Iraqi Dinar

Scam or No Scam?

I will get the terminology Blog finished and out next but I thought that this one needed to be next.

One of the first things that people often say about the dinar is that it is a scam. Other non-informed people will say things like this: It has not increased in value in 10 years or that Iraqi will declare it worthless.

There are many more but these are all wrong, the dinar is a real currency with real value. It has increased in value over the last 10 years from 1411 dinar in-exchange for $1 US dollar to where it is now: 1166 dinars to $1 US dollar.

In thousands of articles read by me and many others, there has never been any announcement or indication of Iraq making their currency worthless. The Central Bank of Iraqi has never had one press releases along these lines, nor the Republic of Iraqi’s Government or any other official publications included but not limited to the Iraqi Parliament and or its members.

The scam though, like any other real commodity has its share of people ready to capitalize on the uneducated. What you should be looking out for are the ones selling the old Saddam dinars, here are a few pictures for reference: 

 

Now here are the real Iraqi dinars 

that were put into circulation in 2003 and 2004. Coins that are uncirculated and are what we dinar investors or as I call it, holding stock in real value of the country of Iraq..

   

  

 

        

Link to view larger images: http://cbi.iq/index.php?pid=Banknotes

Always do your due diligence before buying dinars by making sure the dealers are certified by the US Treasury and they have a great reputation in the market place.

Ask our members themselves for references and make sure they have been selling since 2004.

See the scam has always been with the person selling the dinar and not the dinar itself but here have been many that have tried to say they bought there dinars 10 years ago at a rate of 3000 or even 4000 dinars to one US dollar.

Well as you can see by the following chart it is just not possible. Now the market rate has been used as their excuse and they try to say that it was in Iraq at that time lower than their official rate but as you can see by the chart as well the parallel market or gab rate was never that much different than the CBI rate.

	Rate of Exchange			Average Daily Auction Sales US$ Million
	Dinars for one US$		Gap Rate: Percentage Difference of Market to Official %
	Official (Auction(	Market
2004-2007	1,411	1,417	0.4	45
2008-2010	1,178	1,190	1.1	132
2011
First Half	1,170	1,189	1.6	151
Second Half	1,170	1,202	2.8	179
2012
January	1,168	1,205	3.2	218
February	1,166	1,236	6.0	106
March	1,166	1,240	6.3	230
April	1,166	1,263	8.3	148
May	1,166	1,249	7.1	179
June	1,166	1,240	6.4	186
July	1,166	1,254	7.5	227
August	1,166	1,248	7.0	275
September	1,166	1,228	5.3	271
October	1,166	1,200	2.9	258

Sources: calculated from data in the following:

Central Bank of Iraq, Annual Bulletins, 2007, 2009, 2011.

______________ (212) Central Bank of Iraq Foreign Exchange Auction,

http://www.cbi.iq/documents/CBI_FOREIGN_EXCHANGE_AUCTIONS.pdf,

Link: http://iraqieconomists.net/en/2013/02/24/foreign-exchange-auction-international-reserves-and-central-bank-independence-in-iraq-by-ali-merza/

One very important thing and rule of thumb to make sure people are not pumping you full of misinformation, always make sure they have links to back up what they are saying and even then make sure that source is a good one.

I also do not make judgments on one article alone if I can because the Iraqi politicians use the media to fight their battles, sound familiar?

Here is an example of one such article and I spent some time in breaking it down so to try and better understand it.

Link: Stryker Break Down Follows: Anatolia: Iraq looks to foreign investments by $ 32 billion

That should be enough to take in for now, look for other educational Iraqi Dinar Blogs next week and if I have time this weekend.

Have a great day and happy investing,

Stryker