look at a couple of the photos I found of it:

alchetron.com

pinterest.com

Aren't those amazingly colored birds! It would be cool to have some of those flying around here in California! They are a tropical bird that live off of fruits and arthropods. They are pretty good sized at 13 inches long (33 cm). Their habitat is mainly the southern and northeastern part of New Guinea, so not widespread across the whole island. An interesting fact is they practice polygamy, with one dominant male in a territory. The female birds incubate and raise the young chicks by themselves. What lazy fathers!

The species is very abundant and not facing extinction from humans. It's kind of nice to able to say that every now and again! But they are beautiful birds aren't they?

That will do it for me today! I'm just glad I finally found some inspiration. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed reading my post and I appreciate all of your support. If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments please feel free to leave them below.

And since I am posting in the #freecompliments community I just wanted to remind everyone to take some time today to be kind. A little kindness can make a huge difference in someone's life. Please check out the community and consider joining us!

Disclaimer:

I'm not a financial advisor and this isn't financial advice, please always do your own research before spending your hard earned money.

All photos are mine unless otherwise stated.

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird-of-paradise
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raggiana_bird-of-paradise
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces42217.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_New_Guinea

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